“We’re Giving People a Choice”: Civilian Crime Prevention, Consumer Citizenship, and the Transformation of 1970s and 1980s New York City

Abstract This article identifies the centrality of the consumer to efforts to elicit civilian participation against rising crime in 1970s and 1980s New York City. From “best buy” reviews of anticrime products to the self-evaluation of home security arrangements and police services, these efforts championed individual responsibility, enterprise, and a vision of consumer citizenship, with safety secured via the acquisition of consumer goods or the assertion of consumer rights and rationality. Within a context of municipal austerity, diminished state legitimacy, and market-led restructuring, this vision proved popular and enduring, reorienting New Yorkers’ responses to crime but also their understandings of self and community and their relationship with the state. Yet it also embedded inequalities and exclusions inherent to urban neoliberalism and contemporary cities. A focus on consumer citizenship reveals the popular dimensions of the neoliberal turn and its ongoing relevance to both urban governance and anticrime activity in today’s New York City.