Nightlife and Crime: Social Order and Governance in International Perspective

by Phil Hadfield
Reviewed by Geoff Munro

Dr Hadfield has followed Bar Wars, in which he described “the night time economy [as posing] the greatest threat to public order in Britain today,” with an international review of associations between nightlife and criminal disorder, the role of the state, and governance of public space.

The structure of Nightlife and Crime testifies to Hadfield’s belief that the comparative study requires a close understanding of local conditions, “from the bottom up,” before any higher order interpretations are possible. Three dozen prominent and promising researchers explore the social contexts and regulatory environments of nightlife and criminal disorder in seventeen countries on four continents. Eighteen chapters comprise a worldwide survey, focused predominantly on English speaking countries including Hong Kong, plus The Netherlands, Norway and Finland, a Mediterranean bloc of Greece, Italy and Spain, and Hungary from the former Soviet bloc.

One of the sub-themes of this book is the struggle over the responsibility and role of the state in controlling the availability of and access to alcohol, and the circumstances in which it is consumed. As I was reading it the new Chief Police Commissioner in Victoria, Australia, denounced the state’s licensing rules for allowing “any idiot [to] get a liquor licence”. Yet, as Tanya Chikritzhs describes in her chapter on Australia, the dismantling over two decades of Victoria’s once formidably restrictive liquor licensing system, in order to achieve an open and competitive market for the sale of alcohol, has been used as a model by other Australian states keen to duplicate Melbourne’s “vibrant bar culture” and “24-hour city.” Significantly, Chikritzhs also points out that while the number of liquor outlets doubled in Victoria between 1991-and 2006, the rate of increase of alcohol attributable hospitalizations in Melbourne for the period 1999-2004 was double that of the rest of the country.

A similar loosening of alcohol controls in Norway, New Zealand, England, Wales and Scotland led to outcries over increased levels of risky drinking and violent crime, though there is not a necessary linear relationship because other variables are influential. Seymour and Mayock point out that Ireland’s ambivalent attitude to intoxication, higher disposable incomes, and more time expended by young people in venues there confrontation is likely, all exacerbate the risk of conflict. The authors of a chapter on South Africa perceive a “hegemonic masculinity”, which requires young males to act out an exaggerated version of manhood, as an important factor underlying high rates of nocturnal violence.

Another theme concerns how, as the state gives up its traditional powers, new forms of governance are called into being through the “privatisation of responsibility,” or arise through the non-government sector. Licensees are required to regulate themselves by, for example, acquiring private security agents, training bar staff in responsible service, joining voluntary licensing accords and adhering to other codes of practice. Meanwhile charities that provide outreach on nighttime economy streets to care for the intoxicated, sick or lost incidentally reduce street level crime, thereby forming a substitute police service.

Nevertheless demands for external controls on alcohol have not disappeared. After New Zealand expanded the class of businesses that sell alcohol and dropped the age at which people could purchase it, and experienced a rise in harmful drinking by young people, the government tried to reverse the age change. In Fiona Hutton’s summary: “…although policy makers have done all they can to encourage drinking they are now wringing their collective hands about the problems associated with increased alcohol consumption.”

Perhaps the same could be said of Scotland, which, having introduced the super-pub, increased off-licences, extended trading hours, and grown alarmed at the link between “…over consumption of alcohol and … crimes of violence,” is rethinking alcohol policy. This is one of the most intriguing chapters. Proposals to make public health an objective of licensing, to levy a social responsibility fee on liquor premises, to set a minimum price for alcohol and to limit purchase of packaged liquor to 21 year olds are being watched carefully in the Antipodes.

Apart from the analysis of the major themes, authors broach new drinking trends. These include an apparent polarisation wherein the proportion of abstainers and risky drinkers are both increasing within certain populations; the convergence of male and female drinking trajectories; the practice of preloading before visiting night time precincts, and the rise of “glassing” incidents in late night venues.

Nightlife and Crime is a most valuable work that breaks new ground and is sure to lead to further research and comparative studies in alcohol related violence, as well as other factors that contribute to heavy rates of night time offending.

Nightlife and Crime, published by Oxford University Press on 5 March 2009, is available from Amazon for £50.