Social Control: The Role of 'Bouncers'

Most of the work investigating the regulatory role of ‘bouncers’ as ‘gate keepers’ of the night-time economy has been carried out by the authors cited below (Dick Hobbs, Phil Hadfield, Stuart Lister, Simon Winlow , Lee Monahan).

Hadfield, P., (25 May 2006) Bar Wars: Contesting the Night in Contemporary British Cities: (Clarendon Studies in Criminology): (Paperback).

Hobbs, D., Lister, S., Hadfield, P., Winlow, S. and Hall, S. (2000) “Receiving Shadows: Governance and Liminality in the Night-Time Economy”, British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 51, No. 4, pp. 701-17.

Hobbs, D, Hadfield, P Lister, S, Winlow, S (2002) “Door Lore: The Arts and Economics of Intimidation”, British Journal of Criminology, 42(2), 352-70.

Hobbs, D, Hadfield, P Lister, S, Winlow, S (2003) Bouncers: Violence and Governance in the Night-time Economy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
This book regroups all the ethnographic work on the night-time economy carried out by the authors.

Hobbs, D; Winlow, S, Hadfield, P; Lister, S (2005) “Violent Hypocrisy
Governance and the Night-time Economy”, European Journal of Criminology,
Volume 2 (2) pp. 161–183.
The development of alcohol-based night-time economies as part of government-sponsored post-industrial urban regeneration involves two interconnected political and economic processes. The first is the shift to a consumer economy, and the second is the movement within local governance from the provision of services towards a focus upon nurturing economic growth. The violence and disorder that have resulted from the huge expansion in these night-time economies have produced a crisis for state policing that has led, via licensing, to the expansion of commercially relevant control strategies. This paper, based upon extensive empirical research, discusses the hypocrisy that is inherent in the governance of liminal license

Hobbs, D, Hadfield, P Lister, S, Winlow, S (2005) “Violence and Control in the Night-time Economy”, European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, 13(1), 89-102.

Lister, S (2001) ”Accounting for Bouncers”, Criminal Justice: 1(4) pp 363-384

Lister, S (2001) “Closing time for Crime and Disorder’, Police Review, 30, p 2-21.

Lister, S et al (2001) “ ‘ Be nice’ : The Training of Bouncers”, Criminal Justice Matters: 45, pp.20-21.

Monaghan, L (2001) “Regulating 'Unruly' Bodies: Work Tasks, Conflict and Violence in Britain's Night-Time Economy”,British Journal of Sociology, 53(3), p403-429.

Monaghan, L.F (2002) “Hard Men, Shop Boys and Others: Embodying Competence in a Masculinist Occupation”, Sociological Review, Vol 5 (3), pp. 334-355.

Tomsen, S (2005) “Boozers and Bouncers': Masculine Conflict, Disengagement and the Contemporary Governance of Drinking-Related Violence and Disorder”, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, Vol 38 (3), pp. 283-297
The links between crime, violence and male offending are now more deeply researched in a growing international literature that understands much antisocial and criminal behaviour as a social resource for the attainment and protection of masculine identities. Nevertheless, the tie between masculinity and nonoffending has been much less explored. This focus group study of understandings of public drinking-related conflict and violence among young male drinkers and security officers in a combined urban and rural district of New South Wales illustrates the significance and complexity of these links. Masculine concerns inform a readiness for involvement with conflict and its enjoyment through the prominence of issues of social status, gender policing, honour and carnival during different social occasions. But this must be understood in relation to the different masculinity 'projects' (Connell, 1995) that contrast security officers with an idealised professional self-image and the majority of drinkers, from a more violent minority. A surprisingly common pattern of 'respectable' masculine subjectivity informs disengagement from serious violence. This is often characterised by an exaggerated view of the rational male self as safe and in control of most social interaction in dangerous public contexts. The pitfalls of this may even be enhanced by the new influence of campaigns around 'risky' public drinking that aim to instill ideals of responsible self-governance.

Winlow, S, Hobbs, D, Lister, S and Hadfield, P (2001) “Get Ready to Duck: Bouncers and the Realities of Ethnographic Research on Violent Groups”, British Journal of Criminology 41, pp.536-548.
This paper seeks to address some of the pragmatic and ethical issues encountered when researching violence.