Digital governance and minor offenses: participatory strategies in the policing of everyday life

• In Event: POL Panel 16. Policing and modern technologies 2

Abstract

Incidents of nuisance and minor offenses are a feature of urban life, with offenses such as vandalism, littering, noise nuisance, graffitiing and illegal dumping present particularly in public urban spaces. The policing of minor offenses is a site of contestation between citizens, with different demands on enforcement ranging widely between citizens, with fault lines drawn across different classes, age groups, family statuses and migration backgrounds. This paper explores the different digital and participatory strategies employed by local authorities to support, enhance or facilitate the policing of minor offenses, and how these affect different citizens’ claims for rights, resources and political decision-making in shaping municipal policies. Drawing on the case study of FixMyStreet, a municipal app used by residents of Brussels to report incidents of urban disorder and minor offenses to their local authorities, this paper argues that the introduction of digital participatory strategies offers limited advantages to some groups, but also risks furthering inequality and threaten social cohesion by advancing the interest of some citizens on the expense of others. Using qualitative data collected through interviews with municipal personnel (street agents, work dispatchers, managerial staff and policymakers), and through participant observation at several units of a major municipality in Brussels, this paper questions the limits of digital participation in local governance in determining policing and enforcement outcomes. The paper continues to propose several measures to mitigate biases and shortcomings in the development and implementation of digital participatory tools affecting the policing of minor offenses in public urban space.

Author

• Lior Volinz, Vrije Universiteit Brussel