"Breaking the close thus constitutes entry into a "protected interior" or "specified enclosure," Nieman writes, whether or not the close is a physical thing. The close can be a complex and entirely hypothetical mathematical shape- but if you narrate it correctly and if you justify your explanations, perhaps even using clever diagrams covered with arrows and dotted lines, then even purely speculative architectural forms can be admitted in court. The close is a kind of architectural fiction, an abstract shape whose legal recognition can determine whether the accused is guilty of burglary."
Geoff Manaugh, A Burglar's Guide to the City, on "the close," a legal politico-spatial contrivance which allows for the demarcation of space beyond physical boundaries. These implied boundaries expand and contract along the creativity lines of the person drawing the shape, determining inside and outside based on convenience. Where the text cites the broken car window as an example of the close, the place where the window should be determines legality inside in the case of theft (where the text itself points out that the window was no better at keeping out the rain than it was a thief, existing only in the minds of lawyers).
Again, this is useful as a means of highlighting ways in which the discretion of the state apparatus is loaded with mechanisms for identifying and dealing with undesirable parties. "The close" can be almost anything when the individual you want to remove is already marginalized.
