Targeting Hotspots of Alcohol-related Town Centre Violence: A Nottinghamshire Case Study

Abstract

The rapid expansion of the night-time economy in many towns and cities across the UK in recent years has led to increased concern over the potential of this sector to generate alcohol-related disorder and violence. While a growing number of studies have considered why this sector has the potential to generate violence, there has been little systematic evaluation of the impact of measures implemented to prevent and reduce such incidents. As part of the government's Crime Reduction Programme2, a number of Targeted Policing Initiatives implemented strategies that aimed to reduce such violence within localised settings.3 This paper presents a case study of one such project, in which a number of intervations were implemented to reduce alchol-related violence accross a police force are in the miklands of the United Kingdom, though the focus of this paper is on two strategies designed to prevent and reduce violence at known hotspot locations.4 The first strategy aimed to improve communication between bar managers and the police in licensed premises. The second was based around deploying high-visibility policing units in identified ‘hotspot’ areas. Using the ‘SARA’ analytical framework, the paper outlines how these strategies were implemented and their main outcomes, though specific attention is drawn to the problems encountered with implementation and evaluation. The case study not only provides an insight into the difficulties of implementing and evaluating such crime reduction initiatives, it also highlights a number of generic problems that are likely to be encountered by any similar projects in the future.