NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICING AND THE PUNITIVE COMMUNITY

Since coming to power in 1997, New Labour has identified the community as the key site for tackling a range of social problems including crime and anti-social behaviour. However, recent policy initiatives in policing and neighbourhood management have significantly increased the powers of local communities to influence local affairs. Considerable academic discussion has centred on the notion of community, its efficacy to resolve problems and fragmentation within communities, but rather less interest has been shown in the implications for these policy towards marginalized groups. In this article, I wish to explore the punitive tendencies of a largely middle-class community towards a marginalized group - street-life people - and how these punitive tendencies can override the views of professionals - police officers and local authority officials who hold more lenient views based upon their direct interaction with the street life people.