The Post-9/11 Construction of Muslim Criminality By Street Police

This paper examines the construction of Muslim criminality by street police within the framework of the security paradigm. While the security paradigm has long existed, with its emphasis on proactive controlling crime, its mechanisms for controlling criminal risk were elevated after the 9/11, Madrid, Bali and 7/7 attacks (i.e. the “post-9/11 landscape”), due to the significant pressure on governments to prevent terrorist attacks. (Zedner 2009: 119-20). The security paradigm facilitates the identification and classification of “suspect populations” for proactive crime control by law enforcement to reduce risk of crime. (Zedner 2007). In the post-9/11 landscape, Muslims have been identified and classified as the suspect population posing a risk of terrorism, and have thus been subjected to proactive heightened law enforcement actions. (Pantazis and Pemberton 2009, 2011; Parmar 2007, 2011.). But is this constructed Muslim criminality really a helpful mechanism for reducing the terrorism risk? This paper posits that the constructed Muslim criminality is not helpful for reducing terrorism risk. Given that the Muslim population hails from nearly every nation, ethnicity, race, genders, socioeconomic level, education level, profession, and type of belief in Islam, how can a singular profile of a Muslim terrorist be created? Law enforcement has attempted to ascribe particular gender, physical, cultural, behavioral, linguistic, socioeconomic and religious belief characteristics to create a singular Muslim criminal identity, but ultimately it cannot be successful as a law enforcement tool. This paper will examine how this Muslim criminality has been created and applied to policing of terrorism in London and New York City.