ABSTRACT
This research was primarily concerned with some of the activities of young people, and related specifically to their interest in gathering in groups in public spaces. These gatherings, either large ‘congregations’ or small clusters of adolescents ‘hanging about’ have, over recent years, generated recurring fears and concerns on the part of local residents. In turn, local residents and community groups have repeatedly complained about the behaviour and demeanour of such young people and have looked, initially to the police and the local authority, to ‘deal with’ the young people involved. Often however, policing interventions have exacerbated problems and typically did little more than displace the activities complained of for a relatively short period of time. In framing the supposed ‘problem’ in this fashion, local communities and local agencies created an issue, which runs to the very heart of our contemporary notion of community safety. The research was commissioned by a consortium of local agencies (including the Police, the Health Authority and the local District Council, and involving a steering group comprising members and officers from those agencies and also the Youth Service, and a number of Voluntary Sector agencies). It offered a timely opportunity to investigate whether the emerging arrangements for community safety planning and community problem solving could develop in ways that were inclusive of younger people rather than simply regarding them as a focal point of community concerns: in other words, as a problem requiring a solution.
