1.1 The Securitisation of Society: Security as a Civic Responsibility
It's a brisk spring evening at the opening meeting of a neighbourhood watch team in a small town in the Dutch province of North Brabant. For years there have been regular break-ins in the area. In response, a group of residents decided to set up a neighbourhood watch. Tonight the team presents itself to its fellow residents. At the start of the ceremony at a local park, attendants chat with one another while enjoying coffee and cake. The initiator of the team is engaged in a conversation with the mayor, recognizable by his chain of office. The mayor appears to be a big fan of the initiative: āWe encourage neighbourhood watch throughout our municipality. When residents want to establish a team, we immediately support them!ā Scepticism of some of the attendants that watch teams suit a retreating government and cost-cutting police force is waved off by the mayor:
Of course, the police are faced with a diminished capacity and cannot do everything by themselves. Citizens will therefore have to do their part. But then isnāt this a wonderful way to contribute?
Following suit with the English-speaking world, the phenomenon of āneighbourhood watchā has boomed in the Netherlands in recent years (Lub 2016). Neighbourhood watch is a form of community crime prevention which aims to contribute to the safety and quality of life in residential areas (Schneider 2007; Sagar 2005). A neighbourhood watch team on patrol will perform duties that include identifying and reporting suspicious acts and unsafe situations to the police, educating residents about security issues, and reporting physical or social signs of disorder to local authorities, such as wrongly presented house garbage, broken streetlights or troublesome youth. Many teams actively patrol the streets several times a week. During patrols, volunteers are recognizable by their uniform fluorescent clothing. The first neighbourhood watch schemes actively carried out in the Netherlands date back to the 1980s (Van Noije and Wittebrood 2008). Yet the phenomenon recently received a second wind. Local news media regularly report about new teams that are ceremoniously inaugurated by mayors and aldermen.
The emergence of neighbourhood watch is part of a general trend in which the Dutch government and the police promote the participation of citizens when it comes to quality of life and safety issues. As in other Western nations, the neoliberal discourse of Big Society has become dominant in the Netherlands, stressing greater self-responsibility of citizens and promoting voluntarism in a variety of public spheres (Lub and Uyterlinde 2012; Crowe 2011). The realm of security is no exception and is increasingly seen as a civic responsibility. Growing numbers of Dutch citizens are taking this responsibility by engaging in co-productions of public safety, such as neighbourhood watch schemes. According to Van der Land (2014), the popularity of neighbourhood watch in the Netherlands can also be seen as a feature of the āsecuritizationā of society, since it does not exclusively occur in āunsafeā neighbourhoods. Securitisation refers to the process whereby problems in society are increasingly viewed through the lens of security, manifested in an increase of consumption of commercial security services by both the government and the public, situational crime prevention, risk assessment, civil preventive measures and the transition from punishment to precaution in criminal justice (Zedner 2009; Ericson 2007). In a relatively short time, watch groups have become an important social institution in the Netherlands. Local authorities support volunteers and facilitate their efforts, while police often give them access to judicial information otherwise inaccessible to non-active citizens.
Compared to other security arrangements such as policing and private security, little empirical research has been done on neighbourhood watch in the Netherlands. Internationally too, the literature about the subject has been silent for a number of years, and shows several (theoretical) gaps. A decade ago, Bennett et al. (2006) conducted a meta-analysis of neighbourhood watch evaluations in English-speaking countries, and found that it is overall associated with a significant reduction in crime. But effects vary and their analysis could not shed light on the mechanisms by which watch teams contribute to local safety. Bennett et al. (2006: 453) conclude: āIt is not immediately clear why neighbourhood watch is associated with a reduction in crimeā. There are also risks involved. Recently, the Dutch media highlighted several cases of incidents with neighbourhood watch groups, ranging from ethnic profiling by volunteers (e.g. reporting every observed Polish licence plate to the police) to collisions between watch groups and immigrant youth.1 Moreover, digital surveillance techniques and social media have changed the landscape of co-production in public safety, widening citizenās opportunities for situational control and their public involvement in safety issues (Niculescu-Dinca 2016; Nhan et al. 2015; Huey et al. 2013). The digital revolution of recent years makes contemporary research on watch groups all the more paramount. Now that the monitoring of citizens by citizens increases through the use of community crime prevention programmes like neighbourhood watch aided by digital surveillance and social media, it is especially relevant to examine how such social control takes shape. What standards and norms do watch members apply when they observe and patrol the public space? When is certain conduct labelled as āsuspiciousā or a situation as āunsafeā? And how is this perception influenced by digital surveillance techniques?
Drawing from national data and ethnographic research of four different watch teams in the Netherlands, this book provides a more contemporary picture of the rise of the phenomenon of neighbourhood watch and how it functions in practice. In doing so, it opens some black boxes, advancing theoretical notions from the criminological literature and sheds light on this form of community crime control, in terms of securitisation and debates about ādigilantismā (Huey et al. 2013).
1.2 Research Questions and Analytical Perspectives
The central research questions of the present study read:
- 1.How has the phenomenon of neighbourhood watch developed in the Netherlands?
- 2.How do watch teams function in practice?
- 3.What causal mechanisms contribute to their efficacy?
- 4.What are wider social effects and moral implications of their deployment in terms of securitisation and digilantism?
The analytical framework of the research splits into three perspectives: (1) the causal mechanisms of neighbourhood watch; (2) the capacity of neighbourhood watch teams as a form of co-production of public safety; and (3) the moral implications of neighbourhood watch in light of securitisation and digilantism.
When it comes to the impact of neighbourhood watch, the core analytical perspective of this study is what causal mechanisms contribute to neighbourhood safety. In theory, a neighbourhood watch group can reduce crime and disorder in at least four different ways (see also Bennett et al. 2006). First, it can serve as a visible deterrent (Newburn 2007; Rosenbaum 1987). Burglars or residents that cause trouble might think twice before they commit an offense when the public space is actively controlled by residents. Second, neighbourhood watch can limit the opportunity for crime, for example, by informing other residents about security in and around the house or general safety issues (Cirel et al. 1977). A third possibility is that neighbourhood watch decreases crime and disorder indirectly by providing the police with information about suspicious activities or disorderly behaviour (Clarke and Hough 1984). Finally, direct intervention constitutes a potential success factor, whereby neighbourhood watch members enforce standards of desired behaviour through active social control, for example, by apprehending criminals or addressing disorderly youth (Greenberg et al. 1985). The current international research does not clarify which of the four mechanisms of crime control is dominant in neighbourhood watch schemes, whether a combination of mechanisms is at play or whether any specific theories about neighbourhood watch depend on specific local conditions, such as neighbourhood status, the level of crime in the area, or types of crime and disorder.
A second relevant research topic concerns the communication between watch teams and professionals of neighbourhood supervision. Most watch teams function as a co-production of public safety, working together with local authorities, in particular the police. Yet residential areas are characterised by many different forms of supervision. There are neighbourhoods where police officers, street wardens and concierges from housing associations all actively monitor the public space. Little is known about their mutual dynamics, and how various forms of formal and informal supervision engage with one another. What constitutes thei...