(Un)governable cities: security networks and the governance of Danish nightlife

Aims

The research project aims to explore how the formation of public-private partnerships have implications for the regulation of nightlife district. Public-private partnerships – at times called Safe Nightlife Partnerships – bring together actors such as police, municipal authorities, bar owners and other relevant actors. More specifically, the project explores:  

• How are public-private policing network established, negotiated and contested in nightlife settings?

­•  How does the formation of plural policing assemblages effect the production of nightlife orders?

• How are public and private boundaries (re)configured through plural policing partnerships?

• How do the formation of policing partnerships effect the organisation of authorised use of force?

The project will advance our understanding of the ways in which production of order and safety in nightlife is increasingly the outcome of concrete network formation processes, mundane negotiations of interests and perspectives and power struggles between police, municipal authorities, local venue owners, bouncers and other nightlife actors. In this way, the project will contribute to existing research information and provide new insights, which can be used by authorities and other stakeholders eager to set up preventive partnerships in nightlife.

Background

In the post-industrial city, nightlife districts have gained economic, social and governmental prominence. While a sprawling night-time economy offers new opportunities for cities to reinvent themselves as places of consumption, nightlife district are also associated with public drunkenness, disorder, violence and young adults’ experimentation with illegal ‘club drugs’. In an attempt to address these problems, the policing of nightlife districts is undergoing significant changes, including the emergence of local coalitions between public authorities, venue owners and bouncers. Within these networks, public and private actors are expected to collaborate and take responsibility for nightlife safety. In this research project, we explore how the formation and dynamics of plural policing complexes is implicated in the production of order and safety in Danish nightlife. 

The study:

The research project uses a mixed-method approach, including qualitative methods (interviews, observations), and quantitative analysis of data from police registers. As part of the research project, we have interviewed 8 police officers, 32 venue owners, 19 municipal actors, 2 license office representatives and 28 bouncers.  

The projects runs from 2015 to 2018.

Funding:

The project is funded by the Danish Ministry of Justice, Scandinavian Research Council for Criminology, and Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research, Aarhus University.

Project outcome:

Søgaard, T.F. (2018).Voices of the Banned: Emergent Causality and the Unforeseen Consequences of Patron Banning Policies. Contemporary Drug Problems. 1-18. (Published online before print). 

Tidsskriftartikel

Søgaard, T.F. & Houborg, E. (2018). Plural policing webs: unveiling the various forms of partnering and knowledge exchange in the production of nightlife territoriality. In: Gundhus, H.O.I., Fyfe, N., Rønn, K.V. (Ed.). Moral Issues in Intelligence-Led Policing. London: Routledge.

Søgaard, T.F., & Houborg, E. (2017). Sikkerhedsnetværk i nattelivet. Justitsministeriet.dk, Justitsministeriet.

Søgaard, T.F., Houborg, E., & Pedersen, M.M. (2017). Drug policing assemblages: Repressive drug policies and the zonal banning of drug users in Denmark’s club land. International Journal of Drug Policy, 41, 118-125.

Søgaard, T.F., Houborg, E., & Tutenges, S. (2016). Nightlife Partnership Policing: (Dis)trust Building Between Bouncers and the Police in the War on Gangs. Nordic Journal of Studies in Policing, 3(2), 132-153.