Disorder, order and control signals

Robert Sampson has placed us all in his debt by his immensely stimulating British Journal of Sociology lecture. Emulating the spirit of confession apparent in his third footnote (Sampson 2009: 27) I candidly admit that, while in theory recognizing the distinction between actual disorder and perceived disorder, in my own writings I have not always adequately differentiated between these two things. It is a mistake that, following Sampson’s detailed and convincing exposition, I shall not make again. In responding to this lecture, I propose to focus on two main points, both of which are recognized by Sampson, though neither is greatly emphasized.These topics are first, the need for a fully holistic social-scientific analysis when dealing with issues of disorder; and second, the potential importance of so-called ‘control signals’ in the development of order in communities. To develop these points, I will consider first some recent British research, and then some rather older – but still highly relevant – research from Chicago. As part of their research in connection with the National Reassurance Policing Project, Martin Innes and colleagues (2004) conducted detailed qualitative interviews in 16 residential areas across England, asking representative respondents in each area to identify what they perceived to be the key potential threats to neighbourhood safety in their area. Some early results from six areas are shown in Figure I (later results are similar). For each area (here designated ‘A’ to ‘F’), respondents’ perceived threats to neighbourhood safety are listed in descending order of importance; thus, for example, in Area F ‘drugs’ were perceived as the principal threat, followed by ‘youths hanging around’ and ‘public drinking’. What is especially striking about the information in this figure is that, although there is – as one would expect – some variation across areas, nevertheless the most commonly-perceived ‘top threats’ are all disorderly events occurring in public space. Thus, it would seem, these kinds of incidents often send a powerful signal to residents that ‘my area is out of control’. (I shall return to the ‘signal’ metaphor later). Indeed, according to the data in Figure I,