'A disproportionate and degrading approach that acts without discrimination'? The expressive dimension of exclusionary crime prevention techniques

This chapter develops a novel version of the expressive objection. It applies this expressive objection to the Mosquito, a technology that aims to lower the risk of crime by emitting a high-pitched noise that deters young people from entering certain public spaces. The chapter begins by investigating various possibilities for developing a non-instrumental objection to techniques such as the Mosquito. Drawing parallels with objections to stop-and-search or racial profiling, the chapter argues that there is more to be said about the problematic symbolism of such preventive techniques than existing literature has acknowledged. The chapter introduces, explains and illustrates the idea of non-instrumental expressive reasons (Bennett, 2022). On the basis of this idea, it is then claimed that techniques of preventive exclusion sometimes have a problematic expressive dimension that is independent of any instrumental value; and that sometimes such techniques are problematic because they displace other expressively required actions or policies.