Urban Surveillance and the Struggle between Safe and Exciting Nightlife Districts

Abstract

Cities attract vast numbers of people at night (Roberts and Eldridge 2009). In recent decades the evening economy has started to play a significant role in city centre regeneration, with alcohol related establishments as the driving force (Hollands and Chatterton 2003). Concerns about personal safety and fear of crime have become central in determining the success of these leisure-based inner-city areas (Judd 2003, Bannister et al. 2006). This attitude is also reflected in academic work, where most studies explore the late night economy in terms of alcohol consumption, disorder and anti-social behaviour (Hobbs et al. 2003, Hadfield 2006, Monaghan 2002, Plant and Plant 2006, Winlow and Hall 2006). Nightlife districts are, however, favoured by visitors for their adventure and excitement (Hubbard 2005). The question raised in this paper is how surveillance measures in different nightlife districts are legitimized, taking into account the fact that these districts need not only to be safe but also stimulating. Based on an analysis of policy documents, nighttime observations and expert interviews with stakeholders in the Safe Nightlife Programmes of Rotterdam and Utrecht, different local safety measures, their legitimizations and their outcomes in different local urban settings will be analysed.

Whose Responsibility? The Role of Bouncers in Policing the Public Spaces of Nightlife Districts

“…Today Rotterdam has the largest number of publicly installed CCTV cameras (350 compared to 87 in Utrecht) and is the only city in the Netherlands in which police watch live footage 24/7 (van Liempt and van Aalst, ). Rotterdam clearly represents an example of ‘zero tolerance' surveillance and policing in the Dutch NTE (van Liempt, ).…”

“…Research with bouncers in Amsterdam shows that visitors increasingly make use of their right to file official complaints against bouncers and that they have become quite articulate (Nabben et al ., ). Moreover, most Dutch cities have implemented anti‐discrimination panels ( Panel Deurbeleid ) as part of Safe Nightlife Policies in order to try to tackle the issue of misbehaving bouncers (van Liempt and van Aalst, ): customers of night clubs and bars can submit official complaints to these panels if they feel bouncers have not treated them correctly. As a result, we managed to set up official interviews with only four male bouncers in Rotterdam, one of whom is a second‐generation immigrant.…”

Fear of crime and affective ambiguities in the night-time economy

“…Since 2001 the city council has implemented a broad variety of 'safe nightlife' measures, even though the ratio of instances of crime to the number of consumers in the nightlife districts was low given the city's size and compared with other Dutch cities (Snippe et al, 2006). The central nightlife district is covered by many CCTV cameras, complemented with on-site patrolling of a special 'nightlife team' of police officers working together with pub and club owners (see van Liempt and van Aalst, 2012, for further details). Utrecht has a young population, with many inhabitants under 18 years (20 per cent) and between 18 and 26 years (19 per cent), mainly due to the presence of a large university.…”

“…Nightlife facilities are clustered in the city centre, consisting of a mix of restaurant, cinemas, (small) pubs and clubs without strict 'closing times' or regulation of alcohol sales (Schwanen et al, 2012). Utrecht was selected because it is the fifth-largest city in The Netherlands and one of the first to develop and implement Safe Nightlife Policies (van Liempt and van Aalst, 2012). Since 2001 the city council has implemented a broad variety of 'safe nightlife' measures, even though the ratio of instances of crime to the number of consumers in the nightlife districts was low given the city's size and compared with other Dutch cities (Snippe et al, 2006).…”

“…Given on-going trends of the hybridisation and privatisation of public space in the Netherlands and elsewhere (Kohn, 2004), many of the streets, squares and alleys we considered are no longer simply public. This blurring of the public/private distinction is also reflected in the 'safe nightlife policies' that many Dutch cities have adopted since around 2000 to regulate their NTE (van Liempt and van Aalst, 2012). These policies are a form of nodal governance (Hadfield, 2008) in which public stakeholders-usually the city council and the police-co-operate with the nightlife industry and private security firms in order to increase visitors' experiences of safety.…”