WestminsterResearch http://www.westminster.ac.uk/westminsterresearch Crime and disorder Sacha Darke School of Law This is an electronic version of a PhD thesis awarded by the University of Westminster. © The Author, 2007. This is a scanned reproduction of the paper copy held by the University of Westminster library. The WestminsterResearch online digital archive at the University of Westminster aims to make the research output of the University available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the authors and/or copyright owners. Users are permitted to download and/or print one copy for non-commercial private study or research. Further distribution and any use of material from within this archive for profit-making enterprises or for commercial gain is strictly forbidden. Whilst further distribution of specific materials from within this archive is forbidden, you may freely distribute the URL of WestminsterResearch: (http://westminsterresearch.wmin.ac.uk/). In case of abuse or copyright appearing without permission e-mail [email protected] lsolýl ý11ý pHD Crime and Disorder SachaDarke A thesissubmitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Westminster for the degreeof Doctor of Philosophy May 2007 ST COPY AVAILA L Variable print quality Abstract This thesis investigates growing use of civil and public law orders as tools of crime control by crime prevention partnerships.This development has been little explored in criminology. The proliferation of crime prevention partnerships is viewed by many criminologists as forming part of a bifurcation in criminal policy between serious crime and anti-social behaviour, in which the 'enforcement approach' of the criminal justice system is being focused upon the former and a non-legal 'partnership approach' advanced for the control of the latter. It is argued that the 'partnership approach' runs a risk of becoming an extension of and not an alternative to the 'enforcement approach' of the criminal justice system. In investigating this risk, it is intended that this thesis should contribute to criminology in two ways. The first contribution is an investigation of the theoretical potential for the local to become a site of authoritarian crime control. The second is an investigation of the extent this potential is being realised in England and Wales. Empirical research centred on the development of crime prevention strategies in implementing the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Fieldwork focused on the development of metropolitan borough strategies in twenty-one London boroughs, and a police sector and two social housing estatestrategies in the borough of Westminster. Resort to civil and publicilaw orders was found to be significant to the approach taken by the majority of London boroughs studied, including Westminster. One of the estate strategiesat Westminster was found to be as authoritarian as the borough strategy, but the other estate strategy and the police sector strategy were not. Punitive views were not encountered among local practitioners on any of the three sites. Punitive views were encountered among local residents on the police sector, but not on either of the estates. Once the peculiarities of the institutions and areas studied were taken into account, it was concluded that there is a significant risk that crime prevention partnerships will take an authoritarian approach to crime control unless they are located in areas where there is a strong sense of geographical community, and their policies are shapedby local practitioners and local residents. Acknowledgments Firstly I wish to thank my supervisorsPenny Green, and in particular Maggie Sumner, who took over as my first supervisor at a critical time, and kept me on track with invaluable advice and above all commitment to my research. Secondly, but equally as importantly, I wish to thank Cristiane, Susannaand Sylvia, for their unwavering love and support throughout the project. Contents One Authoritarian Crime Control 1 Two The 'Turn to the Local' in Crime Control 5 2.1 ContemporaryWestern Government 5 2.1.1 Changing Political Needs 6 2.1.2 Changing Economic and Social Needs II 2.1.3 'Apparatus of Security' 12 2.1.4 Recruiting New Partners 15 2.2 TheLocal as a SiteFor Authoritarian Crime Control 17 2.2.1 'BehaviourSurveillance' 19 2.2.2 'BehaviourModification' 25 2.2.3 'ExpressiveJustice' 29 2.3 KeepingOrder 32 2.3.1 Communitarianism 32 2.3.2 MoralCommunitarianism 33 2.3.3 Leftand Right Realism 38 2.3.4 'NippingOffending in theBud' 40 2.3.5 Conclusions 43 Three Research Methodologies 50 3.1 Developingthe Research Question 50 3.2 Selectingthe Sites for EmpiricalResearch 59 3.3 TheEmpirical Research Methods 64 3.3.1 CriticalTheory 64 3.3.2 Selectingthe Datafor Analysis 69 3.3.3 Doingthe Research 73 3.3.4 Recordingthe Data 78 Four Policing in Partnership 82 4.1 The'Partnership Approach' to CrimeControl 84 4.1.1 MinorCrime 84 4.1.2 MinorCrime and Civil nuisance 88 4.1.3 TheMorgan Report 93 4.2 The Vision Begins to Evaporate 95 98 4.2.1 Civil andPublic Law Ordersas Toolsof CrimeControl 4.3 Partners in Enforcement 104 4.3.1 'Getting Back to Basics' 105 4.3.2 'SidesteppingMorgan' 110 4.4 Youth Justice 115 4.5 Implications 123 Five Policing Anti-Social Behaviour in London 125 5.1 CrimePrevention in the Mid 1990s 127 5.2 Implementingthe Crime andDisorder Act 131 133 5.2.1 TheProblem of Disorder 134 5.2.2 The Problem of Disorder Control 5.2.3 Early Interventioninto DisorderlyAreas 140 5.2.4 Early Interventioninto 'Criminal Careers' 143 5.2.5 PolicingAnti-Social Behaviour in Westminster 144 5.2.6 'Preachingto the Converted' 154 5.2.7 Concluding Comments 157 5.3 Targeted Disorder Control in Westminster 158 5.3.1 Policing Westboume 158 170 5.3.2 Policing Churchill Gardensand Lisson Green six New Penal Boundaries 182 6.1 The'Enforcement Approach' Continues 183 6.1.1 ThePolice Continue toTake aBack Seat 183 6.1.2 ThePrimacy ofLegal Orders 185 6.1.3 CorrectingtheAnti-Social Behaviour ofYouths 191 6.2 A 'MeshThinning' of CrimeControl 193 Appendix one Fieldwork Interviewsand Observations i Appendix two Public Consultationunder the Crime and DisorderAct 1998 vi References x Chapter one Authoritarian Crime Control We are now in the middle of a deep and decisive movement towards a more disciplinary, authoritarian kind of society... The new laissez-faire doctrine, in which social market values are to predominate, many would say, like the old laissez-faire, is not at all inconsistent with a disciplinary [ ] Make it: is to be strong, state ... no mistake about under this regime the market Free; the people are to be Disciplined. (Hall, 1996: 257 and 259) Hall's analysisof the link betweendevelopments in crime control in England and Walesand the changingneeds of westerncapitalist economies in the closing decades of the 20'hCentury was originally publishedin 1980.Nonetheless, his centralmessage that we are drifting into a law and order society is as relevantto analysisof criminal policy in the 1990sand 2000s as it was to criminal policy in the 1970sand 1980s (Scraton, 2004; Sim, 2000). Four aspectsof this 'punitive turn' in contemporary criminal policy are of particular interest to criminologists: the increasing use of imprisonment, increasing public vindictiveness, the co-existence of corrective alongsidepunitive criminal justice practices,and the extensionof criminal policy to local state and even non-stateinstitutions (Young, 2002b). This doctoral thesis is concernedwith the last of theseissues, with a 'turn to the local' in the criminal policy of Englandand Wales, and in particularthe growing useof civil andpublic law orders (henceforthreferred to as legal orders),available to local authoritiesto managetheir areasand the people that reside within them, as weaponsof crime control. Formal partnershipbetween the police and local authorities at a local level has developed largely in responseto a perceived need for increasedcooperation between state institutions in the control of minor crime and non-criminal nuisances(henceforth referredto as anti-socialbehaviour). Legal orders comply with this vision. Like the police power of arrest,legal ordersare backedby coerciveand often penal remedies, yet they may be targetedon a wider range of behaviour and are subject to lower thresholdsof evidence.The legal orders of particular relevanceto this thesis are I abatementnotices, fixed penalty notices, injunctions, possessionorders, anti-social behaviourorders, and parenting orders.The nature of these legal powers and their potentialuse as tools of crime control is exploredin chapterfour. In the 1970s and 1980s a number of criminologists joined Hall in his criticism that the state was taking a more authoritarian approach to crime control (e.g. Bunyon, 1976; Gordon, 1987; Hillyard and Percy-Smith, 1988; Scraton, 1985 and 1987; Sim et al., 1987). Among these criminologists, Gordon focused on the growing emphasis that was being put on community policing and with it increased cooperation between the police and local authorities. He warned: is locate [it] in ... community policing not an alternative to reactive policing... we must the context of the increasing disciplining of society by the state, the emergence of the 'strong' disciplinary regime' which, Stuart Hall has argued, is necessary 'if the state is to stop meddling in the fine-tuning of the economy, in order to let 'social market values' rip, while containing the inevitable fall-out, in terms of social conflict and class polarization'. It is an aspect