Doing Community Safety by Locality Working: Regime Theory and Micro-Climates of Crime and Disorder Co-Governance

Abstract

The co-governance of crime and disorder and the involvement of the public within quasi-deliberative consultations of participatory forums to this end has been the subject of significant bodies of research (Clarke et al, 2007, Barnes, Newman and Sullivan: 2007). Such forums were applied to the micro-level of the neighbourhood during New Labour’s tenure in office in an attempt to reduce crime and disorder and to improve the responsiveness of service delivery. This has created situations whereby the governance of communities has been shifted to the micro-level of the neighbourhood (Stoker: 2004). Hughes and Edwards (2005) have proposed examining these micro-climates of crime and disorder co-governance in attempts to understand the importance of contextual factors in structuring of forms of community safety. My research utilises grounded theory to examine the impact of differing aspects of economic redevelopment within the context of the inner City, to both foster particular crime problems, and the typical solution-sets (Jones: 1998) utilised by practitioners in addressing them. In addition, I examine the structural role and impact of economic and cultural forces of urban redevelopment in creating and managing the ‘majorities’ (Stoker: 1998) amongst the public, and their perceptions of crime and disorder patterns. My research is conducted across three separate neighbourhood ‘localities’ within Plymouth City Centre with the intention being to understand how the individual particularisms of these areas contribute to the formation of different forms of community safety, and allied with it, subtly different forms of policing.