Securing Nightlife: Media Representations of Public and Private Policing

There is ongoing ambivalence concerning door staff and crowd controllers in the night-time economy (NTE). Expanded private security is often acknowledged as a legitimate solution to the fear people experience in relation to urban night leisure. Yet there is significant official, media and public concern regarding the lack of regulation and governance over an industry still grounded in masculine aggression and with a long history of criminal association. Australian public and media concerns about ‘bouncers’ have grown dramatically in line with the expansion of night leisure, peaking after episodes such as the violent death of former cricketer David Hookes in 2004. This paper draws on the results of a fifteen-year archival search of The Sydney Morning Herald, The Daily Telegraph and other major Australian newspapers to analyse concerns regarding private security in a society that is increasingly anxious and sensitised to the risks associated with the city after dark.Sydney Institute of Criminology; School of Social Sciences at the University of Western Sydne

Patron offending and intoxication in night time entertainment districts (POINTED) : a study protocol

Risky alcohol consumption is the subject of considerable community concern in Australia and internationally, particularly the risky drinking practices of young people consuming alcohol in the night-time economy. This study will determine some of the factors and correlates associated with alcohol-related risk-taking, offending and harm in and around licensed venues and night-time entertainment precincts across five Australian cities (three metropolitan and two regional). The primary aim of the study is to measure levels of pre-drinking, drinking in venues, intoxication, illicit drug use and potentially harmful drinking practices (such as mixing with energy drinks) of patrons in entertainment areas, and relating this to offending, risky behaviour and harms experienced. The study will also investigate the effects of license type, trading hours, duration of drinking episodes and geographical location on intoxication, offending, risk-taking and experience of harm. Data collection involves patron interviews (incorporating breathalysing and drug testing) with 7500 people attending licensed venues. Intensive venue observations (n=112) will also be undertaken in a range of venues, including pubs, bars and nightclubs. The information gathered through this study will inform prevention and enforcement approaches of policy makers, police and venue staff.<br /

Policing nightlife : the representation and transformation of security in Sydney's night-time economy

Since colonial times, night-time leisure and drinking have been major and contradictory sources of official and legal concern in Sydney. This thesis focuses on the historical and social conditions, cultural meanings and regulatory controls that have shaped both public and private forms of policing in Sydney’s night-time economy (NTE). In so doing, it reflects more broadly on changes in the nature of contemporary ‘policing’ and how aspects of neoliberalism and the ideal of the ‘24-hour city’ have shaped policing, security and night-time leisure. This research also analyses the effectiveness of policies and regulations governing policing and private security in the NTE in the context of media, political and public debates about regulation, and the gendered and highly masculine aspects of much of this work. The primary empirical basis of this thesis is a study of nightlife comprising observational fieldwork and in-depth semi-structured interviews. This research focuses on four specific active nightlife sites in Sydney in order to provide detailed observations of nightlife and was conducted between 2008 and 2013. Interviews with a range of key informants give insights regarding the occupational cultures and the collective outlooks and concerns of both the policing and private security sectors. These interviews are dedicated to advancing a deeper understanding of subjective aspects and understandings of safety, security and regulation in the NTE. This thesis also considers data from historical accounts of early New South Wales (NSW), policy debates, media accounts, and officially sourced quantitative evidence. Throughout this thesis inner Sydney after dark is presented as a place of both real and imagined risk, a ‘frontier’ (Melbin 1978) where apparent freedom and transgression are closely linked, and where regulation of leisure and collective drinking has been diffused throughout an expanding network of state and private actors. Here, Sydney’s contemporary NTE is understood as the product of an intersection of both local and global transformations, as policing comes to incorporate more and more ‘private’ personnel empowered to regulate ‘public’ drinking and nightlife. There are obvious contradictions in ‘policing’ an expanded NTE that is often linked to social disorder, but which also provides a significant source of income for the state economy and private sector interests. Government and political ambivalence regarding the role and value of alcohol and associated leisure is reflected in the development and adoption of strategies regarding the policing and regulation of nightlife. The frequent influence of the media has made the application of stable regulation more difficult, and it has also limited policing strategy. In this occupational domain, the role of both public and private policing bodies is ambiguous and in constant flux. Whereas private security meet some concerns regarding the disorder associated with a profitable NTE, a perceived lack of regulation and control of the industry can set off public alarm. At the same time, public police do not have the capacity to monitor all nightlife space and placate concern and fear of after-dark violence and incivility. Hence, NSW Police have resorted to a focus on high-visibility, ‘problem-oriented’ strategies, that may alienate nightlife revellers and other members of the local community rather than increase public confidence in their ability to effectively regulate problematic behaviour. There is also an underlying tension between the expression of traditional occupational masculinity among police and private security and the erosion of these identities by reform and regulation in Sydney’s NTE. Nightlife policing and ‘doorwork’ are highly gendered and frequently shaped by the desire to project positive masculine imagery in group and public settings. Despite the shared experience of work shaped by the expansion and contradictions of the NTE, the relationship between public police and private security is left wanting in addressing disorder. This frequently dysfunctional relationship remains as a major challenge to the effective governance of the city after dark

Securing nightlife : media representations of public and private policing

There is ongoing ambivalence concerning door staff and crowd controllers in the night-time economy (NTE). Expanded private security is often acknowledged as a legitimate solution to the fear people experience in relation to urban night leisure. Yet there is significant official, media and public concern regarding the lack of regulation and governance over an industry still grounded in masculine aggression and with a long history of criminal association. Australian public and media concerns about ‘bouncers’ have grown dramatically in line with the expansion of night leisure, peaking after episodes such as the violent death of former cricketer David Hookes in 2004. This paper draws on the results of a fifteen-year archival search of The Sydney Morning Herald, The Daily Telegraph and other major Australian newspapers to analyse concerns regarding private security in a society that is increasingly anxious and sensitised to the risks associated with the city after dark

Crime, policing and (in)security : press depictions of Sydney's night-time economy

The night-time economy is a space of significant anxiety and concern. Recent high-profile incidents of alcohol-related violence in Sydney, Australia, have exacerbated community fears about the risks associated with the city after dark and placed the regulation and policing of nightlife in the media spotlight. This article is based on a content analysis of newspaper representations of Sydney’s night-time economy and the policing and security of nightlife settings from 1996 to 2012. It argues that public police and private security are portrayed in contrasting ways. Print media reflects public ambivalence and insecurity by representing the private security industry as unruly and violent, and with links to criminality. In contrast, media portrayals of New South Wales Police reflect the conscious efforts of an increasingly media-aware police organisation to protect its public image and reinforce its occupational legitimacy

Gendered responsibilisation in the night-time economy

Young women engaging in the night-time economy (NTE) are said to be targets of a process of neoliberal ‘responsibilisation’ that places the onus on young women to ensure ‘self- protection’ from any potential ‘risks’. This gendered regulation is underpinned by neoliberalism and has implications for fear of crime and precautionary strategies, as well as young women’s engagement with the NTE. This study, which is based on a research project undertaken in 2015 that involved 10 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with young female revellers from Sydney, examines the highly gendered nature of regulation and responsibilisation in the NTE, with a focus on the role it plays in shaping the lived experience of these spaces for young women. In particular, this paper explores the contradictory dualism of ‘fun’ and ‘regulation’ that often governs young women’s experience of nightlife settings as well as their perceptions and decisions relating to risk-taking while participating in the NTE. The behaviour of young women who participated in this project suggests a gendered embodiment of ‘responsible’ engagement. Indeed, it is argued that the highly gendered responsibilisation process outlined in this paper often curtails women’s ability to fully engage and enjoy the NTE in the same way that their male counterparts do. This project is particularly important as research shows that victim-blaming discourses specifically target women, making them accountable for their own victimisation when participating in public spaces and creating feelings of ‘guilt’ when they ‘risk’ or ‘fail’ to self-protect

Nightlife ethnography, violence, policing and security

Night leisure has long served as a social site for the enactment and reproduction of violence in Australia. To a significant, but now shifting, extent this has been implicitly condoned in a situation of official disinterest, lax policing and limited public attention. Existing criminological paradigms of explanation that focus almost exclusively on interactive honour contests (Polk 1999) between men have downplayed the fostering of such violence in state institutional arrangements of public drinking that shore up private profit via promoting high levels of consumption. Equally, popular accounts of conflicts, assaults and even killings as the result of an inherent social pattern of male sexual competition serve to naturalise violence as gendered bedrock. After dark violence has continued to blight public leisure with major social, criminal justice and public health cost. The connection of nightlife and masculine violence has been thrown into even sharper relief

Sexual harassment and violence at Australian music festivals : reporting practices and experiences of festival attendees

Despite the well-documented under-reporting of sexual violence, to date, no research has considered reporting practices within the specific context of music festivals. Drawing on 16 in-depth interviews with victim-survivors, this article examines survivors’ experiences of (non)reporting sexual violence in festival settings. We argue that while some barriers to reporting are shared across contexts, others play out in context-specific ways. Our research argues that the liberal, often transgressive culture of music festivals, combined with site-specific policing practices and spatial context, creates unique impediments to reporting with particular implications in responding to, and aiming to prevent, sexual violence at music festivals

Locking-out uncertainty : conflict and risk in Sydney's night-time economy

This chapter considers the tension between risk, pleasure, and uncertainty in the context of Sydney nightlife. Specifically, it tracks the New South Wales (NSW) government’s recasting of a night-time economy based on neoliberal market freedoms, individual self-regulation, and the promise of a civilized drinking culture to one where danger and risk were to be managed through illiberal ‘lockouts’ and draconian legal deterrents. Under these ‘lockout laws’, the relationship between alcohol consumption and violence has been rendered self-evident, with dangerous groups and their drinking cultures managed through a new level of state intervention. However, for many, the regulation of uncertainty also meant the end of fun and excitement. The ongoing conflict over the regulation of Sydney’s nightlife explored in the chapter offers a snapshot of attempts to manage uncertainty through risk narratives and the implications of this regulation

Carnival, sexual violence and harm at Australian music festivals

Much has been written about the search for carnivalesque release in late-modern society, but relatively less attention has been paid to the harms experienced within this practice. Based on mixed-methods qualitative research including observational fieldwork at a large, multi-day camping festival in NSW, Australia, and in-depth interviews with victim-survivors of sexual violence occurring at Australian music festivals, this paper considers music festivals as sites of contemporary carnival. The paper examines the way in which situational, environmental and gendered dynamics shape these transgressive experiences. In doing so, it advances cultural criminological understandings of the carnivalesque by highlighting the bounded nature of carnival and the ‘cultural scaffolding’ that enables sexual violence and harassment at music festival events