Community safety emerged as a new approach to tackling and preventing local crime and disorder in the late 1980s and was adopted into mainstream policy by New Labour in the late '90s. Twenty years on, it is important to ask how the community safety agenda has evolved and developed within local crime and disorder prevention strategies. This book provides the first sustained critical and theoretically informed analysis by leading authorities in the field. It explores the strengths and weaknesses of the community safety legacy, posing challenging questions, such as how and why has community safety policy making become such a contested terrain? What are the different issues at stake for 'provider' versus 'consumer' interests in community safety policy? Who are the winners and losers and where are the gaps in community safety policy making? Do new priorities mean that we have seen the rise and now the fall of community safety?
The book provides answers to these questions by exploring a wide range of topics relating to community safety policy and practice, including: anti-social behaviour strategies; victims' perspectives on community safety; race, racism and policing; safety and social exclusion; domestic violence; substance misuse; community policing; and organised crime.
"Community safety" is primarily aimed at academics and students working in the areas of criminology and local policy making. However, it will also be of interest to community safety and crime prevention practitioners who need to have a critical understanding of the development and likely future direction of community safety programmes.
Introduction: asking questions of community safety ~ Peter Squires; Section one: Community safety: an incomplete project?: 'You know you're being watched everywhere': young people, custodial experiences and community safety ~ Carlie Goldsmith; Community safety and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities ~ Derek McGhee; Community safety, the family and domestic violence ~ Paula Wilcox; Ethnic minorities and community safety ~ Marion FitzGerald and Chris Hale; Section two: Community safety: a contested project?: The local politics of community safety: local policy for local people? ~ Matt Follett; The police and community safety ~ Barry Loveday; Community safety and the private security sector ~ Mark Button; Outreach drug work and Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships: square pegs in round holes? ~ Adrian Barton; Section three: Community safety: a flawed project?: Community safety and corporate crime ~ Steve Tombs and Dave Whyte; Community safety and victims: who is the victim of community safety? ~ Sandra Walklate; Young women, community safety and informal cultures ~ Lynda Measor; Section four: Community safety: overrun by enforcement?: Community safety and social exclusion ~ Lynn Hancock; Community safety and young people: 21st-century homo sacer and the politics of injustice ~ Dawn Stephen; Contradictions and dilemmas: the rise and fall of community safety? ~ Peter Squires.
