my own take on this process of social and political construction begins with the way a focus on street crime allows both the public and the politicians to evade more intractable and more unwelcome problems. we are in the grip of unsettling social upheavals: racial conflict, the so-called culture wars, as well as reduced material expectations. to confront this broad malaise is to acknowledge fundamental defects in the society and, by implication, to take on collective responsibility for costly and uncertain corrective action. it only stands to reason that bewildered politicians and a resentful public would welcome an escape from these intractable burdens. enter street crime, a blessing disguised as a curse. street crime offers a way to channel public anger and anxiety away from amorphous social and economic threats and toward criminals, who, in their own, much more concrete ways, threaten our well-being. accordingly, the public's obsession with street crime may actually be fueled by a much broader and more amorphous social malaise. in her brilliant book on the goetz case, lillian rubin comes to the same conclusion: the enormous rage this case has let loose requires an explanation beyond our fears of our own victimization and our anxiety about our helplessness. it is related also to a set of contradictions that inhere in our society and in our lives - in a society that once seemed so open and that has suddenly, inexplicably closed down.
Canada