Urban ‘disorders’, ‘problem places’ and criminal justice in Scotland

Abstract

An ecological explanation of delinquency shifts the focus of analysis away from the crimes of the powerful such as financial crimes, tax evasion, high-level corruption, criminal warfare and corporate crime (see Croall and Ross, this volume). The relationship between crime or antisocial behaviour and the city takes on a rather different hue if the focus is on the role of ‘the City’, rather than ‘the city’, as evident in the antisocial consequences of financial scandals and economic crises. In this context disadvantaged neighbourhoods are further impoverished by the diffuse impacts of tax evasion and corruption and through government support for those who are already privileged (Croall 2009). Urban elites are able to shape the discourse of community safety in city regeneration strategies through the prism of commercial priorities (Coleman 2004; Coleman et al. 2005). Also neatly glossed over in much of the commentary is the relationship between leisure and consumer-driven city centre regeneration, especially the spatial concentration of pubs and clubs servicing the nightlife economy, and alcohol-related social problems in public spaces (Crawford and Flint 2009; Talbot 2007). Alcohol retail in Glasgow correlates weakly with areas of deprivation, suggesting societal-wide use (and misuse) of alcohol consumption (Ellaway et al. 2010). An alcohol-crime paradox emerges here: as one part of urban governance promotes consumer-led economic regeneration, another part manages its socially destructive consequences. For example, Dundee City Council’s Antisocial Behaviour Team is collaborating with NHS Tayside to protect health workers in the Accident and Emergency department at Ninewells Hospital from being abused, assaulted or disrupted by alcohol-fuelled patients and visitors, some of whom have been drinking heavily elsewhere in the city as participants in the ʼnight-time economy’ (Kerr 2009).