Anti-social Behaviour and ‘Civilizing’ Regulation in the British City: Comparing Victorian and Contemporary Eras

Abstract

Urban history has always been concerned with the governance of ‘unruly spaces, marginal subjects and deviant practices’ (Crook, 2008: 414). Precedents for the governance of anti-social behaviour in the Victorian and our contemporary period may be found in preceding eras, including the annoyance juries of the mid-eighteenth century regulating minor neighbour disputes and the Disorderly Houses Act 1752 responding to concerns about alcohol and drug misuse, riotous conduct and sexual promiscuity and commercialization (Cockayne, 2007; Cruickshank, 2009). The end of the Georgian era and early Victorian period were characterized by a reframed consciousness about urban improvement with new forms of civic morality and new models of urban management to address the challenges of urban and commercial expansion; symbolized by the emergence of police as a broad mechanism of urban governance, rooted in concerns with criminality, anti-social behaviour and the urban poor (Barrie, 2010).