The pursuit of exclusion through zonal banning
| Author | Ian Warren,Darren Palmer |
| DOI | 10.1177/0004865813514064 |
| Published date | 01 December 2014 |
| Date | 01 December 2014 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Australian & New Zealand
Journal of Criminology
2014, Vol. 47(3) 429–446
!The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0004865813514064
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Article
The pursuit of exclusion
through zonal banning
Darren Palmer
Deakin University, Australia
Ian Warren
Deakin University, Australia
Abstract
In recent years, a growing emphasis has been placed on the use of zonal banning to address
violence and anti-social behaviour associated with alcohol consumption. While we recognise
the longer historical links between territory and crime, this article focuses on recent efforts
to govern territory through new zonal regulations. Recent processes in Australia involve the
conflation criminal law principles with processes of managing order in and around private
spaces through new administrative approaches to alcohol-related law enforcement. The art-
icle outlines the nature of sub-sovereign ‘police laws’ and the extent to which they have been
used based on Victorian data. We conclude by suggesting these developments need ongoing
critical scrutiny given evidence of the ongoing expansion of proprietary-based principles in
the management of urban disorder, and the potential for these developments to promote the
increased use of surveillance technologies to exclude undesirable populations from the night-
time economies of Australian cities.
Keywords
Alcohol, banning, exclusion, policing, territory, zones
Introduction
Links between territory and crime have been a central criminological concern, from the
spatialised notions of the ‘rookeries of crime’ during industrialisation, the adaptation of
the late 18th century evolutionary theory of Lamarckism and the concerns between
space and deviancy (Hayward, 2004),
1
to the early 20th century ‘Chicago School’ con-
centric circles examining neighbourhood change and crime patterns. More recent exam-
ples, such as the broken windows thesis, focus on how geographic markers such as
graffiti and the literal broken window not only represent an already existing level of
deviancy but also a causal direction of deviancy amplification unless territorial regener-
ation occurs. Other applications of territorial thinking have also emerged in recent
Corresponding author:
Darren Palmer, Deakin University, Pigdons Road, Waurn Ponds, Victoria 3217, Australia.
Email: darren.palmer@deakin.edu.au
concerns with criminogenic effects of urban regeneration, the growth of the night-time
economy, and of the development of mass-private spaces commonly accompanied by
privatised modes of policing (Shearing & Stenning, 1983). A corollary of promoting
social order through more stringent forms of territorial control is the related concern
over the material and cultural practices of inclusion and exclusion. This is most evoca-
tively captured in Jock Young’s critique of the Western European move from inclusive
to exclusive societies, as he traces the broader political changes from the 1960s located in
‘a deep-seated precariousness both economic and ontological’ (1999, p. 64).
A growing body of literature illustrates a renewed emphasis on sub-sovereign zonal
techniques of regulatory control and order maintenance that commonly involve rela-
tively innocuous characterisations of risk. These techniques have the potential effect of
furthering the broader trend towards ‘exclusionary punitivisim’, which has come to
shape the governance of everyday life and the contemporary ‘culture of control’
(Garland, 2001). This trend is fuelled by a ‘narrative of fear’ (Furedi, 1997) associated
with crime, risk and security, which in Australia has particular salience around the
growing capacity of police to use highly discretionary powers to exclude those con-
sidered troublesome from public spaces associated with the night-time economies of
major urban centres. This process of exclusion has significant implications for the lib-
erties of those subject to discretionary on-the-spot bans, including vulnerable or highly
visible populations (Bittner, 1967) that extend common law principles of trespass gov-
erning the management of private property (Hobbs, Lister, Hadfield, Winlow, & Hall,
2000) into the management of urban public space.
While the identification of large-scale national or global social transformations invol-
ving zoning, property management and good order is important, we believe it is equally
crucial to explore the more mundane developments in governing territory as a growing
empirical and theoretical trend in urban securitisation (Palmer & Warren, 2013).
Following Valverde and Cirak (2003), this requires focusing attention on administrative
and ‘police’ laws that operate within the shadow of conventional sovereign criminal
laws. This article examines the recent introduction of zonal banning powers across
Australia as an important example of ‘police laws’ under an administrative regulatory
process that operates in tandem with criminal laws dealing with public order (Rose &
Valverde, 1998). We begin by canvassing the (re-)emergence of zonal governing as a
central order maintenance strategy in 21st century urban life. We then proceed to exam-
ine the nature of these laws and the extent they have been used by police as a form
of enforcement by exclusion in Victoria, Australia, and several other state jurisdictions.
We conclude by discussing the criminological implications of zonal authority, banning
and their potential exclusionary effects.
Governing territory through zonal controls
Beckett and Herbert (2010a, 2010b) demonstrate that public demands to combat street
disorder, vagrancy and enhance the management of urban space have played upon the
recognisable limits of conventional reactive modes of criminal law enforcement. The
limited preventative capacity of these approaches has led to new forms of sub-sovereign
spatial or zonal governance in certain defined areas within major North American cities.
Through localised ‘civility laws’ designed to combat what were historically crimes of
430 Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 47(3)
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