Drug policing assemblages: Repressive drug policies and the zonal banning of drug users in Denmark’s club land

Abstract

The paper argues that a third-party policing perspective combined with assemblage theory is useful for highlighting how the enforcement of national drug policies and nightlife banning systems is shaped by their embeddedness in local 'drug policing assemblages' characterized by inter-agency relation-building, the creative combination of public and private (legal) resources and internal power struggles. It also provides evidence of how drug policing assemblages give rise to many different, and often surprising, forms of jurisdiction involving divergent performances of spaces-, objects- and authorities of governance.

An Examination of Community Awareness and Understanding of Patron Banning Provisions in Western Australia: Implications for Policy Development and Success

“…The study does not examine general awareness of zonal banning or situate consideration of the success of the provisions against the level of knowledge or understanding. The use of exclusion from public areas in response to anti-social behaviours has also been examined in other countries, such as Germany (Belina 2007 ), Canada (Sylvestre, Bernie & Bellot 2015 ), Hungary (Podoletz 2016 ) and Denmark (Sogaard, Houborg & Pedersen 2017 ), but without clear evidence of their general deterrent or other broader effect/s upon behaviour.…”

Voices of the Banned

“…Case descriptions in the police database show that 73% of drug offenses involved possession of 1 g or less of the drug in question and an additional 13% involved possession of between 1 and 2 g. In 64 cases, the specific amount was not noted; however, most of those cases were prosecuted as drug possession for personal use. This indicates that the group most likely to be targeted by zonal bans is clubbers who are caught in possession of drugs for personal consumption (see also Søgaard et al, 2017). In terms of showing the gendered distribution of bans, the POLSAS data are incomplete since the gender of the banned is only reported in 25% of the cases.…”

“…Banned youth also attempted to “enroll” (Latour, 2005) other actors into an actor network that could facilitate their access. While some participants reported that bouncers did sometimes alert police to their presence in nightlife venues (see also Søgaard et al, 2017), Janus, for instance, explained how, before heading into town, he would phone a bouncer he trusted to inquire about the numbers of officers currently patrolling the Street. If the bouncer reported that there were few officers present, Janus would take his chance and head for the Street.…”

“…While existing research on patron banning has examined authorities’ governance through banning strategies and attempted to outline the legal properties and benefits of banning orders in reducing alcohol-related harm in nightlife (Hadfield et al, 2009; Miller et al, 2016; Palmer & Warren, 2014; Room, 2012; Søgaard, Houborg, & Pedersen, 2017), there is currently very little research on those who are the targets of banning policies. 2 This is a problem because much research has demonstrated that the outcome of policies is as much a result of local settings and the actors involved as they are of top-down decisions (Aitken et al, 2002; Maher & Dixon, 1999).…”

A Governança Dos Usuários De Drogas Na Vida Noturna: Um Estudo De Caso Em Londrina, Paraná

“…Neste trabalho, em particular, interessa compreender quais mentalidades e quais tecnologias conformam as práticas que governam o consumo de drogas lícitas e ilícitas dentro de uma casa noturna de Londrina/PR. O consumo de drogas em espaços de entretenimento adulto, como casas noturnas, tem sido destacado por alguns estudos(HOBBS et al 2003;SANDERS, 2005;SØGAARD et al 2017.). Entretanto, pouco se sabe a respeito do modo como esse consumo é governado no interior desses espaços, já que os estudos voltados para a questão das drogas no país têm focado, basicamente, na governança dos usuários em espaços públicos(LEMGRUBER; BOITEUX, 2014; SCHECAIRA, 2014;MORAIS, 2006).…”