The Political Economy of Preventive Justice

Abstract

What is to be done about the emergent problem of widespread riots against established authority? Critical criminology shows that crimes are socially constructed by powerful elites, to reflect their own political ideologies of a good society. Modern punishments are nuanced to protect private property. Take the United States, home of the world’s first written constitution. It was a consensus among White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant framers, established to secure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They believed that happiness is synonymous with property. Yet, happiness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.