Media representation of regulated incivilities: Relevant actors, problems, solutions and the role played by experts in the Flemish press

This article analyses the representations of regulated nuisance in a section of Flemish newspapers over time. It identifies the groups of people who have been successful in conveying messages in and through Flemish press news, and explores the way they have represented problems of, and suggested solutions to, regulated incivilities over the years. Furthermore, against the backdrop of newsmaking criminology, it considers whether and how crime and justice experts have contributed to shaping the Flemish media discourse on regulated incivilities over time. Overall the analysis of press news has found that the press, by giving coverage to the voices of local institutional actors, has promoted the criminalization of nuisance and, especially, of physical incivilities. The views of criminological experts, by contrast, have remained marginal. The article concludes by suggesting how such findings present a new set of empirical and conceptual challenges for newsmaking criminology, and more generally, for public criminology

Urban space and the social control of incivilities: perceptions of space influencing the regulationof anti-social behaviour

Contemporary cities are increasingly governed through space. In this article,we examine how urban space and perceptions thereof can influence the social control inthe area of incivilities. To this end, we first inspect the existing literature, in particularthe socio-spatial studies that emphasise the importance of culture and values in theinteraction with social control. Partly drawing on examples from our previous studies,we suggest that people’s perceptions of urban space (influenced by cultural symbols,social and media representations, aesthetics and other values) affect their perceptions ofincivilities, while the latter often determine or at least importantly contribute to theshaping of the social control of incivilities. We further highlight the role of gentrifica-tion as a medium and a tool of social control. The paper concludes by discussingimplications of this for the possible future, more integrated and interdisciplinaryresearch on the social control of incivilities in the city

Inspecting the European crime prevention strategy towards incivilities

In recent years the crime prevention (CP) policies of many EU countries have been expanded up to including the regulation of uncivil and disorderly behaviour, and have been implemented at the local level through measures that have often excessively constrained individuals’ rights and freedoms. By drawing on the analysis of EU policy documents retrieved in the database EUR-lex, this article investigates whether the European CP strategy has also focused on the regulation of incivilities. Furthermore, it inspects whether any attention has been paid at the EU level to how local authorities have exercised their CP powers in the field of urban disorder. In the conclusions, the emerging results are compared against the backdrop of the existing literature on the legitimacy of incivility regulation, with the aim to draw conclusions informing the EU CP strategy targeting nuisance and its regulation