The municipal legal order in a digital world: tackling minor offenses and shaping law enforcement policies through a municipal app in Brussels

Abstract

Local authorities worldwide increasingly turn to digital, mobile and participatory applications to elicit information on the urban environment from citizens. Municipal apps allow citizens to report incidents of urban disorder, such as potholes, but also to report incidents that constitute minor criminal offenses, such as littering, vandalism, or noise nuisance. Despite the positive transparency it promotes, the digital elicitation of information from citizens does not necessarily result in a more effective or inclusive urban governance. This article explores how municipalities handle minor offenses following digital reporting in Brussels (Belgium). I argue that the municipal legal order is produced in a form more elastic, mendable and malleable to (local) demands and interests than national law. Through ethnographic research with municipal personnel, I examine where do municipal responses include a policing/punitive element, where not, and how do plural legal definitions, practical constraints and citizens’ digital demands shape the resulting interventions. I continue to propose that municipal responses to digitally-elicited reports on minor offenses are increasingly shaped not by specific legal mandates, but by the desire to maintain an urban aesthetic devoid of “anti-social behavior,” to the benefit of a limited number of residents and the detriment of others.

Keywords:

• Local authorities
• municipal legal order
• municipal apps
• digital governance
• urban governance

Acknowledgments

This article is the result of a research project undertaken at the Crime & Society research group of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, under the promotorship of prof. Lucas Melgaço and prof. Kristel Beyens. My thanks are also given to dr. Iris Steenhout, my co-researcher in this project, for her participation in a number of interviews conducted and her valuable feedback. The research project, PUL-MOBIL: Producing Urban Legibility: Mobile City Applications and the Governance of Minor Offenses was made possible by a generous Prospective Research grant from Innoviris, the Brussels’ region research agency.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).