Policing marginal spaces
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895807082062 |
| Author | Zoë James |
| Date | 01 November 2007 |
| Published 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): 367–389
DOI: 10.1177/1748895807082062
367
Policing marginal spaces:
Controlling Gypsies and Travellers
ZOË JAMES
University of Plymouth, UK
Abstract
Community policing initiatives that aim to address diversity are
increasingly required to engage with Gypsies and Travellers. In this
article the policing of Gypsies and Travellers is outlined through
analysis of empirical research in the south-west of England. The
research shows that the police work with multiple public and private
agencies to control the movement and settlement of Gypsies and
Travellers, but the engagement of Gypsies and Travellers in community
policing initiatives is limited. The police primarily engage with
Gypsies and Travellers through enforcement practice. Gypsies and
Travellers are shown here to respond to their experiences of policing
in a number of ways that attempt to place them beyond the gaze of
formal agencies. In conclusion the article questions the degree to
which policing agencies can reach Gypsies and Travellers via
community policing approaches.
Key Words
diversity • governance • Gypsies and Travellers • policing
This article will draw on research carried out with Gypsies and Travellers to
discuss the reach of community policing in a diverse society. Initially the art-
icle will contextualize the position of Gypsies and Travellers in England and
Wales in late modern society before going on to address their governance.
The article will identify how community policing initiatives have developed
in work with Gypsies and Travellers. It will then go on to show that the
majority of Gypsies and Travellers experience policing through enforcement,
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rather than community engagement. The research findings are articulated
through two viewpoints: the way in which Gypsies and Travellers have been
managed by multiple agencies and how they have responded to that man-
agement. In conclusion the article will consider the degree to which Gypsies
and Travellers have been incorporated into recent policy initiatives in
England and Wales that aim to promote community policing through the
‘neighbourhood policing’ agenda.
The policing of Gypsies and Travellers in England and Wales presents a
number of important issues that are relevant to an understanding of polic-
ing across and between the boundaries of nation states. Gypsies and
Travellers are increasingly moving throughout Europe, often escaping dis-
crimination and oppressive policing in Eastern Europe, only to be presented
with it on arrival in the West (Hammarberg, 2006; Bangieva, 2007).
Community policing initiatives have been embraced by policing agencies
internationally (Brogden and Nijhar, 2005), but the non-territorial nature
of Gypsies and Travellers does not cohere well with such policing develop-
ments, as will be extrapolated in this article.
The research context
Gypsies and Travellers have lived in the UK now for centuries, with the first
records of Romany Gypsies in the 15th century, Showmen’s fairs having
ancient charter from the 12th century and Irish Travellers recognized as com-
ing to the UK since the 19th century (Murdoch and Johnson, 2004). New
(Age) Travellers are a more recently formed group who have come to
nomadism, since the 1970s. The relationship between Gypsies and Travellers
and sedentary society has historically been difficult as the nomadism of
Gypsies and Travellers contests the norms of sedentary living. In a society that
has been organized through sedentary boundary setting since the Enclosure
Acts of the 18th century, the fluidity of nomadic living (Halfacree, 1996) is
contradictory and notoriously hard for state agencies to manage and control.
In the 20th century Gypsies and Travellers have increasingly been subject to
laws and government policies that aim to curb their nomadic lifestyle and
largely enforce their settlement. Despite a period of time in the post-war era
when Gypsies and Travellers lived relatively harmoniously alongside seden-
tarists (Kenrick and Clark, 1999), tensions around where and how Gypsies
and Travellers should live have been particularly enhanced since the closure of
the commons in the 1968 Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act.
Since then a raft of measures have been put in place to deal with the ‘problem’
of Gypsies and Travellers. Despite some efforts to ensure that local authorities
provide legal spaces for Gypsies and Travellers to stop and stay on, the provi-
sion of sites for Gypsies and Travellers has diminished in the last 20 years and
there has been an accompanying reduction in the health (Hawes, 1997;
Hajioff and McKee, 2000; Parry et al., 2004) and welfare (OFSTED, 1996,
1999; CRE, 2006) of Gypsies and Travellers in these years.
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