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Trapped: Life under Security Capitalism and How to Escape It
Exploring the pernicious influence of security capitalism on neighborhoods, airports, cities, and states.
Calls to defund the police or to stop brutal police violence, argue Mark Maguire and Setha Low, will never succeed as long as there are those who enjoy and take comfort in security capitalism. Security capitalism can be recognized by the marks it leaves on society, remaking public space in its own image—privatized, fortified, unequal, striated, and access-controlled. With a global and comparative lens that takes readers from Nairobi to New York City, Maguire and Low offer intimate portraits of the people behind security capitalism—the police, policy makers, and private contractors who agree that a price must be paid in blood to maintain public safety—and critique phenomena like the transfer of public funds to arms dealers via the militarization of police, securitized housing developments, and ineffectual counterterrorism efforts.
But more than just an exposé of the nefarious corporations, corrupt agencies, and incompetent governments, this book uniquely shines the spotlight on the ordinary citizens whose desires for safety drive these phenomena. Angela Davis has written of the challenge of persuading people that "safety, safeguarded by violence, is not really safety." Maguire and Low aid us in thinking through the challenge, providing a common language to discuss security capitalism and offering ways to escape its clutches.
Calls to defund the police or to stop brutal police violence, argue Mark Maguire and Setha Low, will never succeed as long as there are those who enjoy and take comfort in security capitalism. Security capitalism can be recognized by the marks it leaves on society, remaking public space in its own image—privatized, fortified, unequal, striated, and access-controlled. With a global and comparative lens that takes readers from Nairobi to New York City, Maguire and Low offer intimate portraits of the people behind security capitalism—the police, policy makers, and private contractors who agree that a price must be paid in blood to maintain public safety—and critique phenomena like the transfer of public funds to arms dealers via the militarization of police, securitized housing developments, and ineffectual counterterrorism efforts.
But more than just an exposé of the nefarious corporations, corrupt agencies, and incompetent governments, this book uniquely shines the spotlight on the ordinary citizens whose desires for safety drive these phenomena. Angela Davis has written of the challenge of persuading people that "safety, safeguarded by violence, is not really safety." Maguire and Low aid us in thinking through the challenge, providing a common language to discuss security capitalism and offering ways to escape its clutches.
166 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 19, 2024
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March 24, 2026
I will have to preface this review with the fact that this book didn't really have to convince me of anything... by the introduction I already knew that it would resonate.
It's such a treat to read these kinds of books. The subject matter is deeply relatable - security capitalism is literally all encompassing, and it is so easy to feel and it see it once it has been pointed out. I wish this book was longer. Some chapters felt underdeveloped, or that they depended on the reader having a pretty strong baseline understanding/political bias (not saying that's a bad thing!) I personally want to explore more of the airport as a "laboratory" for testing out modern security applications. Like it seems so obvious now, and of course airports have always been heavily policed, but I've never thought of it is as so overtly experimental and evolving. That entire chapter I found the most captivating, and nothing made the conclusion click more than the idea of the airport staff (not TSA, but janitors, food service workers, etc) keeping the airport secure, rather than billion dollar technologies. We keep each other safe!!
It's such a treat to read these kinds of books. The subject matter is deeply relatable - security capitalism is literally all encompassing, and it is so easy to feel and it see it once it has been pointed out. I wish this book was longer. Some chapters felt underdeveloped, or that they depended on the reader having a pretty strong baseline understanding/political bias (not saying that's a bad thing!) I personally want to explore more of the airport as a "laboratory" for testing out modern security applications. Like it seems so obvious now, and of course airports have always been heavily policed, but I've never thought of it is as so overtly experimental and evolving. That entire chapter I found the most captivating, and nothing made the conclusion click more than the idea of the airport staff (not TSA, but janitors, food service workers, etc) keeping the airport secure, rather than billion dollar technologies. We keep each other safe!!
Displaying 1 of 1 review