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British Journal of Criminology Advance Access originally published online on November 29, 2008
British Journal of Criminology 2009 49(2):131-149; doi:10.1093/bjc/azn080
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The British Journal of Criminology 49:131-149 (2009)
© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD). All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Making Counter-Law

On Having No Apparent Purpose in Chicago

Ron Levi*

* Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto, 14 Queen's Park Crescent West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3K9; ron.levi{at}utoronto.ca


  Abstract

Faced with the most violent summer in its history, the City of Chicago enacted a gang loitering ordinance, making it an offence to have ‘no apparent purpose’ on city streets. This paper analyses the testimonies of Chicago residents and aldermen to draw out the lay narratives of insecurity that underwrote the ordinance. These testimonies provide evidence for Ericson's (2007) model of counter-law: the ordinance was a response to broad insecurity among residents, a perceived failure of existing risk management systems, and a view that liberal legal principles were themselves aggravating residents’ insecurity. Yet, while counter-law is generally theorized as undermining conventional legality, this paper draws on legal consciousness research and finds that the polysemic appeal of legality endures the counter-law turn.


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