Auditable Community: The Moral Order of Megan's Law

Criminological research identifies the turn to community as part of a broader move away from the welfarist social. Yet, while we now have significant research on how community is made governmental within crime prevention strategies, we know less about how the zone of community is itself rendered governable—how neoliberal programmes delimit and control the moral order of the community they are said to promote. This paper focuses on the community notification of sex offenders in the United States, often known as Megan's Law. Drawing on research that identifies the increasing role of audit technologies for achieving control within organizations, this paper explores how Megan's Law similarly relies on a logic of audit to identify, manage and control the symbolic zone of community.