In Part 4, we explored how fear can shape governance — how moments of crisis justify new laws and powers that often outlast the panic that created them. But what happens after the emergency ends, when anxiety itself becomes routine?
This instalment examines what sociologists and criminologists describe as the governance of anxiety — the way institutions manage uncertainty through risk frameworks, surveillance, and procedural control. As Garland (2001) argued, modern governance is no longer just about punishing crime, but about managing insecurity. Fear is not only a political tool, but becomes a mode of administration.
From Crisis to Continuity
Once public fear subsides, systems rarely return to their former state. Instead, the logic of vigilance persists, institutionalised in what Foucault (1977) called governmentality — the art of governing populations through subtle, continuous observation and intervention.
This shift is most visible in policies that began as emergency measures but evolved into standing infrastructures of risk management. A key example is the Prevent Duty (2015), introduced as part of the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy.
Originally intended to identify individuals vulnerable to radicalisation, it has since become embedded across education, health, and local government. Teachers, social workers, and university staff are now legally obliged to monitor signs of ‘extremist thinking’. As Home Office (2015) guidance states, ‘Every institution has a responsibility to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism.’
The language of prevention — of constant readiness — transforms crisis into continuity. Institutions no longer respond to events but to potentialities. Risk becomes omnipresent, and vigilance a moral duty.
Similarly, the expansion of safeguarding frameworks — from child protection to ‘vulnerability to criminal exploitation’ — reflects this shift from reactive protection to anticipatory governance. While these systems serve essential purposes, they also embody a wider cultural transformation: the professionalisation of anxiety.
The Bureaucracy of Fear
In practice, this governance of anxiety takes bureaucratic form. Risk registers, safeguarding forms, and threat assessment templates turn uncertainty into measurable categories. This process, as O’Malley (2010) notes, does not eliminate risk — it formalises it.
For frontline professionals, this means that every interaction carries the potential weight of accountability. Teachers report concerns not only for safety, but to demonstrate procedural compliance. Police officers record intelligence not merely to prevent crime, but to satisfy performance metrics. Youth workers document behaviours through safeguarding software designed to evidence due diligence.
This culture of documentation can have unintended effects. It prioritises defensible decision-making — doing what is bureaucratically safe — over relational or contextual understanding. The fear of missing a risk becomes a structural anxiety: the professional is always potentially culpable.
The broader consequence is a depoliticisation of social problems. As Rose (1999) argued, risk governance individualises responsibility. Structural issues such as poverty, racism, and exclusion are reframed as personal vulnerabilities. For instance, a young person’s involvement in a gang may be recorded as a safeguarding “risk factor” rather than a response to systemic inequality.
Similarly, digital monitoring tools translate complex social phenomena — from online expression to peer conflict — into data-driven alerts for intervention.
Through this lens, the governance of anxiety becomes self-sustaining. Fear generates systems to manage it, and those systems, in turn, require the continued perception of threat.
The Emotional Labour of Control
For many practitioners, this risk culture brings a heavy emotional toll. The expectation of constant vigilance fosters professional anxiety — the fear of oversight, complaint, or reputational damage. In education, social care, and policing, practitioners speak of “covering themselves” or “playing safe,” even when procedures conflict with their professional judgement (Heath-Kelly, 2017).
This emotional labour sustains the bureaucracy of fear. The state no longer needs to police through visible repression; instead, individuals internalise the logic of control. Professionals monitor themselves, and each other, to avoid failure. As Garland (2001) and O’Malley (2010) both observe, the moral language of safety conceals a deep unease: governance becomes less about trust, and more about anticipation.
The human cost is significant. Defensive practice can erode trust between professionals and communities, particularly where groups already experience over-surveillance. In such contexts, anxiety is not just felt — it is governed.
Towards Reflective Practice
Recognising the governance of anxiety is not about rejecting risk management or safeguarding; rather, it means engaging with these frameworks critically and proportionately. Professionals across policing, education, and social care operate within genuine pressures — but also possess agency to shape how those pressures are interpreted.
Four reflective practices may help rebalance this terrain:
Recognise when risk talk replaces understanding — question whether an issue is being framed as dangerous when it may in fact be complex or political.
Exercise professional judgement — procedures support but should not replace expertise and empathy.
Collaborate with communities — build trust through shared responsibility, not imposed surveillance.
Challenge disproportionate responses — advocate for interventions rooted in evidence and equity.
In Part 6: Communities Under Pressure, we will examine how these institutional anxieties are experienced at ground level — by the individuals and communities who live within the structures of risk and control. Understanding their perspectives is vital if we are to move beyond managing fear, towards building safety through trust.
Suggested Reading
Cohen, S. (1972). Folk Devils and Moral Panics. London: MacGibbon and Kee.
Hall, S. et al. (1978). Policing the Crisis. London: Macmillan.
Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. London: Penguin.
Garland, D. (2001) The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Heath-Kelly, C. (2017) The Geography of Pre-Criminal Space: Counter-Terrorism, Citizenship and Risk. London: Routledge.
Home Office (2015) Revised Prevent Duty Guidance for England and Wales. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prevent-duty-guidance
O’Malley, P. (2010) Crime and Risk. London: Sage.
Rose, N. (1999) Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
About the Author / Series Purpose
Written by Daniel Davis, researcher and commentator on social justice and policing.
Unpacking the Crisis: Crime, Power, and the Politics of Fear is a multi-part series examining how perceptions of crime, disorder, moral decline and media narratives shape public policy, policing practices, community relations and public trust.
Drawing on the work of Stuart Hall, Stanley Cohen, and contemporary sociological research, the series explores how institutions — from government to media to local authorities — manage public anxiety and frame “crises” around crime and disorder.
Each chapter is accompanied by a short Practitioner Brief offering applied insight, discussion prompts, and reflective tools which invite professionals across policing, education, and local governance to critically assess contemporary crises, and respond effectively in their practice.