Panopticons on the piers: the local state's use of spatial strategies to regulate dockers and eliminate crime on the New York/New Jersey waterfront

Andrew Herod

Chapter 10 in Handbook of Labour Geography, 2025, pp 190-205 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The New York/New Jersey waterfront has long been associated with crime. Historically, much of this crime was seen to result from an oversupply of labour, which led dockers to be unable to secure work without having to bribe hiring bosses. In the 1950s, concerns that crime would encourage shippers to use other ports led the governments of the States of New York and New Jersey to establish the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor. The Commission was tasked with ridding the port of criminal elements. This would be done by decasualising work through abolishing the infamous shape-up and replacing it with a more formalised means of securing employment via state-run hiring centres. Through restructuring the geography of hiring, the Commission attempted to make the waterfront more legible to state regulators, thereby creating a more moral landscape.

Keywords: Shape-up; Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor; Landscape legibility; Scales of regulation; Panopticon (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781785363399
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