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Law and Order Leviathan: America’s Extraordinary Regime of Policing and Punishment
How American-style capitalism creates a coercive state unlike any other
How could America, that storied land of liberty, be home to mass incarceration, police killings, and racialized criminal justice? In Law and Order Leviathan, David Garland explains how America’s racialized political economy gives rise to this extraordinary outcome.
The United States has long been an international outlier, with a powerful business class, a weak social state, and an exceptional gun culture. Garland shows how, after the 1960s, American-style capitalism disrupted poor communities and depleted social controls, giving rise to violence and social problems at levels altogether unknown in other affluent nations. Aggressive policing and punishment became the default response.
Marshalling a wealth of evidence, Garland shows that America lags behind comparable nations in protections for working people. He identifies the structural sources of America’s penal state and the community-level processes through which political economy impacts crime and policing. He argues that there is nothing paradoxical in America’s reliance on coercive state controls; the nation’s vaunted liberalism is largely an economic liberalism devoted to free markets and corporate power rather than to individual dignity and flourishing. Fear of violent crime and distrust of others ensure public support for this coercive Leviathan; racism enables indifference to its harms.
America’s carceral regime will remain an outlier until America’s economy is structurally transformed. And yet, Garland argues, there is a path to reduced violence and significant penal reform even in the absence of structural change. Law and Order Leviathan sets out a powerful theory of the relation between political economy and crime control and a realistic framework for pursuing progressive change.
How could America, that storied land of liberty, be home to mass incarceration, police killings, and racialized criminal justice? In Law and Order Leviathan, David Garland explains how America’s racialized political economy gives rise to this extraordinary outcome.
The United States has long been an international outlier, with a powerful business class, a weak social state, and an exceptional gun culture. Garland shows how, after the 1960s, American-style capitalism disrupted poor communities and depleted social controls, giving rise to violence and social problems at levels altogether unknown in other affluent nations. Aggressive policing and punishment became the default response.
Marshalling a wealth of evidence, Garland shows that America lags behind comparable nations in protections for working people. He identifies the structural sources of America’s penal state and the community-level processes through which political economy impacts crime and policing. He argues that there is nothing paradoxical in America’s reliance on coercive state controls; the nation’s vaunted liberalism is largely an economic liberalism devoted to free markets and corporate power rather than to individual dignity and flourishing. Fear of violent crime and distrust of others ensure public support for this coercive Leviathan; racism enables indifference to its harms.
America’s carceral regime will remain an outlier until America’s economy is structurally transformed. And yet, Garland argues, there is a path to reduced violence and significant penal reform even in the absence of structural change. Law and Order Leviathan sets out a powerful theory of the relation between political economy and crime control and a realistic framework for pursuing progressive change.
232 pages, Hardcover
Published August 19, 2025
About the author
David Garland
20 books3 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Pseudonym of Keith Miles
Keith Miles (born 1940) is an English author, who writes under his own name and also historical fiction and mystery novels under the pseudonym Edward Marston. He is known for his mysteries set in the world of Elizabethan theater. He has also written a series of novels based on events in the Domesday Book.
The protagonist of the theater series is Nicholas Bracewell, the bookholder of a leading Elizabethan theater company (in an alternate non-Shakespearean universe).
The latter series' two protagonists are the Norman soldier Ralph Delchard and the former novitiate turned lawyer Gervase Bret, who is half Norman and half Saxon.
His latest series of novels are based in early Victorian period and revolve around the fictional railway detective Inspector Robert Colbeck.
Pseudonym of Keith Miles
Keith Miles (born 1940) is an English author, who writes under his own name and also historical fiction and mystery novels under the pseudonym Edward Marston. He is known for his mysteries set in the world of Elizabethan theater. He has also written a series of novels based on events in the Domesday Book.
The protagonist of the theater series is Nicholas Bracewell, the bookholder of a leading Elizabethan theater company (in an alternate non-Shakespearean universe).
The latter series' two protagonists are the Norman soldier Ralph Delchard and the former novitiate turned lawyer Gervase Bret, who is half Norman and half Saxon.
His latest series of novels are based in early Victorian period and revolve around the fictional railway detective Inspector Robert Colbeck.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
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November 4, 2025one of two books i've read this week for grad classes. i've been conflicted for a while now about whether i should put my research/grad school/sociology books on goodreads :')
February 21, 2026
Law and Order Leviathan is a rigorous and illuminating analysis of the United States’ distinctive approach to policing, punishment, and social control. David Garland examines how American style capitalism, racialized politics, and cultural factors converge to create a coercive penal state that stands apart from other affluent nations.
Garland traces the historical and structural roots of mass incarceration, aggressive policing, and racialized criminal justice, situating these phenomena within broader economic and social frameworks. He shows that the combination of a powerful business class, weak social welfare structures, and an entrenched gun culture produces conditions in which coercive law enforcement becomes the default response to social problems.
The book is notable for its evidence based approach, weaving quantitative data with case studies and political economic analysis. Garland provides readers with a clear conceptual framework for understanding why America’s penal system is exceptional, while also outlining potential avenues for reform even in the absence of fundamental structural change.
Accessible yet scholarly, Law and Order Leviathan is ideal for criminologists, sociologists, policy analysts, and informed general readers who seek a deeper understanding of the forces shaping American criminal justice. Its combination of historical insight, structural analysis, and prescriptive discussion makes it both explanatory and solution oriented.
Garland traces the historical and structural roots of mass incarceration, aggressive policing, and racialized criminal justice, situating these phenomena within broader economic and social frameworks. He shows that the combination of a powerful business class, weak social welfare structures, and an entrenched gun culture produces conditions in which coercive law enforcement becomes the default response to social problems.
The book is notable for its evidence based approach, weaving quantitative data with case studies and political economic analysis. Garland provides readers with a clear conceptual framework for understanding why America’s penal system is exceptional, while also outlining potential avenues for reform even in the absence of fundamental structural change.
Accessible yet scholarly, Law and Order Leviathan is ideal for criminologists, sociologists, policy analysts, and informed general readers who seek a deeper understanding of the forces shaping American criminal justice. Its combination of historical insight, structural analysis, and prescriptive discussion makes it both explanatory and solution oriented.
December 31, 2025
Funny enough, I am also, sort of, reading this for graduate school, but I like to keep this as a record of what I’ve read overall.
Besides that, this book was a stellar and concise package which I was thoroughly enthralled by. Garland has one section in chapter five or six which has an incredible micro-sociology of the effects of the political economy on crime via institutions and the family unit which I’ve always wanted to have someone lay out just as Garland has in this book.
Besides that, this book was a stellar and concise package which I was thoroughly enthralled by. Garland has one section in chapter five or six which has an incredible micro-sociology of the effects of the political economy on crime via institutions and the family unit which I’ve always wanted to have someone lay out just as Garland has in this book.
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November 5, 2025Saw a review of someone that said they don’t know whether to put grad school books on goodreads and I feel similarly conflicted! I’ve decided on only putting ones I read cover to cover and not rating them.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews