Key Terms

  1. Antisocial behaviour: low-level persistent nuisance behaviour, not all of which is criminal, traditionally has not been a high priority for police services, even though it has been a significant problem in many communities. The 1998 Crime and Disorder Act introduced Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBO) that seek to regulate future conduct. Police or local authorities can apply for an ASBO in the magistrates court. Although ASBOs are civil-law provisions, breaching them is a criminal offence. Anti-Social Behaviour Contracts are a lower-level intervention that seek provide a framework whereby individuals or families are offered support in return for their commitment to improved conduct. The number of ASBOs issued has declined steeply in recent years.

  2. ‘Extended police family’: a phrase developed with the police reform agenda in England and Wales in the last decade or so, it recognises that traditional policing activities are increasingly provided by a mixture of sworn constables, Special Constables, Police Community Support Officers, Neighbourhood Wardens, traffic wardens, and other public and private sector agencies.

  3. Plural policing: while policing has never been the sole preserve of the public police service, increasing attention is paid to the proliferation and range of those who regulate social behaviour. The private security industry pre-dates the public police but the concept of plural policing reflects the wider development of ‘third party’ policing whereby agencies such as banks, schools, and insurance companies are made responsible for regulating and reporting on aspects of their clients’ behaviour. Not only does plural policing mean new constellations of agencies, it also changes principles of policing, raising questions of legitimacy, justice and equity. Pluralisation also means that policing is a property that emerges from relations and networks, rather than being the output of a particular institution, see also ‘private security’.

  4. Private security: although analysis of policing has tended to concentrate upon the role of the public-sector police, private companies have played an important role in crime prevention and control work for very many decades. Reliable estimates of the size and scope of the private security industry are difficult to come by but studies tend to suggest that it is comparable, in terms of the number of staff employed in the sector, with the public police service. In an era when the development of plural policing and the ‘extended police family’ are high on political and policy agendas the role of the private sector has come under increasing scrutiny; see also ‘plural policing’.

  5. Multi-agency partnerships: a broader range of public sector agencies have assumed a role in crime prevention and community safety in recent years. A locally coordinated multi-agency approach to crime prevention had been advocated for many years before the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act placed Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships on a statutory footing. The inclusion of housing, education, health, fire service and other agencies from the public, private and voluntary sectors has removed the police’s former pre-eminence in crime prevention, although it is often suggested they remain dominant partners amid these networks.