Policing diversity in the digital age
| Author | David S. Wall,Matthew Williams |
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895807082064 |
| Published date | 01 November 2007 |
| Date | 01 November 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Criminology & Criminal Justice
© 2007 SAGE Publications
(Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore)
and the British Society of Criminology.
www.sagepublications.com
ISSN 1748–8958; Vol: 7(4): 391–415
DOI: 10.1177/1748895807082064
391
Policing diversity in the digital age:
Maintaining order in virtual communities
DAVID S. WALL AND MATTHEW WILLIAMS1
University of Leeds, UK and Cardiff University, UK
Abstract
Members of ‘terrestrial’ communities are migrating in ever-increasing
numbers to a new ‘Third Space’ that manifests outside traditional
geographical physical boundaries. This online space consists of purely
social relations where interaction and community are performed at-a-
distance. The diversifying populations of these virtual villages, towns
and cities now constitute very real communities. Online non-gaming
spaces such as Ebay, Active Worlds and Secondlife, for example,
deliberately utilize the discourse of community in an attempt to instil a
sense of communal space and shared responsibility among their
members. While the majority subscribe to the rhetoric of ‘netizenship’
others find alternative means to participate online. The avocations of
these few have resulted in the endemic deviance/crime problem that
exists online. As a result, online communities have developed their
own distinct history of control and regulation.
This article explores the ways that online social spaces maintain
orderly ‘communities’. It contrasts ‘proximal’ (online) forms of
governing online behaviour, such as online reputation management
systems, ‘virtual’ police services and vigilante groups that employ
‘online shaming’, with ‘distal’ (offline) forms such as offline policing
and criminal justice processes. The central theme of the article is a
critical account of how these, often contradicting, nodes of
governance interact.
Key Words
cybercrime • governing online behaviour • online community
• policing cyberspace • shaming • virtual community
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Introduction
Within academic and policy domains the thinking around the policing of
contemporary ‘communities’ has been largely preoccupied by common-sense
notions of diversity. Communities are seen as internally fragmented in terms
of ethnicity, geography, religion, sexuality, class and age. Some groups are
identified as ‘hard-to-reach’ (Jones and Newburn, 2001) signalling their
abstraction from the ‘homogeneous’ elements of the community within
which they live. Reassurance and neighbourhood policing initiatives have
targeted these groups in an attempt to fill the ‘reassurance gap’ (ACPO,
2001; Innes, 2004: 151). In tandem, conceptual and empirical work on the
plurality of policing has shown how the ‘mixed economy’ of patrol in rela-
tion to these initiatives is both beneficial and problematic (Crawford and
Lister, 2006; Hughes and Rowe, this issue). Attempts at making commu-
nities and the isolated groups within them safer while also reducing fear of
crime have shown varying degrees of success in the United States and Britain
(Skogan and Steiner, 2004; Tuffin et al., 2006). Innes (2006a) argues that
part of the reason for the ‘pockets of success’ is the ‘discursive’ shift from
‘community policing’ to notions of ‘reassurance’ and ‘neighbourhood’ polic-
ing. Innes also notes that this is more than simple rhetoric as it reflects an
‘increasing awareness among police officers about the complexity of the
policing environment’ (2006b: 96). This complexity is reflected in the recog-
nition that in late modern society ‘traditional’ definitions of community are
subject to challenge and, in response, ‘neighbourhood’ becomes a site and
focus for policing with specific bounded geodemographies. This article ques-
tions the extent to which this awareness and recent trends in policing,
extends beyond notions of community, neighbourhood and diversity into the
domain of ‘non-terrestrial’ cyberspaces. These ‘cyber-communities’ and
‘cyber-neighbourhoods’ can be conceptualized as deeply embedded within a
mixed economy of crime control and in need of reassurance in the face of a
burgeoning cybercrime problem.
This article seeks to explore the different ways in which online social spaces
maintain orderly ‘communities’. It begins by reviewing our understanding of
online communities and the various textual and graphical formats that give
rise to them, it then looks at cybercrime and the types of disorder that are
specific to virtual environments. Next, the discussion outlines the various
methods of ‘policing’ online behaviour that are exercised by proximal (online)
nodes of governance such as online reputation management systems, virtual
‘police’ services and vigilante groups that employ ‘online shaming’. These
methods of online governance are then compared with the more ‘traditional’
forms of distal (offline) governance found in offline policing and criminal just-
ice processes. Towards the latter part of the article qualitative data from
research conducted within an online community provides an insight into com-
munity members’ perceptions of various forms of control. A critical account
of how these contrasting forms of governance interact in often conflicting
ways forms the central theme of the article.
Criminology & Criminal Justice 7(4)
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