Status Updates From Policing the Crisis: Muggin...

"'Consensual' views of society represent society as if there are no major cultural or economic breaks, no major conflicts of interests between classes and groups"

"We exist as members of one society because - it is assumed - we share a common stock of cultural knowledge with our fellow men: we have access to the same 'map of meanings'. Not only are we all able to manipulate these 'maps of meaning' to understand events, but we have fundamental interests, values and concerns in common which these maps embody or reflect."

"Is it a lack of courage to think big? Could not the country that thought out the Marshall plan do the same for its own good? Is it because the prejudices against race and welfare programmes are no obstacles to a grand rescue operation abroad but they assert themselves stubbornly against such a vision at home?"

"In general it must also be remembered that everything depends on how the crime statistics are interpreted (by the police), and then on how these interpretations are reported (in the media). However accurate or inaccurate the statistics quoted earlier, they were used to identify the existence of a mugging crime wave and to justify the public relation to it."