Policing through planning: constructing coercive community in British New Towns, 1964-75

Area of Science:

• Social Sciences
• Urban Planning
• Criminology

Background:

• 1970s British policing histories predominantly focus on 'inner-city' areas.
• Existing narratives link state legitimacy, racialized crime categories, and authoritarian methods to urban economic crisis.
• Suburban policing remains under-examined despite the emphasis on city-suburb relations in urban history.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze new policing methods in British new towns, connecting urban planning to social class control.
• To investigate how new towns became sites for testing 'community policing' models.
• To highlight the early significance of planning in the expansion of state coercive functions.

Main Methods:

• Comparative analysis of policing in designated new towns (1946 New Towns Act) and an unofficial new town (Kirkby, Merseyside).
• Examination of archival records on urban planning and state intervention in spatial administration.
• Analysis of policing strategies aimed at controlling social class composition.

Main Results:

• New towns, designed for order, were utilized as testing grounds for community policing.
• Urban planning was integral to developing new police methods for social control.
• Policing strategies in new towns reinforced hierarchical social class concepts.

Conclusions:

• The administration of urban space through planning became central to the state's coercive apparatus.
• Conceptions of planned suburban order were deeply rooted in social class hierarchies.
• Policing in new towns demonstrated the increasingly authoritarian tendencies of the welfare state.