Southern criminology, zonal banning and the language of urban crime prevention

This chapter examines ‘property’ as a pivotal technology of governance, by analyzing the reemergence of zonal banning as part of an assemblage of exclusionary urban and rural crime control techniques in the English-speaking North and South. Rather than focusing on the concept of zonal banning per se, we suggest Southern criminology is better positioned to interrogate how legal terms produce certain governance assemblages that enable zonal banning to garner social and political legitimacy. We critically examine the term ‘property’ as a necessary precursor to understanding the legal power to ban individuals from designated urban zones, using select examples from the USA, the UK, Australia and Canada. We conclude by reinforcing the importance of Southern epistemology to the comparative examination of language, law and governance.