Nigeria, March 10 -- We live in an age and times in which crime has increased stratospherically to become one of the major indices of the modern condition, and a fact of social life whose ubiquity is as pronounced as it is highly unsettling. The typical response to this level of disorder is to increase measures of control that include having more boots on the ground, as well as engaging in wider surveillance practices, complemented by broader activations of mechanisms of deterrence and subjection to correctional institutions. These all signal the expansion of our justice system, and thus greater financial consequences to the State.

However, another significant aspect of the modern condition - almost acting in a way that countervails the ...