NCJ Number
114726
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 28 Issue: 4 Dated: (Autumn 1988) Pages: 478-493
Date Published
1988
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This paper examines both practical and theoretical aspects of multiagency approaches to crime prevention as they operated over a 2-year period in three London and one northern English town.
Abstract
Fieldwork findings were examined in terms of two forms of the local State. The conspiratorial model of the multiagency approach is seen as a means by which police coopt other agencies and even other communities to pursue police-defined goals rather than working in mutual consultation and shared agreement with other agencies. The benevolent model emphasizes a corporate paternalism, implying an unproblematic consensus on aims and objectives; in which both agencies and communities are viewed as organic and cohesive. Each of these perspectives is inadequate to the actual operation of the multiagency approach. Rather, in conceptualizing multiagency practices, differential power relations among agencies were of central importance. In interagency forums, police and housing agencies appear to be the most powerful. Between them, they are most likely to set the agenda, dominate discussions, and sometimes make autonomous decisions outside the multiagency framework. The dependency of other State welfare agencies on these two affords them less legitimacy and less space for autonomous decisionmaking. Impact of specific State agencies varied among localities as a result of tensions and conflicts both within and between State agencies, between agencies and the communities they serve, and between sectional interest groups within the communities themselves. 38 references.