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ABSTRACT
Over the past decade the national governments of the UK have repositioned ‘community safety’ as a priority area. The complexity of reducing real and perceived crime rates and levels of antisocial behaviour is widely accepted. This has inspired the development of numerous programmes aimed at delivering safer and stronger communities in specific contexts. One of the strategies promoted in Scotland is the Community Warden Scheme, which aims to provide a ‘uniformed, semi-official police presence’ at a community level. Scotland's Community Wardens characterise the growing trend towards the pluralisation of police service providers, as a myriad of actors constitute the ‘extended policing family’. Amidst the diversification and expansion of policing actors, issues surrounding public accountability and policing authority loom large. This paper aims to critically examine the role of Scotland's Community Wardens in relation to the broader policing landscape, drawing on empirical data generated in one city (Dundee). It will start by discussing the political and policy context surrounding the creation of the Community Warden Scheme, and describing the Wardens’ main roles and responsibilities. The paper will then outline two substantive issues facing the Wardens as highlighted by the primary research. First, the importance of developing a distinct professional identity will be explored. Second, the imperative of working alongside local policing teams will be discussed. In suggesting methods of good practice, the everyday challenges of navigating intra-professional expectations, inter-professional tensions and public accountability will be critically analysed.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. This article is one of a series exploring the key themes emerging from a broader research project that critically examined the role of Community Wardens in community policing. In previous papers, I have considered the role of Community Wardens in policing young people (Brown Citation2013) and improving the environmental and social conditions of communities (Brown Citation2010). Another paper (Brown Citation2012) outlines the positive and negative features of the Community Warden Scheme from the perspectives of the Wardens themselves.
2. I have written elsewhere about the subjective and contextually specific nature of antisocial behaviour, which the Anti Social Behaviour Act 2004 (Scotland) defines as behaviour which is ‘likely to cause alarm or distress’. For a discussion of its conceptual complexity and the ways in which it has been used to discriminate against marginalised groups, particularly young people, see Brown (Citation2013).
3. In 2007, a Concordat between the Scottish Government and Local Government set out the terms of a new relationship – a key element of this is the development of Single Outcome Agreements. The Single Outcome Agreement is the means by which Community Planning Partnerships agree their strategic priorities for their local area and express those priorities as outcomes to be delivered by the partners, either individually or jointly, while showing how those outcomes should contribute to the Scottish Government's relevant National Outcomes.
4. The Scottish Executive was renamed the Scottish Government in 2007.
5. In 2006, during the second cycle of funding and following advice from an independent evaluation by Blake Stevenson Consultants (Citation2006), a Mobile Unit was established to move between and out with the existing patrol areas according to demand.
6. As with all ethnography, it is impossible to know exactly how and in what ways my presence influenced the behaviour of the Wardens and members of the public. In attempting to ensure validity and rigour, data from the walkouts and interviews was triangulated when establishing the key findings of the research (Crang and Cook Citation2007).
7. It could be claimed that the delay between the fieldwork and note taking could lead to a result distortion; however the findings were routinely checked with Wardens to ensure that what was recorded was an accurate reflection of what had taken place.
8. For a discussion of how the Wardens were also successful in engaging with marginal groups, such as young people, who have traditionally been disproportionately targeted by such policing approaches see Brown (Citation2013).