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Social Crime Prevention in Late Modern Europe. A Comparative Perspective.

June 2012

Publisher: VUB Press
Editor: Patrick Hebberecht and Evelyne Baillergeau
ISBN: 9789070289102

Authors:

Cândido da Agra

Evelyne Baillergeau

University of Amsterdam

Carla Sofia Cardoso

University of Porto

Josefina Castro

University of Porto

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Preventing crime possibly consists of a wide array of techniques and practices inspired by various underlying theories of crime and crime reduction. Situational crime prevention (aiming at opportunity reduction) is probably the most widespread model of crime prevention across late modern Europe but also a highly debated one. How about alternative models of crime prevention? During the 1990s social crime prevention (aiming at addressing the root causes of crime) was an important inspiring concept in crime prevention discourse, policy and professional practice in many Western European countries. Does this hold true for the first decade of the 21st century? Is social crime prevention still a central concept in European scientific discourse? Is there in the recent developments of prevention, safety and security policies in Europe still a place for social crime prevention? Which kind of social causes of crime are actually tackled in social crime prevention? How did professionals committed to social crime prevention react to the recent changes affecting the welfare state? Are we confronted with the same trends in different European countries or can we detect some similarities and differences between the countries? These are some of the questions explored in this volume through the contributions of leading experts from twelve countries of Northern, Southern, Western and Eastern Europe. Furthermore the editors draw some comparative lines regarding the evolution of social crime prevention discourses, policies and practices across the twelve countries.

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La Prévention de la Délinquance chez les Anglais: From

community-based strategies to early interventions with young

people

Adam Crawford and Peter Traynor

The prevailing view of crime prevention in the UK – in England and Wales in particular –

since the 1980s has been that crime prevention has been dominated by situational approaches

at the expense of more socially-oriented ones. Michael King (1989), in an important essay

written at the end of the 1980s, reflected and exemplified this view in characterising the

British approach as ‘social crime prevention à la Thatcher’. In it, he argued that crime

prevention in Britain, rather like the ‘crime problem’ and crime control more generally, had

become constructed in ways that promoted and sustained the political objectives of the

government of the time and reflected the governing party’s own ideological inclinations. As

such, the turn to preventive adaptations as a response to the challenges of crime control and

the ‘crisis of penal modernism’ (see Garland, 1996) that began to take form in the 1980s (see

Crawford, 1997a), were deemed to constitute a powerful vehicle for disseminating into

practice a Thatcherite ideological vision (King 1989). There were close echoes here with Pat

O’Malley’s (1992, 265) forceful portrayal of situational crime prevention as reflecting a neo-

liberal understanding of human behaviour in which ‘not only is the knowledge of the criminal

disarticulated from a critique of society, but in turn, both of these may be disarticulated from

the reaction to the offender’. For O’Malley, the triumph of situational, over social, crime

prevention, in Anglophone countries signified ‘the displacement of socialized risk

management with privatized prudentialism’ (1992, 263). Furthermore, for him this needed to

be understood as connected to, and an extension of, the neo-liberal political programmes with

which it was aligned in those jurisdictions - most notably the UK but also Australia

(O’Malley 2001). Moreover, King (1988; 1989) contrasted the situationally-oriented

approach prevalent in the UK with the more inclusive, welfarist and socially-oriented

approach to crime prevention policies adopted in France at the time (see also Pitts and Hope

1997). In many senses and somewhat erroneously (see Crawford, 2000a), the two contrasting

approaches in England and France came to be seen as divergent, mutually exclusive and

antithetical policy pathways (Crawford, 2009a). Hence, by the mid-1990s New Zealand

policy-makers, interestingly, chose to follow - at least at the level of rhetoric - the French

policy path set out in the Bonnemaison Report (1982) in their Crime Prevention Strategy

(New Zealand Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet 1994) rather than pursue the

more culturally proximate model of the English (see Crawford, 1997b; Bradley, Walters,

2002).

Whilst in many senses, this caricature has much salience and reflects important aspects of

prevailing logics within the two countries (Hope, 2009; Wyvekens, 2009), and preventive

approaches more generally (Hebberecht, Duprez, 2002), it does not tell the whole story.

Furthermore, some 20 to 30 years on, the comparative fortunes of crime prevention in

England and France share, perhaps, as many similarities as they do differences - despite

important prevailing socio-legal divergences (see Crawford, 2000b; 2002). Or at least, it is

harder to characterise one as wholly reflecting a situational and the other as wholly exhibiting

a social approach to crime prevention (Crawford, 2009a). Whilst France has seen a revival of

interest in situational approaches to crime prevention in public spaces (Wyvekens, 2009),

England and Wales have witnessed important developments under the auspices of social

crime prevention in the past two decades. Yet, in the literature the English approach to social

crime prevention remains a largely neglected subject. In this paper, we intend to address this

lacuna and outline the dominant trends in the evolution of social crime prevention in England

and Wales and the manner in which these have been shaped by wider institutional, political

and intellectual influences.1Given the prevailing interpretation elaborated above, we begin

with a conceptual discussion of what we take social crime prevention to mean and its place

within wider debates about the recent historic preventive turn in public policy. The paper

goes on to provide an overview of (national) policy developments in the field of community

safety and the elaboration of the anti-social behaviour agenda both of which have advanced a

particular variant of social crime prevention, rooted in a distinct normative understanding of

the social causes of crime and the role of the state, communities, families and individual

citizens in its prevention. We then turn to illustrate the prevailing trends, fault-lines and

enduring themes that converge around the practice of social crime prevention in England

1Scotland has quite a different history of crime prevention developments (Henry, 2009) and criminal justice

practices more broadly (McAra, 2005), which are not covered in this chapter.

through a number of case studies. Finally, we conclude with some speculative thoughts on the

potential future direction of developments in England and, to a lesser extent, Wales.2

Social Crime Prevention

Social crime prevention primarily centres on interventions that seek to affect and target social

processes and collective relations. In contrast to situational prevention, which involves the

‘management, design or manipulation of the immediate physical environment’ so as to reduce

the opportunities for specific crimes (Hough et al., 1980, 1), social prevention is concerned

with ‘measures aimed at tackling the root causes of crime and the dispositions of individuals

to offend’ (Graham, Bennett, 1995). For the purpose of this paper, we take social crime

prevention to include both social influences on individuals and the manner in which social

groups foster crimogenic factors and, conversely, generate preventive dimensions of social

control. Thus, social crime prevention incorporates interventions aimed at: (i) reducing

individual motivations to offend via their social influences and institutions of socialisation;

and (ii) altering social relations and/or the social environment, through a collective focus on

communities, neighbourhoods or social networks. Elsewhere in the literature (Tonry,

Farrington, 1995), the former is often referred to as ‘developmental’ (Tremblay, Craig, 1995)

or ‘risk-focused’ prevention (Farrington, 2002) and the latter frequently assumes the moniker

of ‘community crime prevention’ or ‘community safety’ (Hope, 1995; Crawford, 2007a).

Developmental approaches entail intervention early in personal pathways that may result in

criminal behaviours and other social problems to prevent the development of criminal

potential in individuals. It is based on the idea that offending is determined by behavioural

and attitudinal patterns learned and produced over the life-course of an individual. It proceeds

from the basis that risk factors exist at different ages and that life events yield effects on the

course of development. Consequently, developmental prevention concerns the manipulation

of multiple risk and protective factors at crucial transition points across a life-time. Hence, it

focuses largely on childhood development and the opportunities present at critical junctures

across the life-course to prevent the onset of offending in the early years. These

developmental stages offer prospects to target prevention resources at those most at risk of

2Despite some salient differences between the two jurisdictions – principally as the devolved Welsh Assembly

for the last decade has assumed certain community safety policy functions – reference to ‘England’ will be used

in this chapter as a short-hand for England and Wales, where broadly the same criminal legal and crime control

infrastructures and powers exist (see Edwards, Hughes, 2009).

offending, where long-term benefits might accrue. This is what van Dijk and de Waard

(2009, 137-8) term ‘secondary offender-oriented crime prevention’, namely early

intervention programmes targeted at children and young people (and their parents) identified

as ‘at risk’ of offending. Whilst it is not restricted to interventions with young people, much

of the policy focus has been targeted at childhood risk factors (Farrington, 2007).

Community crime prevention, by contrast, refers to interventions designed to change or alter

the social conditions, institutions and relations that influence offending among social groups

and residential communities. In so doing, it seeks to increase the crime preventive capacity,

and often the informal social control, of communities and social groupings; it concerns

communal inter-personal relations, values and norms rather than questions of individual

propensities and motivations.

Nevertheless, the conceptual boundaries between developmental and community crime

prevention are porous. Whilst developmental approaches have largely focused on individual

level risk factors, including those expressed in the interactions that individuals have with

others – be they in families, kinship relations, peer groups and school settings – community

level factors have also be drawn into these analyses. Some community-based interventions,

such as the ‘Communities That Care’ programmes (Crow et al., 2004), have adopted a risk-

focused approach that largely conceptualises communities as aggregates of individual risk

profiles. Furthermore, (as we shall see) other community approaches assume a developmental

logic that underpins both the factors that render certain communities high crime places and

those that foster the crime preventive capacities of certain communities. Such approaches are

influenced heavily by Wilson and Kelling’s (1982) ‘broken windows’ thesis, which posits a

causal (developmental) connection between, on the one hand, incivilities, disorder and anti-

social behaviour, given the fears, anxieties and perceptions of insecurity that these promote

and, on the other hand, subsequent crime. Hence, interventions to halt communities from

‘spiralling into crime’ necessitate a focus on low-level disorderly ‘pre-crimes’ (Zedner,

2007). Early intervention, pre-emption and governing possible futures are therefore all

unifying themes within both individual and community-level prevention strategies.

Furthermore, both developmental and community-based crime prevention strategies can

operate across all three levels of primary, secondary and tertiary prevention (Brantingham,

Faust, 1976). They can: be directed at general populations aimed at addressing potentially

crimogenic factors before the onset of the problem (primary prevention); involve work with

people who have been identified as ‘at risk’ because of some pre-dispositional factor

(secondary prevention); and be targeted at known offenders in order to reduce further crimes

or the harms associated with them (tertiary prevention). In Britain, we shall argue (and seek

to illustrate) that developmental and community-based approaches to crime prevention, to a

certain degree, have increasingly merged around a political agenda focused on ‘anti-social

behaviour’ (Burney, 2009; Crawford, 2009b), which has prioritised forms of ‘secondary’

prevention targeted at individuals, families and neighbourhoods. In this, pre-emption and

precaution have become increasingly prominent logics in prevention policy and practice

(Zedner, 2009; Crawford, 2010) licensing earlier intervention, both at an earlier age in the

lives of young people and earlier in the (presumed) developmental evolution of identified risk

factors.

Social Crime Prevention within Community Safety

If the Bonnemaison report set the tone for social crime prevention developments in France,

then its nearest equivalent in England was the Morgan Report. Published in 1991, the report

had been commissioned by the then Conservative government to review crime prevention

developments since the publication of interdepartmental circular 8/84, which first elaborated

the new philosophy at the heart of government, declaring that ‘preventing crime is a task for

the whole community’. The Morgan Report fostered a significant shift in the emerging

discourse. The two most important propositions were conceptual and institutional.

Conceptually, it argued that the term ‘community safety’ be preferred to ‘crime prevention’.

The latter was seen to be too narrowly construed in a situational guise and too closely

associated with the view that crime prevention is solely the responsibility of the police.

Community safety, by contrast, was promoted as an umbrella term under which situational

and social approaches could be combined rather than juxtaposed. In the view of the Morgan

Committee, ‘the social aspects of crime prevention, which seek to reduce those influences

which lead to offending behaviour, and the fear of crime, need to receive attention at least

equal to that given to the situational aspects of crime prevention’ (Morgan, 1991, 13). Allied

to this, community safety was perceived to be open to wider interpretation which could

encourage a genuine partnership approach through ‘greater participation from all sections of

the community in the fight against crime’ (ibid., 13). Institutionally, the Morgan Report

recommended that local authorities should be given ‘statutory responsibility’, working with

the police, for the development and promotion of community safety strategies and

partnerships. The reasoning given by the Committee for this pivotal recommendation

included: first, the fact that local authorities control important local services and resources

necessary for a multi-agency strategy; second, the belief that this would foster wider

acceptance of responsibility among potential partners (and discourage any assumption that

the police can and should be primarily responsible); third, the view that it enables

permanency, continuity and a clear focus for the involvement of the business and voluntary

sectors; and fourth, that it crucially provides for the legitimate involvement of local elected

representatives (ibid., 29).

Largely for ideological reasons, the Conservative government at the time refused to

implement the Report’s central recommendations. The government was not keen to give local

authorities new or greater powers (it had spent much of the 1980s reducing powers of local

authorities). Moreover, the broader social approach to prevention advocated by the Morgan

Committee sat awkwardly with the notion of individual responsibility that defined the

Thatcherite mantra; ‘there’s no such thing as society’!3As a consequence, social crime

prevention receded into the shadows of central government policy, albeit local organisations

in the voluntary sector, such as NACRO and the Safe Neighbourhoods Unit, and some large

metropolitan authorities continued to develop innovative projects often in relation to socially

deprived housing estates (Power, Tunstall, 1995). During much of the 1990s, the crime

prevention ideas emanating out of Whitehall were largely restricted to promoting active

citizenship through the special constabulary and neighbourhood watch, whilst sponsoring the

expansion of CCTV technologies across the UK. It is estimated that in the mid-1990s in

England some 78% of the Home Office’s crime prevention budget was being spent on CCTV

systems alone (Koch, 1998); in essence, resources were being devoted to the flagship of

situational prevention.

3Nevertheless, the full articulation of this principle is worth quoting at length in part because in hindsight it

resonates closely with some of the later pronouncements on ‘the something for something’ society theme that

New Labour came to articulate and which subsequently informed the anti-social behaviour agenda:

‘I think we’ve been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they

have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. “I have a problem, I'll get a grant.” “I'm

homeless, the government must house me.” They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know,

there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no

government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It’s our

duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements

too much in mind, without the obligations. There’s no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first

met an obligation.’ (Margaret Thatcher, talking to Women's Own magazine, 31 October 1987)

It was only with the election of the New Labour government in 1997 that the fortunes of

social crime prevention policy improved in England. In the run-up to the election, the Labour

opposition had sought to seize the initiative on law and order – a subject for which the

traditional ‘soft on crime’ perception had come to constitute a political ‘hostage to fortune’

(notably since 1979) for Labour politicians (Downes, Morgan, 1994). This political

repositioning was captured most clearly in Tony Blair’s infamous catch-phrase ‘tough on

crime, tough on the causes of crime’ (first articulated in 1993). In realigning itself and

attacking the Conservative government, the Labour leadership drew heavily on both the

Morgan Report and a scathing critique of youth justice that had been published in late 1996

by the Audit Commission (1996), entitled Misspent Youth. The report concluded that about

£1 billion a year was being spent on a youth justice system which was both inefficient and

ineffective. It concluded that youth justice was preoccupied with processing and

administering young offenders rather than working to address offending behaviour and that

little was being done to prevent young people from offending in the first place.

This set the tone for one of the central legislative planks of the initial New Labour

government, namely the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. At its core, the Act combined a focus

on community safety with significant reforms to the youth justice system – initially

elaborated in a provocatively titled No More Excuses consultation paper (Home Office,

1997). Informing both was a strong theme of crime prevention as well as personal

responsibility.4In relation to community safety the 1998 Act created the institutional

framework for implementing a partnership approach. It diverged from the Morgan Report

proposals in that it placed a joint duty on local councils and the police to work together with a

wide range of other agencies from the public, private, voluntary and community sectors to

develop and implement strategies to reduce crime and disorder. The Act provides a power to

partners to disclose information for the purposes of the Act (s. 115), to foster inter-agency

coordination and evade some of the constraints of data protection. With regard to youth

crime, the 1998 Act gave the youth justice system an overarching aim to ‘prevent offending’

by young people (s. 37) and a duty on all youth justice agencies to have regard to it. The Act

also paid considerable attention to reforming the youth justice infrastructure by introducing

4In relation to youth, the Act abolished the principle of doli incapax thus lowering the age of criminal

responsibility from 14 to 10. Doli incapax was the legal presumption that children under 14 and over 10 years of

age are incapable of knowing the difference between right and wrong which required the prosecution to

establish that the child knew that what he or she had done was ‘seriously wrong’ and not merely naughty or

mischievous.

the Youth Justice Board to oversee the changes at the national level and at the local level the

legislation established multi-disciplinary Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) to implement and

deliver the ‘new’ youth justice.5Hence, a further unifying theme in the new institutional

architecture was a partnership approach to prevention through multi-agency collaborative

working. At least at the level of rhetoric, ‘joined-up policy’ became a defining attribute. From

this perspective, it was presumed that prevention demanded a novel corporate approach that

transcends the competencies of specific professional groups and cuts across disciplinary

boundaries. In theory, if not in practice, this new approach: recognized that the levers and

causes of crime lie far from the traditional reach of the criminal justice system; acknowledged

that there is no single agency solution to crime and disorder; accepted the need for social

responses to crime which reflect the nature of the phenomenon itself and its multiple

aetiology; allowed for an holistic approach to crime, community safety and associated issues

which is ‘problem-focused’ rather than ‘bureaucracy-premised’; and afforded the potential

co-ordination and pooling of knowledge, capacity and resources.

A further theme elaborated in the 1998 Act was a focus on ‘disorder’ – reflected in the title of

the legislation – as a distinct concept of policy attention which was conceived (albeit ill-

defined) as a ‘precursor to crime’ (Crawford, 2009b, 816). Here the ideological category

‘disorder’ – or ‘anti-social behaviour’ as it subsequently became known in UK policy debates

- is identified as the first step in a developmental trajectory, for both individuals and

communities, which leads to more serious offending. Thus conceived, ‘disorder’/‘anti-social

behaviour’ flags the need for early intervention; to ‘nip in the bud’ future criminality and the

onset of individual ‘criminal careers’ or to avert a ‘tipping point’ in relation to spirals of

community decline. Disorder/anti-social behaviour becomes a precursor in a sequential nexus

of disorder, fear and crime. In support of this prevailing philosophy, references to Wilson and

Kelling’s (1982) ‘broken windows’ thesis litter British policy documentation on urban

governance. If left beyond a certain threshold, it is assumed that intervention becomes more

problematic and less successful. As such, responding to disorder and anti-social behaviour is

intrinsically concerned with governing possible futures and averting potential outcomes. It

fits squarely with the preoccupation with risk prediction, crime prevention and early

intervention. The most notable example of this was the introduction of the ‘anti-social

5Each YOT must include a probation officer, a social worker, a police officer, a representative of the local

health authority and a person nominated by the chief education officer. There are some 155 YOTs composed of

about 2,500 staff from the different agencies across England and Wales.

behaviour order’ (ASBO) - s. 1 of the 1998 Act - as a civil preventive order designed to

provide a response to low-level repetitive acts of incivility which have disproportionate and

cumulative adverse consequences for perceptions of security and community well-being.6

Yet, the empirical evidence providing support for such a developmental nexus between

disorder, fear and crime is at best weak. By contrast, there is significant countervailing

evidence (Taylor, 2000; Sampson, Raudenbush, 2004; Harcourt, Ludwig, 2006). In 2004,

James Q Wilson, himself, observed that: ‘I still to this day do not know if improving order

will or will not reduce crime... People have not understood that this was a speculation’ (cited

in Hurley, 2004, 3). Nevertheless, in British policy circles the ‘broken windows’ thesis has

become widely accepted official wisdom (Innes, Jones, 2006), routinely invoked as

unchallenged orthodoxy.7

The cross-departmental approach to policy and the influence of Wilson and Kelling’s seminal

thesis were both evident in the work of the Social Exclusion Unit, which had been set up in

1998 to consider cross-governmental challenges to ‘narrow the gap’ between the most

socially deprived estates and the rest of Britain. In its first two years of work the Social

Exclusion Unit spawned 18 cross-departmental policy action teams, one of which was

explicitly dedicated to address problems of ‘anti-social behaviour’. The eventual report

specifically argued that anti-social behaviour matters because ‘if left unchecked, can lead to

neighbourhood decline, with people moving away and tenants abandoning housing’ (Home

Office, 2000, 7). In an extract that draws heavily on the original ‘broken windows’ thesis and

articulates its developmental logic, the report asserted:

‘Combating anti-social behaviour is central to regenerating deprived areas and preventing serious crime.

Minor anti-social behaviour such as litter and graffiti can produce a breakdown in community control

through a spiraling process that leads to serious crime. When houses are left untended and become

dilapidated, children feel they can be noisy, litter will accumulate, young people will congregate within

an area, and public drinking will become routine. People avoid moving into the area and those who can

move out. This results in more serious crime, which in turn increases fear. A vicious circle of

neighbourhood decline has begun.’ (ibid., 32-3)

6An ASBO is a civil order backed by criminal sanctions. It sets out prohibitions to be imposed for a minimum

of 2 years. In the application process, for an ASBO, there is no jury and hearsay evidence is admissible. If

breached, the criminal offence carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Publicity of proceedings is

allowed and encouraged even in relation to juveniles, for whom there has been a traditional principle of

anonymity. Up to the end of 2009, approximately 40% of all ASBOs were issued to juveniles (10-17 year olds).

7This includes the most recent consultation paper produced by the Coalition Government in February 2011

(Home Office, 2011) which asserts that: ‘Unchecked, anti-social behaviour can be linked to increased disorder,

low-level crime and fear of crime in a neighbourhood – the so-called “broken windows” effect’ (ibid., 5).

The policy focus on ‘community’ as the appropriate level at which to target crime prevention

and as a key dynamic in fostering informal social control also reflected the wider influence of

a communitarian philosophy (Etzioni, 1993; Crawford, 1996) and debates about the

preventive forces of ‘social capital’ (Putnam, 2000). Reviving ‘social capital’ - the social

norms, networks and bonds of trustworthiness that enable people to act collectively - came to

be understood ‘as a means to the end of social inclusion and as a way of tackling social

exclusion’ (Kearns, 2003, 39) and significantly influenced New Labour policies on

community cohesion and safety (Crawford, 2006a). This was further elaborated in the

government’s White Paper Respect and Responsibility, which preceded the Anti-Social

Behaviour Act 2003 and called on communities to ‘take a stand’, arguing that ‘everyone must

play their part in setting and enforcing standards of behaviour’ (Home Office, 2003, 17). In

the foreword, the Home Secretary at the time, David Blunkett elaborated the government’s

vision:

‘Our aim is a “something for something” society where we treat one another with respect and where we

all share responsibility for taking a stand against what is unacceptable… We must be much tougher about

forcing people not to behave anti-socially. When people break the rules, there must be consequences for

them... Unless laws are enforced, the signal is clear – if those in a position to act do not do so, then others

will not join in. Those who have both the power and the responsibility to act must do so.’ (Home Office,

2003, 3-4)

Social Crime Prevention and the Anti-Social Behaviour Agenda

By both introducing the term ‘anti-social behaviour’ and the institutional infrastructure for

delivering community safety – crime and disorder reduction partnerships (CDRPs) – the 1998

Act and the work of the Social Exclusion Unit laid the terrain for the subsequent anti-social

behaviour agenda. The legislation defined ‘anti-social behaviour’ as ‘behaviour which causes

or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more people who are not in the

same household as the perpetrator’ (s. 1 ). Its meaning derives less from what it is than from

what its consequences are or might be. Distinctive to this definition are: first, that it focuses

on the importance of public space and sensibilities about local social order; secondly, it

highlights the cumulative effects of persistent behaviour; and thirdly, it accentuates the

differential interpretation and meaning of certain local social problems - such as groups of

loitering youths, graffiti and vandalism – and offers an explanation for why perceptions of

such problems have a disproportionate impact on people’s sense of (in)security (see Innes,

2004). As such, it foregrounds the dimension of ‘public perceptions’ into issues of wrong-

doing and the governance of local safety.

In part, the anti-social behaviour agenda was a response to what became known, in policy

circles, as the ‘reassurance paradox’ (Crawford, 2007b). As measured by the British Crime

Survey (BCS), aggregate crime rates had been declining from a high-point in the mid-1990s,

such that the (average) risk of crime by 2004 was lower than it had been at any time since

1981 when the first BCS was conducted. Yet public perceptions remained trapped in the

belief that crime and anti-social behaviour were inexorably on the rise.8For instance, the

percentage of people who identified youths hanging about in the street in their locality as ‘a

big problem’ was not only significant but growing. In the decade between 1992 and 2002 the

figure increased by nearly two-thirds from 20 to 33 per cent. Consequently, public anxieties

and community well-being have become prominent policy concerns in their own right.

By 2002, there was a growing view that the national legislation and powers that had been put

in place (notably by the 1998 Act) were not being used as they had been intended. Most

notably the ASBO was little used9and the power for local authorities to apply for curfew

orders for children under 10 in specified areas (s. 14) was not used at all, much to the

frustration of senior Labour politicians. Jack Straw, the first New Labour Home Secretary,

blamed an inherent ‘conservatism’ among local authorities and the police for the failure to

implement the new laws (House of Commons, 2001, 40). During the second Blair

administration there was a shift in government focus towards ensuring not only the

availability of new powers (which continued to proliferate) but also the delivery of policy

initiatives and the local implementation of all available tools. This was reflected in the

establishment of the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit at the heart of central government in

2001. A key philosophy behind the shift was that ‘numbers are important but not enough:

citizens have to see and feel the difference’ (Barber, 2007, 370). As the Prime Minister’s self-

styled ‘enforcer’, Sir Michael Barber (head of the Delivery Unit) played a vital role in

relentlessly pursuing policy delivery and implementing what he describes in his memoirs as

‘deliverology’; the ‘science’ of marshalling prime ministerial power to deliver significant

8Regular sweeps of the BCS show that approximately two-thirds of the population continue to believe crime to

be increasing across the country in the preceding two years. From 2001 the BCS introduced a series of new

questions to measure perceptions of anti-social behaviour; these have reinforced the high levels of public

anxiety about such issues.

9Only just over 1,000 ASBOs had been issued by the end of 2002, since their introduction in April 1999, a

small fraction of the 5,000 per year that the Government had initially anticipated (see Figure 1).

measurable improvements in the public services’ (ibid., 79). Hence, delivering irreversible

change that citizens might notice and appreciate became a major policy driver. Towards the

end of his period in office, Tony Blair reflected upon the importance of effecting policy

changes that impact on public perceptions, in declaring:

‘the other thing I have learnt in over 8 years of being Prime Minister is that you can argue about statistics

until the cows come home and there is usually a very great credibility gap between whatever statistics are

put out and whatever people actually think is happening, but the real point is not about statistics, it is

about how people feel… because the fear of crime is as important in some respects as crime itself.’10

These lessons were clearly felt in the experience of the Street Crime Initiative which

illustrated the work of the Delivery Unit. The initiative was a short-term ‘national

emergency’ response to a perceived rise in street robbery, personally launched by Tony Blair

in March 2002. It targeted considerable resources (an additional £67 million)at ten police

force areas which were challenged with meeting short-term crime reduction targets in

collaboration with partner agencies. The initiative was overseen by a high-level cross-

departmental group (the Street Crime Action Group) chaired by the Prime Minister which

engaged nearly half the Cabinet, as well as representatives of statutory and voluntary

agencies.11 As an exercise in policy delivery on a significant and symbolic scale, the message

that the initiative sought to reinforce was that crime is not just a responsibility of the police or

criminal justice system but of diverse agencies and individuals. A subsequent joint thematic

inspection found that significant reductions in street crime and street robbery were achieved

over a 6 month period and local partnership working in the targeted areas ‘was revitalised and

energised with a renewed emphasis on delivery’ (HMIC et al., 2003). The importance of the

initiative was more extensive than its specific subject matter or duration might imply. The

thematic inspection report concluded that not only was the initiative an example of ‘“joined-

up” government in action’ but also it ‘provided an ideal case study within which to identify

the friction points and barriers inherent within the criminal justice system and to make

significant improvements that will benefit the longer-term criminal justice reform’ (ibid., 7).

In his biography Blair Unbound, Seldon (2007, 74) suggests that Blair learnt two

fundamental lessons from the Street Crime Initiative: ‘not to trust the Home Office, and that

the whole criminal justice system was in need of fundamental change’. The initiative became

much more than simply a means of reducing street robbery. It provided ‘a way into more

10 Speech to a conference by Safer Croydon partnership 10th February 2006, emphasis added; available at:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page9040 (retrieved 4 April 2011).

11 From April 2002, the group began meeting every two weeks in the Cabinet Office Briefing Room, the venue

normally used for coordinating the response to terrorism or civil emergency.

radical reforms’ of criminal justice and left a legacy for the delivery of change through

challenging performance and providing appropriate incentives (Barber, 2007, 156). It

reinforced the growing governmental belief that criminal justice processes and principles

were an intrinsic part of the problem rather than the solution to crime and anti-social

behaviour. As Blair asserted:

‘it is the culture of political and legal decision-making that has to change, to take account of the way the

world has changed... It is a complete change of mindset, an avowed, articulated determination to make

protection of the law-abiding public the priority and to measure that not by the theory of the textbook but

by the reality of the street and community in which real people live real lives.’ (Blair, 2006)

To prevent crime and respond appropriately to contemporary problems of anti-social

behaviour, necessitated rebalancing and, if necessary, circumventing the criminal justice

system. ‘Rebalancing’ in this context means shifting the emphasis away from a rights-based

discourse to one that emphasises social responsibilities, conditionality and community well-

being (Home Office, 2006).

For influential ‘New Labour’ policy commentators like Frank Field,12 at the vanguard of

promoting institutional change, the type of anti-social behaviour that blights neighbourhoods

and social relations is distinctively novel. Hence, it demands new modes of response:

‘because it is new, effective means of dealing with it have generally still to be devised’ (2003,

44). For Field, the distinguishing mark of anti-social behaviour is that each incident, by itself,

does not warrant legal response, but it is in its regularity and repetitiveness that anti-social

behaviour ‘wields its destructive force’ (ibid., 45). The challenge presented by the collapse

in social virtues and common decencies, for him, is the foremost issue facing government.

Politics, he contends, needs to reconnect with questions about ‘the kinds of people we want

as citizens’. For Field, the ‘politics of behaviour’ has replaced the historic ‘politics of class’

that structured traditional political divisions and was instrumental in moulding respectability

and decency in Britain during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Anti-Social

Behaviour Act 2003 formally extended the legal responsibility of CDRPs to ‘anti-social

behaviour’ (in addition to ‘crime and disorder’) and introduced a swathe of new powers

designed to assist local practitioners in the fight against anti-social behaviour, including

‘parenting contracts’ (as more informal and quasi-voluntary modes of intervention than the

12 Frank Field, Labour MP for Birkenhead and the former Minister for Welfare Reform in the first Blair

government, whilst something of a maverick, remained an influential figure in New Labour’s social policy

debates.

little used ‘parenting order’), fixed penalty notices for disorder and the ‘dispersal order’,

which gave police powers (s. 30) to disperse groups in designated areas (Crawford, 2008).

Allied to this, the model of the Street Crime Initiative was replicated through the

establishment of the Anti-Social Behaviour Unit (and the subsequent Respect Taskforce in

2005) at the centre of government supplemented by local Anti-Social Behaviour units within

each CDRP across the country which could be held responsible for the delivery of the

agenda. Moreover, the central Unit/Taskforce was to use a variety of delivery techniques to

cajole local practitioners to use the new legislative tools and powers available, including

rewarding ‘good’ performance (by conferring additional resources such as that provided to

the 40 Respect areas identified in early 2007) and publicly shaming ‘poor’ performance. The

effectiveness of this strategy - particularly in the years in which Louise Casey was head of the

ASB Unit and Respect Taskforce (between 2003-2007) – was evidenced in the prime (albeit

very crude) indicator used by government of the time; namely the number of ASBOs issued

per year (see Figure 1).

Figure One: The number of ASBOs issued at all courts in England & Wales (up to end

2009, by year)

However, the very need for a Delivery Unit style body at the heart of government to enforce

the new regime of powers implies a certain degree of local practitioner resistance to their use.

From the outset of the anti-social behaviour agenda local practitioners – to varying degrees

and with local variations – recognised the limitations of the enforcement-led approach

promoted by the government. This generated a patchwork take-up and use of the powers,

reflecting significantly different local approaches, cultures and practices (Burney, 2009;

Cooper et al., 2009). In 2007, the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts (2007)

was highly critical of the Home Office’s approach to anti-social behaviour, condemning it for

the lack of evaluation and ‘published data on the effectiveness of different measures’, the

limited knowledge about ‘the extent to which socioeconomic, geographic, ethnic, and age

factors influence the outcomes achieved’ and the over-emphasis on enforcement. It concluded

that decisions about which interventions to use in particular circumstances ‘are based on local

preferences and the familiarity of those in authority with the different types of measures,

rather than an objective assessment of what works with different types of perpetrators’ (ibid.,

5).

In the later years of the New Labour administration – notably in the post-Blair era under the

leadership of Gordon Brown (2007-10) – there was a slight softening of the enforcement-led

approach and a greater emphasis on combining enforcement with support packages in the

name of prevention. Similarly, the fervour with which the ASBO was promoted as a panacea

and mark of ‘good performance’ waned, as reflected in the declining use of ASBOs; albeit as

Figure 1 shows this downward trend began before Brown took over as Prime Minister and

was probably more a reflection of practitioners’ frustrations and preferences for other forms

of intervention than simply a change in the message from the centre. In early 2006, the

emphasis on prevention through support – rather than enforcement alone – saw the promotion

of systematic support networks for the most anti-social families through the development of

Family Intervention Projects (FIP) which drew inspiration from the successful Dundee

Families project (Dilane et al., 2001). These projects targeted families at risk of eviction on

grounds of anti-social behaviour and provided them with intensive surveillance, intervention

and support programmes, sometimes located in dedicated housing units. In addition,

Individual Support Orders (ISOs) were introduce by the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (s. 322)

and promoted by government as the support-focused ancillory to ASBOs for juveniles.13

Tony Blair elaborated on the need to focus on families and parenting as simultaneously the

root causes social problems and the potential crucible for their prevention when, in August

2006, he declared:

‘I think we need to… intervene at a very early stage… If we are not prepared to predict and intervene far

more early, children are going to grow up in families that we know perfectly well are completely

dysfunctional... The kids a few years down the line are going to be a menace to society.’14

The Youth Taskforce Action Plan (Department of Children, Schools and Families, 2008)

continued this trend.15 The Plan outlined a ‘triple track’ approach based around ‘tough

enforcement’ to tackle problems, ‘non-negotiable support’ to address the underlying causes

of poor behaviour and ‘early intervention and prevention’ to tackle problems before they

escalate. The parenting theme had been a central one throughout New Labour’s years in

government as reflected in the introduction of the ‘parenting order’ under the 1998 Act. But

like some of the other powers introduced by that legislation it remained little used and was

seen by many practitioners as overly stigmatising and punitive (Burney, Gelsthorpe, 2008).

In sum, as an umbrella term, anti-social behaviour has come to demarcate a distinct policy

field that blurs traditional distinctions between crime and disorder. It refigures the use of civil

and criminal, as well as formal and informal, regulatory responses. Above all else, the anti-

social behaviour agenda reflects a preoccupation with the question of governing ‘youth’. It

constitutes a policy terrain that transcends crime, interconnecting its governance with a

matrix of wider social problems and prompting linked responses. Echoing Jonathan Simon’s

(2007) ‘governing through crime’ thesis, anti-social behaviour has come to constitute an

organising concept central to the exercise of contemporary authority. Just as ‘we can expect

people to deploy the category of crime to legitimate interventions that have other

motivations’ (Simon, 2007, 4), so too anti-social behaviour now serves similar purposes. As a

relatively ‘new’ conceptual category, it is able to incorporate and absorb the governmental

13 As ASBOs only set out negative prohibitions, the ISO was introduced to accompany an ASBO for 10-17 year

olds. It incorporates positive requirements as part of a wider package of interventions. In the early years few

ISOs were issued by the courts. In the two years 2005-6 only 11% of ASBOs given to juveniles were

accompanied by an ISO.

14 See BBC news ‘Blair to Tackle “Menace” Children’, retrieved 18 May 2001 from:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5301824.stm

15 In the reorganisation of central government initiated by Gordon Brown in 2007, once he took over as Prime

Minister, the Youth Taskforce took over much of the work that had previously been the responsibility of the

Respect Taskforce (and the ASB Unit before that). Moreover, the Youth Taskforce was located in the

Department for Children, Schools and Families not the Home Office where the central steering of the anti-social

behaviour agenda had previously been located. This departmental transition reinforced the emphasis on a

developmental crime prevention approach to anti-social behaviour focused around young people and families.

activities of much wider institutions and organisations, from housing to schools via health,

urban planning and commerce. It has a much more capacious quality that extends far beyond

the limited purview of ‘crime’, incorporating perceptions of insecurity, incivilities, manners

and quality-of-life concerns. As such, it affords a more all-encompassing lens through which

to redefine the ambitions of government and the responsibilities of citizens. The anti-social

behavior agenda, thus, became bound up not only with a particular variant of social crime

prevention – with its developmental and risk-focused approach as well as communitarian

concerns – but also with a toxic combination of state-centred dirigisme, a rejection of

assumptions about the impact of social complexity and structural forces, an individualization

of responsibility and a belief in the conditionality of behaviour as a prerequisite for accessing

public provisions and welfare. With its preventative orientations, the anti-social behaviour

agenda presented a fundamental challenge to principles of criminal justice and introduced

new, often authoritarian and discretionary, powers that circumvent established principles of

due process, proportionality and protections afforded to juveniles (Crawford, 2009b). In

Tonry’s estimation, ‘Labour’s criminal justice policies were the most repressive of any

western country’s since the Second World War’, with the consequence that the ‘Labour

government’s policies and rhetoric have weakened support within the British public and

within British culture for the rule of law and for fundamental beliefs about relations between

the citizen and the State’ (2010, 388-9). A damning indictment indeed!

Case Studies

Against this national policy background, we now turn to consider a number of case studies

that illustrate some of the diversity of social crime prevention developments that have

emerged over the past decade or so in parts of England, albeit these are not supposed to be

representative of all developments or trends across the country. We hope to use the case

studies to highlight some recurring themes, sites of conflict and tensions which are to be

found replicated more generally across the field of social crime prevention policy and

practice. These include:

The tensions that exist between national policy agendas and local practice delivery

and innovations.

The challenges present in realising coordinated local inter-organisational preventive

partnerships against a wider policy framework which both remains departmental and

disciplinary-based and is structured by intra-organisational performance measurement

and regulatory regimes – such that service delivery remains simultaneously ‘joined-up

but fragmented’ (Crawford, 2001).

The ambiguous relationship between (rationalistic) risk reduction and risk-focused

prevention, on the one hand, and assuaging (affective and subjective) public

perceptions of insecurity and promoting public confidence, on the other hand.

The tense relationship between informal and formal, as well as between civil and

criminal, responses to problematic behaviour and the associated dangers of ‘net-

widening’ (Cohen, 1985) that attend to strategies that seek to combine or blur

boundaries between them.

The limits of ‘community’ as an organizing concept and vehicle of governance, and

the differential capacity of communities to prevent crime.

The ambiguities in the extent to which social crime prevention blurs with social

policy, such that crime control may come to refigure (criminalise) social policy.

The ethical and social problems associated with targeting ‘at risk’ groups –

particularly young people – for special policy attention and resourcing, notably

labelling children, stigmatising localities and generally lowering the threshold of

intervention; i.e. ‘defining deviancy up’ (Krauthammer, 1993).

The dangers of fostering a precautionary approach to early intervention whereby risk

assessment confronts limitations of (‘scientific’) knowledge and is thereby influenced

by uncertainty.

The difficulties that attend to investments in future crime prevention and long-term

solutions as against timely and tangible actions (often enforcement based) that

produce short-term results. Allied to this are tensions between reactive, enforcement-

led approaches and proactive prevention through early interventions.

Youth Inclusion Projects

The Youth Inclusion Programme was established in 2000 by the Youth Justice Board as part

of its Youth Crime Strategy. The initiative formed part of a broader response to the Audit

Commission’s Misspent Youth report (Audit Commission, 1996), which had advocated

greater investment in targeted preventative services. Youth Inclusion Projects (YIPs) target

13-16 year olds in some of the most deprived areas, with a special focus on identifying the

‘top 50’ most ‘at risk’ young people, specifically those at risk of offending, engaging in anti-

social behaviour or exclusion from school. The idea was extended in 2003 when Junior YIPs

were established to complement existing provision and target 8-12 year olds, thereby

providing a consistent and continuous service that spans the whole ‘transition age’ (Ives and

Wyvill, 2007, 5). Junior YIPs are supported by Youth Inclusion Support Panels in many

areas, which have responsibility for referral and signposting to services and are comprised of

staff from various agencies. The programmes are a locally grounded means to engage with

marginalised young people and change patterns of behaviour before they become entrenched.

In doing so, the aim is to facilitate movement back into mainstream services and prevent or

reduce offending. Interventions occur not just at the individual level but also with

communities and families. This can involve helping service users with their homework,

assisting excluded young people to find alternative educational arrangements or simply

providing them with a safe environment (Selman, 2006).

There are some 110 YIPs/Junior YIPs operating across the country. Estimates made in 2008

suggest that at that time some 48,000 young people had engaged with the YIPs (excluding

Junior YIPs), at the relatively modest cost of £1,641 per child over a three year period

(Mackie et al., 2008, 12). The Youth Justice Board provides an annual grant to support their

work. Many also work in partnership with locally-based voluntary organisations and charities

such as NACRO. As a result, the services provided can vary considerably. This can be a

benefit, in that it allows projects to respond to the particular needs of the communities in

which they work, and this fluidity and flexibility of the projects is seen as an important

strength (Ives, Wyvill, 2007, 9). However, there are also negative implications. There are

some concerns that the most effective YIPs are those that operate in a clearly defined and

coherent geographic area – something that only a small proportion of the projects do in

practice (Mackie et al., 2008, 10). There were also questions raised about the commitment to

working with the top 50 at risk young people, based on an analysis of the data which suggests

that engagement rates with this group vary between areas (Selman, 2006), and similarly,

concerns that service users more broadly were receiving a lower level of ‘dosage’ in some

areas than was deemed necessary for securing long term change (Mackie et al., 2008, 20).

Nonetheless, national evaluations of the YIPs have been broadly positive, with some caveats.

Research into Phase 1 (2000-03) found that the programme could be ‘judged as a success on

several counts’ including reductions in arrests and exclusions for the ‘top 50’ but that there

was considerable variation in different areas in terms of engagement of this group (Morgan

Harris Burrows, 2003, 15). Likewise, in Phase 2 (2003-06) the programme had ‘easily’ met

its target of engaging the most at risk group, but had failed to maintain regular contact or

adequately engage them in education, training or employment (Mackie et al., 2008, 10).

The experiences of YIPs highlight a number of problems including: staff shortages, lack of

capacity for referral to other agencies and lack of appropriate agencies for referral (Clarke et

al., 2008). Whilst participation in these schemes is voluntary, the evaluation of the first phase

of the project noted a ‘significant proportion of cases’ had been ‘unwilling to participate’ on

this basis (Morgan Harris Burrows, 2003, 7). Initial findings from our own Nuffield

Foundation project (Crawford et al., forthcoming) suggest that some young people might be

entering YIPs as a requirement of signing an Acceptable Behaviour Contract which may be

experienced as less than voluntary. This raises questions about the role of coercion and

possible sanctions in the process, particularly if young people are reluctant to take part.

The projects utilise various risk assessment tools (such as Onset and Asset) for identifying

relevant young people. At risk individuals are thereby targeted by a complex matrix of

information, gathered from various sources. Aside from broader concerns about the efficacy

of using risk factor analysis in targeting services, there is some suggestion that the ability of

staff members to work effectively is compromised by, among other things, time spent on

record keeping and administrative duties, and that there was, initially at least, some resistance

to the use of the various risk assessment tools and the ‘stringent recording requirements’

(Morgan Harris Burrows, 2003, 4; Ives, Wyvill, 2007). One study also found ‘unsatisfactory’

relations between a quarter of all YIPs and the local Youth Offending Team as well as data

protection issues which hampered the sharing of appropriate information between these

services (Mackie et al., 2008).

Family Intervention Projects

Family Intervention Projects (FIPs) started life as six experimental Intensive Family Support

Projects (IFSPs) rolled out in Yorkshire and the North West of England in 2003. The projects

were designed to assist and support families who were either homeless or threatened with

eviction as a result of complaints of anti-social behaviour towards them, principally towards

children and young people in the families (Nixon et al., 2008). The projects were modelled

on the pioneering Dundee Families Project in Scotland (Dillane et al., 2001) and involved up

to two years of intensive outreach and residential support from a team of professionals from a

range of backgrounds. The IFSPs were considered sufficiently successful that in 2006 a

national network (now called Family Intervention Projects) was launched as part of the

Government’s Respect Action Plan. FIPs combine an ‘assertive’ and ‘persistent’ style

offering both challenge and support to, as well as surveillance of, families (White et al.,

2008). This is placed within a twin track approach that works to address the ‘underlying

causes’ of problematic behaviour whilst using sanctions to encourage participation and gain

compliance and behavioural change.

Initially, these projects were aimed at supporting vulnerable families, placing conduct

problems within wider policy concerns of homelessness and child protection (Parr, Nixon,

2009). There are largely three distinct levels of interventions that are used: outreach services;

services provided in units managed by the family intervention project but dispersed in the

community; and (at the most intensive level), families provided with 24 hour supervision and

support in a core residential unit. Where families are the subject of intervention project’s core

housing units or else housed in dispersed tenancies, family intervention tenancies provide an

additional coercive lever with which to induce compliance. Family intervention tenancies

combine reduced security of tenure with an identified behaviour support agreement; a type of

‘contract’ drawn up between the family and key worker which sets out the changes that are

expected, the support that will be provided in order to facilitate behavioural change and the

consequences of non-compliance. Termination of the tenancy is to be linked to wilful refusal

to accept support.

As such, FIPs provide a continuum of support, from visiting families in their homes to

intensive residential care. Teams take a holistic approach, described as ‘grip’ (Respect

Taskforce, 2006) towards the families, most of whom experience a complex of problems and

problematic behaviours including drug and alcohol use, domestic or inter-generational

violence, mental health issues and behavioural and learning difficulties. Referrals come

through a range of agencies and FIPS work closely with other stakeholders including social

housing providers, the Police, Anti-Social Behaviour Teams and Schools. Though a national

programme, FIPs are grounded in local contexts and in practice the ways of working are quite

varied, sometimes involving for instance, work to support mothers in the home who are

struggling to provide appropriate care or boundaries for their children, and taking children out

to events and activities. A number of assessments have concluded that on the whole the

projects have been successful and worthwhile, based on a range of criteria including

reductions in anti-social behaviour, improvements in outcomes for young people and a

stabilisation or improvement in the housing situations for a significant proportion of families

(White et al., 2008; Nixon et al., 2008; Department for Education, 2010). However, this does

not appear to be evident for all participants, and for around one third of families, principally

those with the most deep rooted problems, there had been little improvement and their lives

remained ‘dominated by’ complaints about behaviour, the threat of eviction and family

breakdown (Nixon et al., 2008, 8).

Criticisms have focused on a number of concerns. Firstly, questions have been raised about

the validity of the evaluations, and that they are not only methodologically flawed but that

their somewhat nuanced conclusions have been ignored by the Government in favour of

overly positive headlines (Gregg, 2011). As a consequence, it has been suggested that FIPs

have not been as successful as has been claimed and could even have been counterproductive

in some cases. There are a number of reasons put forward for this: that the schemes target the

wrong people and the wrong behaviours, punishing some of the most vulnerable people,

whilst simultaneously failing to provide any appropriate or genuinely useful help or support

(Gregg, 2011). Secondly, it has been suggested that the use of sanctions, particularly the

threat of the loss of housing, represents part of a broader ‘coercive shift’ (Flint, 2009, 247)

reflected by the anti-social behaviour agenda in England, in stark contrast to the model in

Scotland which makes no mention of sanctions and instead emphasise the importance of

negotiation when working with reluctant or recalcitrant families (Nixon et al., 2010). Other

commentators, however, argue that these criticisms miss the point, and that FIPs were set up

primarily to help families avoid, or overcome, loss of housing, rather than to hasten eviction,

and incorporate strong inclusionary as well as exclusionary elements (Flint, 2009). It is also

argued that the national rhetoric on sanctions has been exaggerated, in part at least, to assuage

a media dominated by a populist punitive ‘not in my back yard’ mentality (Nixon et al., 2010;

2008), and that in the gap between national and local implementation there exists a number of

‘sites of resistance’ in which local practitioners are able to adapt or ignore central dictates

(Parr, Nixon, 2009). There is some evidence to suggest that practitioners deliberately under-

emphasise the use of sanctions (White et al., 2008) in their work, which allows them to create

a distance between themselves and other agencies working with families, particularly those

with more of an enforcement function. As a result, FIP workers are able to establish more

trusting relationships with the families. Others, however, suggest that the use of sanctions, at

least in the English context, has been central to the success of the projects (White et al.,

2008).

Tackling Knife Crime and Gangs

Knife carrying and use are increasingly a concern for politicians, the media and the general

public, despite overall reductions in violent crime. Researchers and policy-makers are still

grappling with the extent and nature of the phenomena, and its relationship with other forms

of ‘problematic’ behaviour among young people, such as gang membership, gun use and drug

use. Most agree, however, that there is substantial overlap between these and knife-related

crime, that they tend to cluster together in areas of severe deprivation and marginalisation,

and that those most likely to engage in such behaviours are socially excluded young people,

who are themselves often victims of crime (Bannister et al., 2010; Marfleet, 2008). Official

responses to youth violence are ostensibly enforcement-focused (Squires, 2008, 144) and

much of the rhetoric emphasises detection and punishment. However, within this, there is

also space for a range of developmental initiatives, targeted both at those most at risk of

joining gangs and using weapons, and the wider neighbourhoods and social environments in

which knife-carrying youths reside.

The Tackling Knives Action Programme was launched in 2008 and was initially aimed at

young people aged 13-19 in ten police force areas. There was a deliberate focus on those

areas and neighbourhoods that were known to have the greatest problems of knife-carrying

and crime. This was later extended in a second phase to cover other areas and young people

up to 24, and was renamed the Tackling Knives and Serious Youth Violence Action

Programme (Ward et al., 2011). The programme combined enforcement, prevention and

reassurance measures. This included more intense enforcement of laws relating to knife

carrying, through proactive stop and search police activities, knife amnesties, and the use of

metal detectors in schools and other public places, as well as longer custodial sentences for

possession.

The second phase of the programme supported a variety of preventative measures, with a

focus on diversion, rehabilitation and education. Some £1.5 million a year over three years

was provided to local community projects through the Home Office Community Fund. These

projects targeted young people who were at risk of offending and there was an emphasis on

outreach street work, mentoring and innovative youth schemes, including schemes for new

migrant communities, which aimed at improving social skills and changing attitudes towards

weapons and violence. Funds were also invested in the existing Positive Activities for Young

People programme and provided additional recreational activities for some 26,000 young

people on Friday and Saturday nights in early 2009. Rehabilitation was principally addressed

through the establishment of the Knife Crime Prevention Programme, a partnership between

central government and local Youth Offending Teams which continues to work with young

people convicted of knife offences. Local community safety partnerships have also been

active in generating and supporting prevention schemes, particularly the provision of

educational packages and ‘social marketing campaigns’ designed to raise awareness of the

risks of carrying weapons (Silvestri et al., 2009). In Leeds, for instance, this included a

programme run by the Royal Armouries Museum, entitled ‘No to Knives’, which sends

trained volunteers into schools, youth clubs and community centres around the city to deliver

weapons awareness sessions in order to influence cultural attitudes to knife carrying amongst

youths.

There have been limited assessments of these programmes, but those that have been

conducted suggest such initiatives may reduce violent offending, including knife carrying

(Silvestri et al., 2009). However, an evaluation of the second phase of the Tackling Knives

Action Programme was inconclusive (Ward et al., 2011). Whilst there had been reductions in

serious youth violence over the course of the programme, these reductions had occurred in

both targeted and non-targeted areas. Critics have broadly welcomed the commitment to

social crime prevention, but question the coherence of the overall strategy and the

sustainability of relatively short-term schemes (Booth et al., 2008). There have also been

problems with take up of some schemes. For instance, in a recent review of local anti-knife

projects, Kinsella (2011) found that many schools were unwilling to engage with knife

awareness programmes, even when offered free of charge, because of concerns about

potential damage to a school’s reputation. This tension between enforcement and preventative

dimensions to interventions manifests in other ways. It is well known that intensive stop and

search can alienate those young people and communities who most need support (Eades et

al., 2007), and yet, Kinsella (2011, 2) found poor relations between police and young people

still represented a ‘significant barrier’ to effective knife crime prevention.

Given the emotive nature of knife crime and the often visceral impact it has on families,

communities and the wider public, there has been considerable support for concerted

government action, especially within the most affected communities. Indeed, as noted by the

Street Weapons Commission:

‘Any strategy to combat the dangers of knife and gun crime must be firmly rooted in the locality it is

targeting. The socio-economic and demographic character of the community suffering from such

violence will dictate the specific interventions that will be most effective. Where initiatives have been

successful they have involved a wide range of local partners, with a clear analysis and understanding of

their local situation and co-ordinated plan of action.’ (Booth et al., 2008, 89-90)

Outside of the Tackling Knives Action Programme remit there are and have been a range of

other community and neighbourhood initiatives, often funded by central government and/or

driven by local government. The Merseyside Young Transformers programme was launched

by the Community Foundation for Merseyside in 2007. This initiative brought together

Merseyside Police, Liverpool and Knowsley Councils and a range of charitable and

community groups to provide funds and local work targeted at young people most at risk of

involvement in knife and gun crime and gang membership. This included short-term

diversionary activities and longer-term development work focusing on training and skills. It

also incorporated group and family-based activities such as first aid courses, outdoor and

sporting activities and skills training; for example, mechanical skills and web design (Booth

et al., 2008, 91).

Recently, the Coalition Government affirmed its commitment to social crime prevention with

the announcement of a number of ambitious initiatives. The ‘Communities Against Guns,

Gangs and Knives’ Fund will provide funding for around 200 organisations to provide

intensive work with young people engaged in violent crime or at risk of becoming violent

offenders in England and Wales. The scheme prioritises projects that provide mentoring,

outreach or educational work with young people and their families and schemes which work

specifically with girls and young women. An additional £18 million in funding over two

years will be provided to the police, local authorities and voluntary agencies to tackle

‘teenage knife, gun and gang violence’16 through prevention and enforcement in ‘hotspot’

16 Home Office website – ‘Knife, gun and gang-related violence’, retrieved 4 June 2011 from:

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime/knife-gun-gang-youth-violence/

areas. There are marked similarities between these initiatives and the previous Government’s

approach. It remains to be seen how successful they will be.

Sure Start and Children’s Centres

One of New Labour’s most ambitious early intervention programmes was the Sure Start

initiative, which aimed to support young children and their families by integrating early

education, childcare, healthcare and family support services in disadvantaged areas. Sure

Start Children’s Centres were first established in 2004 and were preceded by several distinct

early-years initiatives: Early Excellence Centres, the Neighbourhood Nurseries Initiative and

Sure Start Local Programmes. Sure Start Children’s Centres are designed to offer children

under five years of age and their families access to local integrated early childhood services.

It was based on the concept that providing integrated education, care, family support, health

services and support with employment are key factors in determining good outcomes for

children. Children’s Centres were given a statutory basis under the Childcare Act 2006,

which sets out a range of ‘core’ services that all Children’s Centres must provide. Children’s

Centres serving the 30% most deprived communities must in addition offer integrated early

education and childcare places for a minimum of 5 days a week, 10 hours a day, 48 weeks a

year. The Labour Government set a deadline of March 2010, to have in place 3,500 Sure Start

Children’s Centres, catering for every community in England.

Sure Start was influenced inter alia by the research evidence that emerged from the

High/Scope Perry Pre-School Programme in the US. Established on an experimental basis in

1962, the Perry Pre-School Project sought early intervention for children at risk of impaired

cognitive development and early failure in school through a special child care programme for

children aged between 3 and 5 years old, and who had been identified as ‘at risk’ of entering

into criminality because of the situation of their parents. It involved the establishment of a

highly structured pre-school educational programme which gave children more chance to

choose their own activities (Berrueta-Clement et al., 1984). The evaluation compared the

long-term results of the group in the programme against the control group, following the

children through to the age of 27. Adults who had been on the programme had significantly

fewer arrests by the time they were 27. About 7% had been arrested five times or more, a

fifth of the rate of the control group (Schweinhart et al., 1993, 16). The evaluation also

pointed to reductions in illiteracy, failure to finish school and reliance on welfare.

Furthermore, it identified significantly greater earning and home ownership among the

programme group. The US senate estimated a saving of $5 in welfare and criminal justice

costs for every $1 invested into the programme.

Inspired by these findings, the Sure Start initiative sought to break the intergenerational

transmission of poverty, school failure, social exclusion and delinquency. However, the

national evaluation of Sure Start has produced equivocal and so-far unimpressive findings

with regard to the impact of Children’s Centres (Belsky et al., 2007). Nevertheless, in 2010

the House of Commons Children, Schools and Families Committee (2010, 17) concluded:

‘The Sure Start programme as a whole is one of the most innovative and ambitious Government

initiatives of the past two decades. We have heard almost no negative comment about its intentions and

principles; it has been solidly based on evidence that the early years are when the greatest difference can

be made to a child's life chances, and in many areas it has successfully cut through the silos that so often

bedevil public service delivery. Children's Centres are a substantial investment with a sound rationale,

and it is vital that this investment is allowed to bear fruit over the long term.’

The Sure Start initiative highlights the porous boundaries between social crime prevention

and social policy more generally. Unlike the US Perry Pre-school project, which was

conceptualised – at least by government and officials in the late 1980s and 1990s – in large

part as a crime prevention programme (see Sherman et al., 1997), Sure Start has tended not to

be targeted at (or justified in terms of) crime prevention goals but rather is conceived in terms

of wider social, educational and developmental benefits. As such, it has tended not to fall foul

of the pitfalls of the criminalisation of social policy, whereby state provided social services

increasingly come to be seen and justified in relation to their (potential) consequences for

crime and disorder rather than as social goods in their own right. One further characteristic

which distinguished Sure Start from many other early intervention programmes was that it

was area based, with all children under five years of age and their families living in a

prescribed area serving as the ‘targets’ of intervention. This was seen as having the advantage

that services within a Sure Start local programme area would be universally available,

thereby limiting any stigma that may accrue from individuals being targeted. As such, within

the designated localities, Sure Start constitutes a form of primary, rather than secondary,

prevention initiative. However, the new Coalition government, whilst committed to retaining

Sure Start, in the face of widespread funding cuts, has also suggested that it will target ‘the

neediest families’, investigate ways of paying providers by results and ‘take Sure Start back

to its original purpose of early intervention’ (HM Government, 2010, 19). This may signal a

subtle shift towards secondary ‘risk-focused’ prevention.

Concluding Questions

New Government, New Policies?

There is little evidence that the present Coalition government elected in May 2010 is likely to

depart dramatically from the general direction of developments set out by previous

governments in terms of the content of policy with regard to developmental crime prevention

and responses to anti-social behaviour. The focus on young people and families is set to

continue as is the preoccupation with anti-social behaviour. Whilst the Coalition government

has proposed abolishing the ASBO, it intends to replace this with two new powers – the

Criminal Behaviour Order and the Crime Prevention Injunction (the former is a criminal and

the latter a civil power), both of which share many similarities with variants of the ASBO.17

Interestingly, the proposed new Crime Prevention Injunction, according to the government, is

intended to ‘bring together restrictions on future behaviour and support to address underlying

problems… that can quickly stop anti-social behaviour before it escalates’ (Home Office,

2011, 5), echoing the arguments outlined earlier. In many senses, the new orders represent a

‘rebranding’ of the past tools rather than a change in trajectory or of substance. Early

intervention with young people and families at risk has secured a prominent place in the new

government’s strategies (Allen, 2011; Clegg, 2011). However, there remains something of an

ideological tension within the Coalition (and within Conservative politics more generally)

which plays itself out in the field of anti-social behaviour interventions, between the civil

libertarians with their emphasis on a liberal rights discourse, on the one hand, and the more

moral authoritarian conservatives with their appeal to a populist and popular punitiveness

reflecting a ‘responsibilisation’ rhetoric, on the other hand. This ambiguity has expressed

itself in uncertain and hesitant critiques of the use of ASBOs, and other powers introduced

under New Labour administrations, and is evident in the tentative nature of the proposed

reforms.

Nevertheless, there are at least three dimensions in relation to which we might see future

shifts in the organisation and mode of delivery of social crime prevention in England. First,

the new government has promoted its ‘localism’ agenda, in which it claims it will depart from

the perceived failure of centralised state authority associated with New Labour:

‘centralisation and top-down control have proved a failure’ (HM Government, 2010, 7).

17 In both its criminal and civil guises.

There is a commitment to lessen the culture of performance measurement and reduce the

national targets which for years have constrained local practitioners’ discretion. However, the

extent to which this will be realised in practice is yet to be seen.

Second, fuelled by the financial and banking crisis, we are witnessing a considerable

tightening of the public purse with swingeing cuts of 20% funding across much of the public

sector, including the police and local authorities. According to the new government: ‘the days

of big government are over’ (HM Government, 2010, 7). Reductions in public resources are

likely to impact on the capacity of front-line agencies to deliver social crime prevention and

work through partnerships. There is a genuine concern that the fiscal restrictions will cause

key public sector organisations to focus on their primary tasks (at the expense of secondary

functions) and look to meet their own internal goals rather than partnership goals that link

their activities with other services providers, such as community safety and the prevention of

crime and anti-social behaviour. It is also unclear what the impact of reductions to police

numbers will be on public perceptions of security and confidence in policing authorities. The

projected decline will come as a stark volte-face against the background of a long and

sustained period in which police numbers increased significantly, especially with the

introduction of new front-line patrol personnel in the form of Police Community Support

Officers (PCSOs) (Crawford, 2007b).18

Third, in place of state provision there is now an appeal to social entrepreneurs in the private

and voluntary sectors, as well as active citizens, to take over responsibility for providing

social goods, in what the Prime Minister David Cameron has described as the ‘Big Society’

(Cabinet Office, 2010):

‘You can call it liberalism. You can call it empowerment. You can call it freedom. You can call it

responsibility. I call it the Big Society. The Big Society is about a huge culture change… where people,

in their everyday lives, in their homes, in their neighbourhoods, in their workplace… don’t always turn to

officials, local authorities or central government for answers to the problems they face… but instead feel

both free and powerful enough to help themselves and their own communities.’ (Cameron, 2010)

The small state/big society vision chimes well with the wider critique of the over-

interventionist, ‘nanny state’ of the New Labour era, but leaves unanswered crucial questions

about how it will be achieved, especially in a climate of fiscal stringencies. Furthermore, the

18 First introduced in 2002, there were over 16,000 PCSOs across England and Wales by 2010.

extent to which the ‘big society’ will be capable of filling the spaces left by the withdrawal of

local public services remains a subject of much debate, particularly in areas of high social

deprivation where crime and anti-social behaviour thrive. More broadly, this approach – in

line with the appeal to localism - implies a critique of the ambitious state-centred, command-

and-control style interventionism and social engineering which came to represent the New

Labour political legacy (Crawford, 2006b). Regardless of the genuine nature of government’s

desire to draw back and adopt a ‘hands off’ approach to allow ‘local solutions to local

problems’, it is likely only to take a few high profile cases – like the tragic Pilkington case in

2007 – to ignite demands for government to intervene more and ensure standardized policy

delivery.19 For governments, the British government in particular, ‘“hands off” is the hardest

lesson of all to learn’ (Rhodes, 2000, 361).

Future Directions?

Given the previous discussion, we might well ask: what are the current prospects for social

crime prevention in England and what future trends are discernible? One possible scenario is

that social crime prevention becomes increasingly lost within more conditional, restrictive

and coercive social, family and urban policies (White, 2005). Here, the possibilities of

American-style ‘governing through crime’ (Simon, 2007) potentially sees an expansion of the

‘penal state’ (and a concomitant decline in the ‘welfare state’) simultaneously through mass

incarceration and exclusionary modes of prevention as mutually supportive rather than

oppositional developments.

A second, dystopian scenario is that urban communities become increasingly constructed

around preventive endeavours and perceptions of insecurity that serve to consolidate and

harden lines of difference, such that security differentials becomes markers of affluence,

wealth and social identity. Here, the capacity of communities to organise and tap resources

for the prevention of crime and anti-social behaviour becomes a defining issue.

Nevertheless, it is possibly in the field of developmental crime prevention that we may be

witnessing the emergence of a new orthodoxy (Farrington, Welsh, 2007). As we have sought

19 Fiona Pilkington was driven to kill herself and her disabled daughter after being terrorised by a local gang.

The inquest heard that the 38-year-old rang police 33 times in ten years over the bullying (13 times in the year

of her death). The then Home Secretary Alan Johnson publicly criticised the senior Leicestershire police officer

at the Pilkington inquest, who said that dealing with low-level anti-social behaviour was no longer a police

matter but should be dealt with by local authorities.

to show, risk assessment and classification and actuarial profiling have become increasingly

influential aspects of contemporary criminal (notably youth) justice systems. Despite the

possible preventive benefits and cost savings through targeting resources at ‘high risk’

groups, such early intervention schemes raise crucial normative concerns. Gatti notes the

right of children and young people not to be classified as future delinquents, whether they go

on to become delinquents or not, as representing ‘one of the greatest ethical problems raised

by early prevention programmes’ (1998, 120). Furthermore, the inaccuracy of predictive

knowledge prompts caution. In the conclusion to a major report for the British government on

working with young people and their families to reduce risks of crime, Utting sagely warned:

‘[A]ny notion that better screening can enable policy makers to identify young children destined to join

the 5 per cent of offenders responsible for 50-60 per cent of crime is fanciful. Even if there were no

ethical objections to putting “potential delinquent” labels round the necks of young children, there would

continue to be statistical barriers… [Research] shows substantial flows out of as well as in to the pool of

children who develop chronic conduct problems. As such [there are] dangers of assuming that anti-social

five-year olds are the criminals or drug abusers of tomorrow, as well as the undoubted opportunities that

exist for prevention. Since the experience of service providers suggests that labelling children would also

[be] counter-productive to gaining the trust and participation of parents, there must be a strong

presumption in favour of preventive services presenting and justifying themselves in terms of children’s

existing needs and problems, rather than future risks of criminality.’ (Utting, 2004, 99)

Consequently, many practitioners prefer universal programmes over targeted ones, despite

their obvious resource implications.

Early intervention has parallels outside of life-course and developmental criminology in

forms of preventive detention and preventive exclusion, as well as a more general lowering of

the threshold of intervention to incivilities, anti-social behaviour, ‘quality of life’ concerns

and other forms of ‘pre-crime’ (Zedner, 2007). Allied to this is the greater use of data pools,

the storing of DNA records and risk profiling. Anticipating, forestalling or eliminating

potential threats and risks before they present themselves is an increasing focus of concern.

Yet, in governing the future, uncertainty prevails. As Utting implies, the scientific

knowledge-base for prevention and pre-emption remains too ambiguous to be reliable. The

limitations of knowledge serve to magnify uncertainty. Under conditions of uncertainty a pre-

emptive and preventive logic implies a precautionary principle (Sunstein, 2005).

Consequently, people are increasingly judged in terms of what they might do. Anticipating

and forestalling potential harm in a risk-averse culture of insecurity implies erring on the side

of precaution (Ericson, 2007). In such circumstances, the question ‘what if?’ prompts action;

‘just in case’. Furthermore, as Zedner highlights, ‘precaution places uncertainty – not

knowledge – centre stage’ (2009, 37), with significant implications for traditional criminal

justice principles of due process protections and proportionality. It is perhaps, here, in the

context of uncertainty and in the face of our lack of knowledge about future risks and harms

that the prospects for social crime prevention lie, in justifying interventions as a precaution

within a wider logic of (limited) predictive governance. What is clear is that the shape of, and

space for, social crime prevention in all its guises, in England as elsewhere, will be

influenced by unfolding debates about the appropriate roles and responsibilities of the state,

communities, families and individual citizens in the regulation and politics of behaviour. So

too, it will be informed by the ways in which practitioners and ordinary citizens give life to,

sometimes resist, and enact, the various policies and strategies prompted by governments.

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Disentangling practitioners’ understandings of child sexual exploitation: The risks of assuming otherwise?

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2021

This article reports findings from a qualitative study investigating the efficacy and the effects of a child sexual exploitation awareness raising intervention with young people. Drawing on in-depth interviews with members of a multi-agency team set up to prevent child sexual exploitation, we elucidate the way in which practitioners communicate the problem of child sexual exploitation and how risk registers are deployed to assess the dangerousness of young people’s behaviours. In examining practitioners’ understandings of child sexual exploitation, we illuminate the ways in which educative interventions in this domain are informed by a confluence of policy guidelines and personal/experiential perceptions. Unravelling the tensions arising between these two frames of interpretation, we illustrate that – despite routine recourse to embedded professional knowledge – underlying moral and cultural assumptions alongside anxieties about childhood sexuality influence practitioners’ understandings of the nature of risk, who is at risk and the context in which risks manifest themselves.

Plural Policing in Norway: Regulation, Collaboration, and the Public Interests

Chapter

Nov 2022

Martin Nøkleberg

It has become a truism that policing is no longer the monopoly of the (public) police, and reference has been made to “policing beyond, below, above, and through the government,” “the policing complex,” and “the mixed economy of policing” to capture the emergence of (other) public, private, or volunteer policing actors. Following the trend of pluralization, policing scholars have examined concepts such as networks, partnerships, and alliances, but also the regulatory regimes, to make sense of the unique characteristics and diversity of plural policing practices in different (inter)national contexts. The existing scholarship on Nordic plural policing is, however, still limited, and more studies are needed to develop a fuller understanding of Nordic plural policing practices and of how they have changed. Drawing on empirically grounded research in the Norwegian context of (plural) policing of global hubs, this chapter aims to; first, examine how the dynamics of private security regulation affect and set conditions for the working practices of policing actors; second, unpack the public–private partnerships that evolve to secure global hubs; and third, discuss the role of the state in plural policing arrangements in Norway. By doing this, the chapter will contribute with new empirical and conceptual insights into plural policing and security governance from the Nordic context.KeywordsPlural policingCollaborationSecurity networksRegulationThe public–private divideNordic policing

Nærpolitireformen og politiets rolle i fremtiden

Article

Jun 2017

Christin Thea Wathne

Considering strategies designed to counter radicalisation: Comparative reflections on approaches in the United Kingdom and Belgium

Article

Full-text available

May 2021

This article focuses on the issue of counter radicalisation strategy, examining the efficacy and the weaknesses of policy initiatives designed to prevent violent extremism. In order to scrutinize various approaches toward combatting the problem of “radicalisation”, we compare and contrast policy and practices in the United Kingdom with counter measures adopted in Belgium. Drawing on a range of examples from these two countries, it is argued that context sensitive and situated multi-agency approaches to counter radicalization are more likely to engage individuals at risk of being drawn into violent extremism and are also less likely to (re)produce iatrogenic effects. Our analysis suggests that, in order to fully understanding what may ostensibly be perceived as individual proclivities toward violence, the role of structural, institutional and environmental factors is significant. We posit that these factors need to be given greater credence in both explanations for “extremism” and processes and practices implemented to reduce the risk of harm.

Why European mayors emphasize urban security: Evidence from a survey in 28 European countries

Article

Full-text available

May 2020
Eur J Criminol

Urban security has become a pressing political issue in many European cities. This study seeks to understand why some city governments consider urban security to be a policy priority, whereas others do not. Using data from a recent survey of 2674 city mayors in 28 European countries, we test four hypotheses on factors associated with the prioritization of urban security by local politicians. The results show that European mayors’ emphasis on urban security as a policy goal varies strongly across countries, as well as across cities within countries. Besides contextual factors related to national political culture, welfare regimes and local autonomy, we find that mayors’ preferences on security policy are most strongly associated with political ideology, that is, their self-placement on the left–right spectrum. In addition, crime trends and public opinion about crime play a role. The study demonstrates that there is no convergence of political agendas on urban security issues across European cities.

Parallellsamfunn: En del av den norske virkeligheten?

Technical Report

Full-text available

May 2018

This report, requested by Norwegian Ministry of Justice and Public Security, discusses different definitions and discourses concerning “parallel societies”. Discursively, the term parallel society describes different realities, both in political and public debates and in everyday language. The multiple meanings of the term also make it challenging to find a universal definition, as well as the fact that the term is entangled in a broader debate, namely immigration. Based on the academic debate, we offer a definition of parallel societies as situations where there is a lack of national social cohesion and the state lacks ability and / or willingness to handle social diversity. Two key concepts in such an understanding are “social contract” and “social capital”. The social contract, as discussed it in this report, are seen as symbolic bonds between state and citizens, especially related to legitimate power, in addition to duties and rights on both sides. In terms of social capital, we emphasize trust building through institutions and transferred to trust between the citizens. With increased immigration and ethnic diversity, the quality and implementation of social and welfare policy will be decisive for the level of trust in society. In addition to the theoretical contributions, we have reviewed reports published by the police in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Although the contexts vary between the three countries, none of the reports uses the term "parallel society" as a police term. Instead, the reports emphasize the specific geographic areas where the police have little access, and their challenges to deal with different forms of crime and social control. Since parallel society is also part of the public debate, we have included the Norwegian debate over the past 20 years. Here, we see a polarization in the debate. In the first perspective, the debates emphasize that parallel societies are developed and maintained by how certain minority groups are skeptical about the values and institutions of the majority society, and that marginalization is therefore self-chosen. The second perspective emphasizes the inability of the majority society to integrate new groups, and emphasizes the role of social institutions. Based on the academic and political debates, we have designed an analytical model that defines four positions in order to understand both the interactions and tensions regarding the legitimacy of majority society and the loyalty of different groups. These four are Cohesion, Exclusion, Subcultures and Parallel Societies. Parallel societies are reserved for the description of a social structure in which there is both low political will and / or capacity to ensure basic services and rights to all citizens and unwillingness among minority groups to participate in the majority society. The model shows that it is misleading to use the term parallel society on the situation in Norway. However, there are challenges both related to trust and loyalty on the one hand, and exclusion and discrimination on the other. To different degrees, new forms of subcultures and exclusion can develop. We conclude by pointing out how the police, together with other community-based institutions, have an inclusive and trust-building potential.

Crime Prevention, Migration Control and Surveillance Practices: Welfare Bureaucracy as Mobility Deterrent

Book

Oct 2018

Veronika Nagy

Transforming the English model of community safety: From crime and disorder to the safeguarding of vulnerable people

Article

Aug 2018

Francesca Menichelli

The literature on the English model of community safety describes it as being centrally directed, situational in nature, focused on anti-social behaviour and incivilities and not concerned with measures of social crime prevention. Based on an analysis of the community safety plans issued by English and Welsh local authorities between 2010 and 2014, this article argues that such a characterization is no longer accurate. Partnerships in England and Wales are now free from central oversight, and increasingly focused on safeguarding. In light of the work they do in support of vulnerable populations, and their role within the changing governance of England, more attention should be paid to them.

Practising Youth Protection

Chapter

Aug 2018

Olga Petintseva

Aside from the institutional performance as such, the practices discussed are sustained by fundamental issues: societal inequalities, political underpinnings and the structure of youth justice, its insensitivity to diversity, and the broader discussions about ‘best interests’. For this reason, this chapter addresses the organisational, structural and ideological frames of youth justice: the primacy of practical reasoning above abstract goals, involving different ad hoc definitions of ‘protection’ and ‘best interests’. This is facilitated by the ambiguous welfare model, which is further discussed. While focusing on the Belgian situation, a link is made to the international context. I argue for reflexively revisiting protection ideals, and offer a critical reading of the increasingly dominant (legalistic) rights approach. Finally, the fact that, in this institutional landscape, different forms of ‘specialisation’ towards migrants and minorities have been developed is significant in the context of my study. These ‘tailored solutions’ can concern communication, questioning the frameworks from which the ‘problem’ is thought about, accessibility of alternatives, decision making and measure execution. The desirability of ‘specialisation’ depends heavily on the level at which it is implemented and the goals that it pursues.

A historical perspective on crime control and private security: a Belgian case study

Article

Feb 2018

Pieter Leloup

Since the last decade of the twentieth century, several authors have claimed that the contemporary and ‘new’ developments in (private) policing and crime control form part of the process of neo-liberal policies and rational choice approaches to crime. However, as is argued in this paper, so-called late-modern strategies and discourses of risk-reduction, loss prevention and situational crime prevention were already present in the armoury of crime control measures more than a hundred years ago. To demonstrate the shortcomings in criminological theory with regards to longer-term patterns of crime control, I have used a case study approach to private (security) organisations in the Port of Antwerp between 1880 and the outbreak of the Second World War. Hence, this study analyses the policing discourses and practices of private players, in cooperation with the public police and authorities or not. It shows that even during the heyday of the criminal justice state, they aimed exclusively at manipulating the temporal and spatial dimensions of the opportunity structures in which criminal activities could develop, which is quite similar to contemporary approaches. Therefore, existing criminological accounts that stress the discontinuities in policing and security need to be questioned.

Regulating civility, governing security and policing (dis)order under conditions of uncertainty

Chapter

Full-text available

Jan 2011

Adam Crawford

Saving Children from a Life of CrimeEarly Risk Factors and Effective Interventions

Book

Nov 2006

‘Reassurance Policing: Feeling is Believing’*

Chapter

May 2017

Adam Crawford

The National Evaluation of Sure Start: does area-based early intervention work?

Book

Jan 2007

Edward Melhuish

Book synopsis: Sure Start Local Programmes (SSLPs) were a major strategic effort by New Labour towards ending child poverty. By changing the way services were delivered to children under four and their families, through targeting and empowering highly deprived small geographic areas, SSLPs were intended to enhance child, family, and community functioning. Following five years of systemic research exploring the efficacy and impact of this grand experiment, this book pulls together the results of the extensive National Evaluation of Sure Start (NESS). It reviews the history of policies pertaining to child health and well being that preceded and set the stage for Sure Start. The book provides insight into how SSLPs were expected to function and how they actually operated, both in terms of their strengths and weaknesses, and their costs. The contributors: examine the nature of the communities in which these programmes were situated and how they changed over time; present the early effects of SSLPs on children and families, with evidence highlighting some small beneficial effects and some small deleterious ones; and extract specific features of SSLPs that contributed to whether individual programmes benefited children and families, providing a guide for the revision of programmes and policies. With a foreword from Naomi Eisdenstadt, former Director of the Sure Start Programme, and a concluding chapter by Prof. Sir Michael Rutter, member of the government's scientific advisory board overseeing NESS, the book provides a critique of SSLP policy and NESS.

'Joined Up But Fragmented: Ambiguity and Ambivalence at the Heart of New Labour's Third Way'

Article