RT Article
T1 The neoliberal governance of heroin and opioid users in Philadelphia city
JF Crime, media, culture
VO 18
IS 1
SP 126
OP 144
A1 Kavanaugh, Philip R.
A2 Schally, Jennifer L. 1975-
LA English
YR 2022
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1836947364
AB Drawing on 147 news accounts and five policy documents on the heroin and opioid crisis in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania published between 2016 and 2018, our analysis highlights how media portrayals of opioid users as both tragic victims and public nuisance prompted a schizoid governmental response that draws on rhetorics of treatment and harm reduction to legitimate more punitive interventions. By describing how the state?s quasi-medical responsibilization strategy devolved to fold criminalization into its broader response, we argue the effort to wage a kinder/gentler war on overdose invests in familiar tropes of a recalcitrant drug user class that is a threat to public health. In doing so we provide a basis to critique how drug users are governed in this time of fiscal austerity, resource hoarding, and perpetual, continually evolving drug crises.
K1 Governance
K1 Harm Reduction
K1 Heroin
K1 Neoliberalism
K1 opioid crisis
K1 War on drugs
DO 10.1177/1741659021991199