Security, policing and social control

Post-Crash City conference series

Prior to the crash of 2008 much criminology and social policy analysis presented us with an impression of policing that mixed styles of zero-tolerance with more community-centred forms. The question of community safety and harm reduction more generally has given way in the past decade to a broader sense of anxiety and crisis that meshes a number of military style public engagements (on terror, drugs and crime) with local actions on anti-social behaviour and community fracture, itself generated in many instances by previous rounds of industrial loss and crises of masculine and community identity.

New forms of extreme political affiliation have supplanted or been rolled-into conventional policy systems while security itself has become more fully embedded in aspects of urban and neighbourhood life.

How can we understand human and urban modes of security after the crash? What are the prospects for pro-social, joyful and vivacious community life? How can the question of social control be articulated in relation to notions of accountable, locally effective and engaged patterns of policing?

More information about the Post-Crash City conference series

Post-crash city Policing conference programme (PDF , 187kb)

Post-Crash City series schedule (PDF , 155kb)