The 2012 London Olympics had no precedent in UK policing. Although they knew that they faced a scenario where high expectations demanded unprecedented preparation and mobilization, there was no script to which the London and wider UK police could turn. Police strategies, tactics and operations were required to take full account of the diverse risks surrounding the Games: some of those risks were based in London, while other policing challenges emanated from further afield.
The main focus of Olympic police activity was Stratford in the London borough of Newham. Stratford hosted the 560 acre Olympic Park (OP) which contained within its boundaries the Olympic Stadium and various other Olympic structures: namely, the Aquatics Centre, Basketball Arena, Copperbox, Riverbank Arena, Velopark, Water Polo Arena, Athletesâ Village, and Media Centre. The other Olympic venue in Newham, located three miles from the Olympic Park in the south of the borough, was the ExCel Arena, which hosted a large number of indoor events including: boxing, fencing, judo, taekwondo, table tennis, weightlifting and wrestling. Another site integral to the Olympics, but not an Olympic venue, was the Westfield Mall, located adjacent to the Olympic Park, which, when it opened in September 2011, held the status of Europeâs largest retail shopping mall.
The summer Olympic and Paralympic Games is the worldâs largest single-city sporting and cultural event, attracting an audience of millions of spectators, and billions of television viewers. The 2012 Games was seven years in preparation, and was delivered at a cost estimated somewhere between the official figure of ÂŁ9 billion and the media quoted figure of ÂŁ24 billion. The chosen location, Newham, was an economically under-privileged and highly diverse location for staging the Olympics: the sixth poorest local authority in England, with just over half of its adult population (aged 16â74) in work. Newham, along with the neighbouring borough of Tower Hamlets, has been identified as the UKâs most ethnically diverse borough, with over 70 per cent of residents classified as ânon-whiteâ, and Londonâs highest number of recent UK residents (defined as living in the UK for two years or less). Newham was also Londonâs youngest borough (the average age was around 32), with the highest national levels of resident overcrowding (over 25 per cent of households).1 Yet much of the boroughâs poverty was submerged by its own marginality, and its scale could only be approximated. In part this is due to the fact that the borough featured hundreds of illegal âsupershedsâ, typically located in back-gardens, housing migrant workers and others too poor to afford more orthodox accommodation. Newham was particularly characterized by high levels of âchurnâ (annual household moves), in part a consequence of its large stock of rented accommodation; some parts of the borough were estimated to experience an annual population churn of up to 30 per cent. Clearly, for the police, and for social scientists undertaking research, Newham was a highly complex social setting for the 2012 Olympics.
Researching Newham and the police: the 2012 Games
In this book we examine the everyday policing of Newham in relation to the London 2012 Olympics. Although our research began in 2008, our main focus was on the period from January 2011 to December 2012; covering the build-up to the Olympics, the actual Games in July and August 2012, and the immediate post-Olympic context. We discuss how police defined, monitored, prioritized, contained and investigated âOlympic-relatedâ crime, and how âOlympic-relatedâ policing connected to the policing of Newham. The research focused on the policies and practices of both specialist Olympic police personnel, and local (i.e. borough) policing. Our study provides uniquely rich data and subsequent analysis in two main senses: first, with respect to the everyday policing of the Olympic mega-event; and second, more widely, with respect to the contemporary policing of highly diverse populations within global cities.
We explore in particular how the Olympics impacted on local policing in Newham, and how both the routine and the extraordinary were managed and policed at a time of exceptional organizational change within the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS). Our study builds heavily upon our extensive prior personal knowledge and research experience both in East London and in relation to sport mega-events (see Armstrong et al. 2011; Fussey et al. 2011; Giulianotti 1991; Hobbs 1988), and is based upon unprecedented access to personnel, meetings, sites and documentary evidence at a variety of levels within the MPS, Newham Council (the âLondon Borough of Newhamâ, or LBN), and across the wider borough population.
The origins of this project are to be found in the relationship between one member of the research team and a former student, then a serving Newham police officer, who suggested that the policing challenge of hosting of the 2012 Games could provide an interesting research topic. A second member of the team specialized in researching various aspects of the sociology of sport, in particular sporting mega-events. The third, a native of Newham, has undertaken a considerable body of ethnographic work in the borough over a 30-year period. Some tentative informal meetings and tours of the borough convinced us that the research was viable, but we needed a âbadgeâ that would literally and metaphorically open doors to the Newham police. Accreditation was obtained via the then MPS Head of Strategic Analysis, who in the interim had also contacted one of the authors with regard to the possibility of carrying out some Olympic-based police research. Eventually we obtained a grant from the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) which provided funding for 30 months of research, including the employment of a full-time researcher over that period.2
Our project consisted of extensive qualitative research. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with LBN council employees, with MPS officers of all ranks, particularly those in specific Olympic-related roles, and with staff from other Olympic-related security and emergency services. Ethnographic data was collected by attending strategic meetings of senior officers, sitting amidst desk-based staff in the four MPS stations in Newham, and working shifts with mobile patrol officers of the borough. No doors were closed to us. At times we asked permission â no request was ever refused, and on other occasions we simply sat in on meetings, hoping that we would not be thrown out. The confusion, never resolved throughout the research, as to whom we âbelongedâ, was an asset. In terms of responsibility we were âsomeone elseâs problemâ, we knew someone in Scotland Yard, we had security access and a laminated identity card, and so we went largely unchallenged.
We attended Olympic security meetings featuring local businesses and community representatives, sat in on numerous LBN, police and Olympic agency forums, and both made and renewed acquaintances with a wide range of individuals in the local community â often utilizing the familiar empirical technique of âhanging aroundâ. The latter method was used in the streets, cafes and pubs of Newham, but was also a strategy for researching the police, who generally enjoyed the novel presence of interested outsiders. Importantly, by virtue of the staggering levels of pre-Olympic re-deployment of police officers, we sometimes found ourselves as the most knowledgeable attendees at meetings with regard to both the borough and its policing. At times we alone could explain to relevant newcomers the historical backdrop to the events or issues under discussion.
We wish to be clear that researching the police does not equate to being âpro-policeâ. Through our extensive experience and critical reflection there was never any chance of us âgoing nativeâ, and notwithstanding the good relationships that we developed with a number of individual officers, we approached this research in much the same way as our previous research on subjects such as football hooligans, robbers, thieves, bouncers and drug dealers. Similarly, just because we were conducting research into the London Olympics, it should not be assumed that we are cheerleaders for the event. Nonetheless, we did consider that the award of the 2012 Games to London afforded a remarkable opportunity to analyse policing in a highly diverse location that was about to be struck by waves of post-industrial âregenerationâ.
Hosting the Olympics, bidding for legacy
Although the other designated Olympic boroughs in London were Hackney, Tower Hamlets, and Waltham Forest (which all adjoin the Olympic Park), as well as Greenwich (to the south of the River Thames and hosting a number of Olympic events), and Barking and Dagenham (which was named as a sixth âOlympic Boroughâ in April 2010), in recognition of its âOlympic-relatedâ regeneration plans, the 2012 Games were mostly played out in Newham.
Hosting the Olympics is often portrayed as a once in a lifetime opportunity for the large-scale redevelopment, regeneration and rebranding of a city (Burbank et al. 2001). Encapsulating this belief, the term âlegacyâ, as employed by various individuals and organisations embedded in the Olympic project, represents a means of justifying and legitimizing the costs of both bidding for and hosting the Games. Accordingly, âlegacyâ is often used as a catch-all buzzword to depict a panacea which will address any and all shortfalls within a host city â economic, social, political, and everything in between. For some, this has resulted in an over-emphasis on spatial form at the expense of social processes (Chalkley & Essex 1999). For others, the less visible âcommunity-orientedâ benefits of hosting are consistently forfeited in order to secure more spectacular, globally-focused transformations, such as new shopping complexes and cosmopolitan apartment blocks (Coaffee & Johnston 2007). Wherever it finds itself, the Olympic event is wrapped in narratives of human development, bound up in the Olympic Charter,3 which emphasises dignity and harmonious human development. This contrasts with those investigative journalists and critical social scientists who view the Games as synonymous with bribery, elitism and remarkable levels of realpolitik (Jennings 2000; Lenskyj, 2000, 2002). The Olympics are seductive, but contested.
The process of bidding for the Games is extensive and expensive, necessitating the assiduous cultivation of political capital both within and beyond the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The Olympic bidding process begins with the submission of a cityâs application by its National Olympic Committee (NOC) to the IOC, and costs an initial total of $500,000 in fees. The IOC Executive Board selects cities qualified to proceed to the next phase, which involves candidate cities being studied by the IOC Evaluation Commission composed of IOC members, representatives of sport federations, NOCs, athletes, the International Paralympic Committee and experts in various fields. The Commission members then make inspection visits whilst being briefed on details covered in the Candidature File, and during this period the candidate city must guarantee that it will be able to fund the Games. The choice of host city is made by the assembled IOC members and the successful bid delegation signs the âHost City Contractâ, leaving a lead-up time of seven years to actually staging the mega-event.
The promotion of former Olympic gold medallist and twice world record-holder Lord Coe to Head of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) led to a specific focus in the London Olympic bid. For Coe, the 2012 Games were intended to âinspire a generationâ to participate in sport, and to be of holistic benefit to the nationâs youth. Mike Lee, Director of Communications and Public Affairs for the 2012 bid explained: âWe also set about developing key themes that we could reinforce through presentations and communications events. The core elements were regeneration of the East End of London, the diversity of London, the legacy of the Games, use of Londonâs landmark iconic sites and what the Olympics could offer British and world sportâ (Lee, 2006: 35).
On 6 June 2005 the 117th IOC Session, at which the host city for the 2012 Games was to be announced, was held in Singapore. Paris was widely considered to be the favourite; London had scored poorly on criteria for transportation and public support, but received good feedback on accommodation, facilities and promised sporting legacy. In the one-hour final presentations of the candidate cities, Londonâs Olympic pitch was delivered by an ensemble of the British Prime Minister, a member of the British royal family, the British Olympic Association (B...
