Policing the waterfront : the social structure of collaborative crime control

Abstract

In this thesis I investigate public/private partnerships designed to control criminal activity on the waterfront. Government authorities routinely work together (through interagency partnership), and enlist external stakeholders (through community coproduction) to enhance their crime prevention capabilities. I explore the nature and extent of this engagement on the waterfront, and the manner in which authorities enlist the capital (i.e. physical capital, human capital and social capital) of industry stakeholders as a means of enhancing the provision of security in waterfront communities. Previous research on such public/private engagement in a law enforcement and regulatory context has had a tendency to focus on the physical and human elements of those relationships, and has not fully considered the influence of social structures and social capital as substantive factors affecting collaborative crime control outcomes. In this thesis I propose that the more social capital within a given waterfront community, the greater the likelihood of truly collaborative action taking place. That is, communities exhibiting conditions rich in social capital are more amenable to meaningful public/private engagement, and effective crime control interventions through community coproduction. To test this hypothesis, I examine two distinct waterfront communities, comparing Australia's most established and infamous waterfront community in Melbourne, with America's most active waterfront region, located in metropolitan Los Angeles. The relationships between public and private actors at these two ports are evaluated using a mixed-method approach, drawing upon quantitative and qualitative methodological and analytical techniques, which enable a comprehensive assessment of the 'networks of relationships', and 'norms of trust and reciprocity' (i.e, the social capital) available across these distinct waterfront security networks. The findings show that Americans had far more success than their Australian counterparts in terms of creating social capital and exploiting their network ties in order to enlist community stakeholders in a crime control capacity. Differences prevailed despite the fact that these two ports exhibited striking similarities in terms of physical characteristics, the spectrum of actors involved, governance, regulatory oversight and legislative requirements. The ability of actors in Los Angeles to mobilise their highly connected networks, place trust in their peers, and engage in activities of coproduction is found to be the defining feature of networked policing in Los Angeles. However, as is shown to be the case in Melbourne, the process by which social capital is created and made available to network participants is not without hindrance, and as a result, collaborative efforts can (and do) fall flat. To explain these differences, I demonstrate that successful collaborative crime control endeavours are characterised by a surplus of social capital; and that creating such a surplus requires 'social alignment' amongst all of the various public and private actors involved. Drawing upon these findings, I conclude this thesis by putting forward a series of principles designed to generate discussion about how authorities (particularly those in Melbourne) can go about (re)designing, (re)implementing, and maintaining collaborative interventions on the waterfront - with an eye to fostering social alignment, creating social capital, and ultimately cultivating more efficacious engagement in public/private crime control interventions.