The Politics of Crime in Turkey

Neoliberalism, Police and the Urban Poor

During the 2013 Gezi Park Uprisings, the role and behaviour of the Turkish Police made headlines across the world. This book focuses on urban crime and policing in Turkey since the steady economic decline of the 1990s. Concentrating on the attempts to 'modernize' the policing of Izmir, Zeynep Gönen highlights how the police force expanded their territorial control over the urban space, specifically targeting the poor and racialized segments of the city. Through in-depth interviews and ethnographic observations of these 'targeted' populations, as well as rare ethnographic data from the Turkish police, surveys of the media and politicians' rhetoric, Gönen shows how Kurdish migrants have been criminalized as dangerous 'enemies' of the order.