Policing Public Drugs Nuisance Through The Anti-Social Behaviour Legislation: Questions and Contradictions

Abstract

This paper reports findings from a London-based study and provides evidence of rigorous law enforcement activity being enacted in drives to alleviate local areas of public drugs nuisance, namely the use of anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) and dispersal and banning orders, as well as the closure of 'crack houses'. The paper acknowledges these legislative tools were necessary to deal with the real life problems of visible drugs nuisance that had grown up in some communities, but it draws attention to the way these policing responses put already vulnerable, ill and highly disadvantaged drugs users at greater risk of marginalisation than they already experienced. Plus, the punitive reach of banning orders in the form of ASBOs and street-level policing which centres on minor drugs crimes enhances the criminalisation of low-level drugs offenders and heightened the likelihood of imprisonment. The author suggests a tension exists between community policing and the removal of visible public drug nuisance through pro-arrest strategies, and the wider government drugs policy which encourages multi-agency working to channel problem drugs users into appropriate treatment settings to assist in tackling drugs crime lifestyles.

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

“…As an example of this, Sanders (2005) has described how club security staff often display a 'blind-eye' attitude or are even complicit in the selling and use of drugs (see also Hobbs et al, 2003). Complementing these findings, Ward (2011) argues that, contrary to the hard-line approaches used to target visible hard-end drug users in public spaces in London, recreational drug use hidden within the private domains of bars and nightclubs has generated little public debate and police attention.…”

“…While existing research has suggested that the cultural normalization of clubbers' drug use (Duff, 2005) has been coupled with a relative relaxation in the regulation of drug activities inside venues (Sanders, 2005;Ward, 2011), this article challenges such assumptions by arguing for the need for more nuanced understandings of drug policing in nightlife spaces. The article points to a growing governmental intolerance of drugs in Danish nightlife spaces, and analyses how drug-using clubbers are targets of inter-related police and club security banning measures aimed at excluding them from entire nightlife districts.…”