The New Moral Economies of Vulnerability in Criminal Justice and Immigration Bureaucracies

Over the past three decades, criminal justice and immigration policy have increasingly foregrounded vulnerability and safeguarding, even as austerity has hollowed out welfare provision. While criminology has extensively theorised the “punitive turn,” the parallel “humanitarian turn” in governing social marginalisation remains underexplored. Drawing on empirical research across asylum decision-making, policing, and prisons in Britain, this paper examines how this shift reshapes frontline practice. Using a moral economy framework, it analyses how vulnerability reconfigures the moral value attributed to marginalised groups — including migrants, victims of exploitation, and criminal suspects — and transforms the forms of moral expertise demanded of practitioners. I argue that an emergent moral economy of vulnerability reorganises state power through relationality, embodiment, and care. Attending to these dynamics is essential for understanding contemporary governance.

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