USM Criminology professor Brendan McQuade recently earned a pair of prestigious honors for his examination of incarceration and the growth of surveillance in his book, “Pacifying the Homeland: Intelligence Fusion and Mass Supervision.”
The American Society on Criminology’s Division on Critical Criminology and Social Justice honored the book with its Book of the Year Award. The book also earned a Paul Sweezy Marxist Sociology Book Award from the Marxist Sociology Blog.
McQuade, an assistant professor, hopes the attention will introduce more people to the 305-page book.
“If the awards bring readers to the book, that’s the best I could hope for,” McQuade said.
The book followed exhaustive research. He spent much of his time examining surveillance in New York and New Jersey and completed more than 80 interviews.
McQuade argues that the development of surveillance by law enforcement has grown to serve as a kind of subtle incarceration while excusing the advancements as part of the “war on terror.”
“The war on terror is an absolute farce,” McQuade said. He also believes that the surveillance of poor people is keeping them poor.
“We are administering poverty,” he said.
The book was published by University of California Press.