About the project
As the high density of nightlife establishments correlates with statistical clusters of crime – the nightlife is associated with incidents of violence, nuisance, and disorder. In mitigating and managing such ‘unwanted actions’, several formal bodies frequent nightlife areas. Several policing organizations are involved in control and proactive work in public spaces, through measures such as patrolling, show of presence and surveillance. Aiming to empirically explore policing across different organizations, this project has focused on three organisations that strive to ensure order and amplify public safety in these spaces: the police, private security guards, and the Night Ravens.
Method
Representatives from the Norwegian police, private security companies and the Night Ravens comprise the subjects of this study, as they constitute essential urban area controllers that influence safety and security measures in public spaces. Through participatory observation and interviews, the project has delved into their work and understandings of order maintenance in nocturnal environments.
Objectives
The aim of this project has been to gather insights about policing bodies’ roles and functions in order maintenance work, as well as providing new contributions to the policing literature regarding plural policing in Norway. Promoting order and managing disorder in the nightlife setting denote complex processes, and the study highlights similarities and differences in order maintenance work across three different organizations. While organisational mandates play a key function in shaping the narratives of how policing agencies are supposed to conduct their work, the findings of this project draw attention to how such overarching structures might contradict with situations policing personnel encounter. Along these lines, the project brings insight on the situationally conditioned logics underpinning policing organisations’ work, tensions regarding their roles and functions, and how ‘order’ and ‘disorder’ are understood by formalised bodies of control.
Publications
- Nocturnal policing: a study of public, private and voluntary policing in the night-time economy
- Productive policing: Lessons from preventative police strategies in times of New Public Management
- ‘Why on Earth Aren’t You Doing Anything?’: Private and Voluntary Policing of Nightlife in Norway
- Notions of power in the plural policing of nightlife