Governmentality, Advanced Liberalism and the New Zealand Prison System

Abstract

Advanced liberal rule emerged out of the crisis engulfing social government. Made of an assemblage of neoliberal, neoconservative and communitarian govermentalities, advanced liberal rule is characterised by strategies in which public authorities employ various techniques to govern society ‘at a distance’, without recourse to direct forms of intervention or repression. Here, techniques of government are employed in which a distance is created between decisions of formal political institutions and other social actors. These actors are now conceived of as subjects of responsibility, autonomy and choice – as entrepreneurs of the self. In this way authority seeks to act upon them ‘through shaping and utilizing their freedom’. Miller and Rose have termed this technique of rule ‘government at a distance’. At the same historical point in which advanced liberalism was emerging, New Zealand began the longest, and most sustained period of imprisonment in its history. Since 1980 its rate of imprisonment has increased by 115 per cent. Consequently this time period has been typified by overcrowding, a changing prisoner population, budget blow-outs and comprehensive prison building projects. It is within this context that I argue advanced liberal modes of rule, operating through ‘government at a distance’ have become utilised throughout the prison system. Using a governmentality optic I focus upon two sites of government, analysing the ways in which the conduct of various actors is shaped, and directed toward governmental aims. The first case study investigates the Department of Corrections organisational adoption of the principles of risk/needs/responsivity and the risk technologies through which they are operationalised. Second, I analyse the relationship between the Department of Corrections and Serco New Zealand Ltd in the private management of Mt Eden Corrections Facility. Here, the New Zealand government utilises and shapes the agency of Serco to improve service, and to provide innovation.