This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Web of Science (1) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Helms, G. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Municipal Policing Meets the New Deal

The Politics of a City-Centre Warden Project

University of Glasgow, UK, g.helms{at}lbss.gla.ac.uk

In urban centres across the UK and elsewhere, one encounters an ever-increasing array of uniformed agencies. Often explicitly aligned with efforts for an urban renaissance, these patrols not only give advice and information to users of urban public spaces but, more significantly, are instrumental in securing these spaces and their populations. Drawing on empirical research in the British city of Glasgow, this article argues that, far from being merely designed to minimize risk, such new policing initiatives work hard to establish a new moral order of acceptable activities for revitalized urban spaces. This happens through renewed involvement of the local authorities as municipal policing. There is, however, one element in the debates of an urban renaissance or the entrepreneurial city that tends to get sidelined easily: that of the actual labour and work lying at the heart of such renaissance. Here, the warden project under discussion, in its design as an intermediate labour market programme, forcefully illustrates the meanings of `securing' and `policing' as it reconnects the moral ordering of contemporary labour market policies with the patrolling of new urban spaces.

Key Words: city centre • policing • public space • urban regeneration • warden programme • welfare-to-work • incivility • social order

References

• Allen, J. and Massey, D. (eds) (1988) The Economy in Question. London: Sage.
• Amin, A., Massey, D. and Thrift, N. (2000) Cities for the Many Not the Few. Bristol: Policy Press.
• Association of Town Centre Management and Neighbourhood Renewal Unit (2002) Managing Liveability: Town Centre Management Action Against Crime and Disorder. London: Association of Town Centre Management.
• Belina, B. and Helms, G. (2003) `Zero Tolerance for the Industrial Past and Other Threats: Policing and Urban Entrepreneurialism in Britain and Germany', Urban Studies 40: 1845—67.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
• Brenner, N. and Theodore, N. (2002) `Cities and Spaces of "Actually Existing Neoliberalism"', Antipode 34: 349—79.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
• Button, M. (2003) `Private Security and the Policing of Quasi-Public Space', International Journal of the Sociology of Law 31: 227—37.[CrossRef]
• City Centre Representatives (2002) Internal Database. Glasgow.
• Coleman, R. (2004) Reclaiming the Streets: Surveillance, Social Control and the City. Cullompton: Willan.
• Coleman, R. and Sim, J. (1998) `From the Dockyards to the Disney Store: Surveillance, Risk and Security in Liverpool City Centre', International Review of Law, Computers and Technology 12: 27—45.[CrossRef]
• Crawford, A. and Lister, S. (2004) The Extended Policing Family: Visible Patrols in Residential Areas. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
• Cresswell, T. (1996) In Place, Out of Place. Geography, Ideology, and Transgression. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Daguerre, A. and Taylor-Gooby, P. (2004) `Neglecting Europe: Explaining the Predominance of American Ideas in New Labour's Welfare Policies since 1997', Journal of European Social Policy 14 (1): 25—39.[Abstract]
• Director of Development and Regeneration Services (2004) `Glasgow Works Funding 2004/05 and 2005/06'. Glasgow: Glasgow City Council.
• Director of Land Services (2003) ` City Centre Representatives Best Value Review Update'. Glasgow: Glasgow City Council.
• Director of Land Services (2004) ` City Centre Representatives'. Glasgow: Glasgow City Council.
• Downtown Partnership of Baltimore (2006) `Clean, Safe and Beautiful'. Accessed on 11.12.2006 at: [http://www.godowntownbaltimore.com/cleansafe.cfm?id=22 ].
• Eick, V. (2003) `New Strategies in Policing the Poor: Berlin's Neo-liberal Security System', Policing and Society 13: 365—79.[CrossRef]
• Ekos (1997) `Glasgow CityWatch. Evaluation. Draft Final Report' (prepared for Glasgow Development Agency, now Scottish Enterprise). Glasgow.
• Faget, J., Govaerts, M., Le Dantec, C., Riou, C., Zelmat, M. and Zoberi, M. (2000) `Table Ronde: Emplois-Jeunes et Agents Locaux de Médiation Sociale (Alms)', Les Cahiers de la sécurité intérieure 40: 9—28.
• Foucault, M. (1979) Discipline and Punish. the Birth of the Prison. New York: Random House.
• Garland, D. (2001) The Culture of Control. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Glasgow City Council (2006) ` City Centre Representatives'. Accessed on 11.12.2006 at: [http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/Visitors/CityCentreReps/ ].
• Hauber, A., Hofstra, B., Toornvliet, L. and Zandbergen, A. (1996) `Some New Forms of Functional Social Control in the Netherlands and Their Effects', British Journal of Criminology 36: 199—219.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
• Helms, G. (2008) Towards Safe City Centres? Remaking the Spaces of an Old-industrial City. Aldershot: Ashgate.
• Heron, E. and Dwyer, P. (1999) `Doing the Right Thing: Labour's Attempt to Forge a New Welfare Deal between Individual and State', Social Policy and Administration 33: 91—104.[CrossRef]
• Home Office (2001) Policing a New Century: a Blueprint for Reform. Norwich: HSMO.
• Home Office (2003) Respect and Responsibility. Taking a Stand against Anti-social Behaviour. London: Home Office.
• Hughes, G. (1998) Understanding Crime Prevention. Social Control, Risk and Late Modernity. Buckingham: Open University Press.
• Hughes, G. and Mooney, G. (1998) `Community', in G. Hughes (ed.) Imagining Welfare Futures, pp. 55—102. London: Routledge.
• Imrie, R. and Raco, M. (2003) `Community and the Changing Nature of Urban Policy ', in R. Imrie and M. Raco (eds) Urban Renaissance? New Labour, Community and Urban Policy, pp. 3—36. Bristol: Policy Press.
• Johnston, L. (1992) The Rebirth of Private Policing. London: Routledge.
• Johnston, L. (2000) Policing Britain. Risk, Security and Governance. Harlow: Longman.
• Johnston, L. (2003) `From "Pluralisation" to "the Police Extended Family": Discourses on the Governance of Community Policing ', International Journal of the Sociology of Law 31: 185—204.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
• Jones, T. and Newburn, T. (2002) `The Transformation of Policing? Understanding Current Trends in Policing Systems', British Journal of Criminology 42: 129—46.[Abstract]
• Lees, L. (1997) `Ageographia, Heterotopia, and Vancouver's New Public Library', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 15: 321—47.[CrossRef]
• Lindenberg, M. (2000) `Zwischen Sicher sein und sich Sicher Fühlen. Kommunale Hilfsdienste als Geburtshelfer für Verdichtete Städtische Gemeinden?', Widersprüche 20: 37—49.
• Lødemel, I. and Trickey, H. (eds) (2000) `An Offer You Can't Refuse': Workfare in International Perspective. Bristol: Policy Press.
• MacLeod, G. (2002) `From Urban Entrepreneurialism to a "Revanchist City"? On the Spatial Injustices of Glasgow's Renaissance', Antipode 34: 602—24.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
• Marshall, B. and MacFarlane, R. (2000) The Intermediate Labour Market: a Tool for Tackling Long-term Unemployment. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
• Marshall, B., Boyes, L. and McCormick, J. (2002) The Full Employment City. Glasgow: Scottish Council Foundation.
• Mitchell, D. (2003) The Right to the City. Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space. New York: Guildford Press.
• Norris, C. and Armstrong, G. (1999) The Maximum Surveillance Society. The Rise of CCTV. Oxford: Berg.
• Oc, T. and Tiesdell, S. (eds) (1997) Safer City Centres. Reviving the Public Realm. London: Paul Chapman.
• ODPM (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) ( 2002) Living Places: Cleaner, Safer, Cleaner. London: ODPM.
• Oecd (1999) The Local Dimension of Welfare-to-work: an International Survey. Paris: OECD.
• Oecd (2002) Urban Renaissance. Glasgow: Lessons for Innovation and Implementation. Paris: OECD.
• Ogborn, M. (1993) `Ordering the City: Surveillance, Public Space and the Reform of Urban Policing in England, 1835—156', Political Geography 12: 505—21.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
• Orr, J. ( 1997) `Strathclyde's Spotlight Initiative', in N. Dennis (ed.) Zero Tolerance. Policing a Free Society, pp. 104—23. London: IEA Health and Welfare Unit.
• Peck, J. (1999) `New Labourers? Making a New Deal for the "Workless Class''', Environment and Planning C 17: 345—72.[CrossRef]
• Peck, J. and Theodore, N. (2000) `Beyond "Employability"', Cambridge Journal of Economics 24: 729—49.[Abstract]
• Philips, T. and Smith, P. (2006) `Rethinking Urban Incivility Research: Strangers, Bodies and Circulations', Urban Studies 43: 879—901.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
• Philo, C. and Kearns, G. (1993) `Culture, History, Capital: a Critical Introduction to the Selling of Places', in C. Philo and G. Kearns (eds) Selling Places. The City as Cultural Capital, Past and Present, pp. 1—32. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
• Raco, M. and Imrie, R. (2000) `Governmentality and Rights and Responsibilities in Urban Policy', Environment and Planning A 32: 2187—204.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
• Rodgers, P. and Coaffee, J. (2005) `Moral Panics and Urban Renaissance', City 9: 321—40.[CrossRef]
• Sennett, R. (1986) The Fall of Public Man. London: Faber & Faber.
• Shearing, C. and Stenning, P. (1996) `From the Panopticon to Disney World: the Development of Discipline', in J. Muncie, E. McLaughlin and M. Langan (eds) Criminological Perspectives: a Reader, pp. 413—22. Oxford: Sage.
• Smith, N. (1996) The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. London Routledge.
• Steele, J. (2004) `Police Angry over Plan for Civilians to Handle Crimes', Daily Telegraph (20 May), accessed on 29.5. 2007 at: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/20/npol20.xml ].
• Sunley, P., Martin, R. and Nativel, C. (2001) `Mapping the New Deal: Local Disparities in the Performance of Welfare-to-work', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 26: 484—512.[CrossRef]
• Wakefield, A. (2003) Selling Security: the Private Policing of Public Space. Cullompton: Willan.

European Urban and Regional Studies, Vol. 14, No. 4, 290-304 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0969776407081163


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				G. Helms, R. Atkinson, and G. MacLeod Editorial: Securing the City: Urban Renaissance, Policing and Social Regulation European Urban and Regional Studies, October 1, 2007; 14(4): 267 - 276. [PDF]

This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Web of Science (1) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Helms, G. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?