Acting on instinct: Policing violence against women and girls in the night-time economy

Abstract

Globally, violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a pervasive issue which has wide-scale consequences. This paper focuses on VAWG in the context of the night-time economy (NTE), and the policing strategies targeted at its prevention. Using a mixed-methods approach, it identifies the centrality of police officer knowledge to operational practice. Original insight suggests that this provides, at best, a partial basis for effective interventions and demonstrates a limited understanding of the complexities of VAWG offending behaviour. The significance of these findings is considerable for police leaders in terms of training and deployment in this high-profile field. The study found limits in relying on police knowledge as a basis for action and argues that this needs to be supplemented by other forms of evidence in relation to perpetrators and victim–survivors.

Introduction

In 1993, The United Nations defined violence against women and girls (VAWG) as ‘any act of gender-based violence (GBV) which results or is likely to result in physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women…’ (United Nations General Assembly, 1993). Campaigns against VAWG are not new, feminist activists have spent decades campaigning for women's safety, rights and freedom (Rath, 2008). Over the years, there has been considerable movement on this issue leading government and policymakers to address VAWG on a much wider political, national and international scale (Michau et al., 2015).

In the UK in 2021, following the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by the Metropolitan Police (Met) officer, Wayne Couzens, government and police renewed commitments to tackling VAWG. The government developed a Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy (Home Office, 2021) that provided research and evidence on strategies for the prevention of perpetration of VAWG, and a 2024 Victims and Prisoners Act (UK Parliament, 2024) has – inter alia – enshrined in law various victims’ rights. Unfortunately, if not unexpectedly, there has been insufficient progress made in the five years following Sarah's death. Baroness Casey's independent review into the Met found evidence of racism, misogyny, sexism and homophobia across the force and described their VAWG strategy as hollow (Casey, 2023). The review included several troubling findings relating to sexual violence and quoted one officer as saying, ‘You don’t want to be a victim of rape in London. Anyone who relies on policing in London for anything I’m scared for’ (Casey, 2023: 141). Although more public awareness of these issues may have helped push VAWG higher up the government's agenda, more work is needed to bridge the gaps in police knowledge with regards to the understanding and prevention of VAWG. As laid out by Hohl and Stanko (2024), the police must work hard to improve and rebuild public trust and confidence in their ability to protect the public, especially those at risk of sexual violence and harassment.

While VAWG encompasses a range of offences, the focus of this paper is on sexual violence and harassment which takes place in the specific context of the night-time economy (NTE). Our original contribution is derived from our study of operational frontline policing of VAWG in the NTE, a distinctive and under-researched context for this significant threat. The paper argues that there is a problematic reliance on ‘police knowledge’ to address the problem and an absence of effective interventions to address the actions and behaviours of perpetrators.

Literature review

Work on VAWG has highlighted the risks to women's safety in various contexts (the home, employment, school), including the denial of freedom and the regulation of movement for women in public spaces (Boyer, 2022; Roberts et al., 2022). Sexual violence and harassment have been documented as a common feature of many women’s and girls’ lives, becoming increasingly normalised in modern society (Fileborn and O’Neill, 2023; Hlavka, 2014). There is a wealth of literature documenting the frequency of sexual harassment and unwanted touching of females in nightclubs and night-time spaces (Graham et al., 2017; Gunby et al., 2020; Lewis and McBride, 2025; Nicholls, 2017), although gaps exist with regards to non-licensed venues. The everyday nature of these experiences is highlighted in feminist theories on women's safety work (Vera-Gray and Kelly, 2020) and everyday adjustments made by women to reduce their risk of victimisation. Research also highlights the unique experiences of marginalised communities and how they navigate safety and risk in the NTE (Anitha et al., 2021; Nicholls, 2017).

Sexual harassment has also been recognised as a potential facilitator for further sexual harm; Kelly (1987) describes this as a continuum of sexual violence, highlighting the broad spectrum of sexual harms, from catcalling to rape and the steps involved in-between. Interventions for reducing sexual violence in the NTE have historically focused on modifying the behaviour of women, supporting a culture of victim-blaming. Existing interventions have included telling women to drink less, dress more modestly, make safety plans, cover their drinks and to use safety apps (Brooks, 2014; Cherniawsky and Morrison, 2022). Newer approaches to tackling VAWG have demonstrated a change in the conversation, which focuses more on controlling and preventing the actions of potential perpetrators (Rumney and McPhee, 2021).

As expected, this change has been coupled with the way VAWG is policed. Police operations in recent years have moved towards early intervention with perpetrators rather than traditional responsive policing approaches (Magill and Squires, 2023). The initial impetus for the research underpinning this article reflected this shift in direction. Anyshire ¹ Police developed a new police operation, backed by local authority and third-sector partners as a new response to VAWG in the city's NTE. The operation differed from previous interventions by focusing attention on tackling perpetrators and using early intervention techniques to prevent and disrupt offences taking place. Undercover officers were deployed into the city centre at peak times to identify perpetrators and situations requiring intervention. Although the operation held its own shift briefings, information collected from this operation was often fed into general NTE briefings delivered to all officers on patrol, including uniformed response officers, emphasising a lookout for ‘known’ people. The operation was made known via publicity campaigns on social media and on public transport, communicating a strong policing priority to tackle VAWG in the NTE. It is clear from the findings below that the intentions of the operation included a strong focus on tackling perpetrators, but when unsupported by evidence, a lack of resources and minimal direction for officers identifying perpetrators, it is not clear that it resulted in changes at an applied operational level. We argue this limitation is partly attributable to a problematic emphasis on police officers using their professional instinct and knowledge as a basis for decision-making and intervention. This, we note, results in narrow (sometimes stereotypical) framing of the problem of VAWG in the NTE, which effectively focuses too strongly on victim behaviour, under-recognises perpetrator motives and does not consider VAWG happening inside venues or outside the realm of licensed premises. We further argue that these problems extend across plural policing ² networks operating in the NTE.

Frontline officers observed in our study were encouraged by their supervisors to use their professional judgement when intervening in response to VAWG in the NTE. Regardless of their position as response officers or those involved in specific VAWG operations, officers in general NTE shift briefings tended to be given information about a small number of nominals and asked to look out for them during their shift. Otherwise, they were told to use their professional knowledge and/or instinct (‘if it doesn’t look or feel right then it probably isn’t’). In this way, officers were encouraged to use their discretion on the basis of their professional knowledge and experience. This mirrors Pearson and Rowe's (2020) account of ‘common sense discretion’ as an important base within police operational action. This itself develops Bittner's (1970) account of ‘dictionary knowledge’ to illustrate how police officers develop ways of cataloguing their environment and individuals within it. In this study, this approach seems to have been communicated to officers to embolden them to be proactive and interventionist in dealing with incidents that could be (or could become) VAWG-related offences. Fleming and Rhodes (2018: 4) identify this use of professional knowledge as a basis for decision-making as a central feature of police work: ‘… experience is the inherited knowledge base of much police work and such knowledge is intrinsically seen as valuable, practical and conducive to problem solving’. Fleming and Rhodes (2018) argued that this forms an important component of evidence-based policing, even if it is one that is often overlooked in debates about the use of scientific research and data.

In the context of counter-terrorism policing, Dresser (2019) explored the use of police knowledge. He drew on work by Foley (2010), which talked of ‘policing from the gut’, and Innes et al. (2017), who used the term ‘soft facts’, to refer to assemblages of personal experience, knowledge and subjectivities that formed the basis for operational decision-making. In keeping with most of this extant literature, we argue that some reliance on knowledge and experience is consistent with the development of police professionalism, although to be effective this needs to be rooted in some form of evidence rather than a more general appeal to ‘common sense’. We note that the deployment of professional knowledge and experience in the context of policing VAWG in the NTE was of limited value because of a narrow and partial conceptualisation of the problem to be solved.

Methodology

Using a qualitative mixed-methods approach, the project sought to achieve a better understanding of the policing of perpetrators of VAWG and sexual harassment in the NTE. Given the nature of our research questions, a qualitative approach was the most appropriate to examine relationships between different partnerships that operate in the NTE and their approaches to the prevention of VAWG. Two methods were applied: fieldwork observations and focus groups. A series of observations were carried out with Anyshire Police and a separate group of volunteers that patrolled the NTE, providing emotional support and assistance to vulnerable people. The observational fieldwork allowed for an in-depth understanding of how police operations and alternative initiatives sought to understand, manage and prevent perpetrators of VAWG in the NTE. The fieldwork involved the first-named author accompanying officers as they policed the city centre environment over a total of three shifts: two shifts with officers and one with a volunteer group. Police observations took place on weekends between November 2022 and February 2023 and in the hours between 19:00 and 02:30. In addition, an evening was spent out in the NTE with a volunteer group between the hours of 21:00 and 02:30. In total, across all three evenings, roughly 22 hours were spent observing the policing of VAWG in the NTE. Contemporaneous notes were made during the shift and then written up into more extensive accounts in the days that followed each session. This enabled an accurate re-telling of events, less likely to be affected by gaps in memory (Mulhall, 2003).

During the course of the fieldwork other parties were occasionally encountered (other emergency service personnel, for example) and so some wider perspectives, encompassing plural policing, were included. Given the nature of the fieldwork, and to protect the anonymity of participants, no attempt was made to record details of those who took part. Because of the somewhat opportunistic nature of these periods of fieldwork there is no claim that they are ‘representative’ of policing in the NTE in wider terms or that other researchers might not identify other trends and practices through similar methods. However, the method allowed considerable insight into the ways in which frontline officers understood VAWG in the NTE and their practice in response. This proved a robust way of identifying how the strategic ambitions of police operations translated into practice on the ground.

As a way of ensuring rigour in our findings, the observational work was supplemented by a series of semi-structured focus groups with a range of stakeholders. These combined participants from different organisations in each session. A further focus group consisted solely of academic researchers with experience in the VAWG or NTE fields. This provided us with an important opportunity to ‘sense check’ the findings and themes that emerged from the project. Both authors conducted four focus groups with a total of 12 participants. The range of professionals in attendance of each were as follows: focus group 1 (two police officers, one independent sexual violence advisor (ISVA) ³ and one sexual violence charity worker); focus group 2 (two ISVAs, one NTE volunteer and one independent domestic violence advisor (IDVA)); and focus group 3 (two student activists and one domestic abuse specialist). Focus groups were held on a university campus and lasted 75-minutes on average. In line with the aims and scope of the project, participants were asked to share their knowledge and provide comment on the current challenges present in the local NTE, perpetrator identification, defining vulnerability and any other relevant information. Initial insights from the observational fieldwork were used to influence the direction of the discussions in the workshops. This allowed for established and emerging perspectives to be identified for overlaps, contradictions and gaps.

To recruit participants, the authors utilised professional connections across the VAWG sector as well as using a snowball sampling technique. Combined, the authors have extensive experience working in the VAWG sector, academia and policing research, allowing for a varied participant pool to recruit from. Because the project involved collaboration with a police force, and a sexual violence support service, access for observational work and to participants for the focus groups was relatively straightforward.

Ethical considerations

The project did not collect participants’ demographic data to ensure anonymity and encourage meaningful participation. This was particularly important for the focus groups, which were conducted in-person, meaning the anonymity of the participants in the room was exposed. Participants were asked to maintain confidentiality in terms of matters discussed and their fellow attendees. It must be acknowledged that the true anonymity of information discussed was down to the discretion of participants in each focus group. There is a chance, as with all focus groups, that this may have prevented participants’ ability to be completely forthcoming in their responses. It is also possible that the observation, particularly of policing practice may have affected the behaviour of participants. This could not be prevented when using a covert observational method and so findings are not representative of all police work in the NTE. However, the researcher conducting field work made attempts to build a rapport with officers on shift, which continued throughout the observation period. Participants were fully briefed and the researcher was open and transparent about her role and interests. As in any study based on field work or ethnography, it is possible that the presence of the researcher ‘disturbs the field’ and it is clear (as an episode outlined later in our findings section illustrates) that this happened in this case as the researcher weighed an ethical dilemma between maintaining a position of neutral invisibility and the compunction to identify to officers a member of the public who seemed to be at personal risk. Her decision fell on the side of intervening and so ‘disturbing the field’ in a purist sense. This reflects more general challenges of this research method (Rowe, 2007).

Data analysis

Following data collection, fieldnotes and focus group interviews were transcribed and anonymised for analysis. Data sets were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Guidance for this was taken from Braun and Clarke (2006) and follows previous qualitative policing research that implements this analytical framework (Fleming and Rhodes, 2018; Levine et al., 2012; Pickles, 2020). The focus group transcripts were read and re-read by both authors to identify continuous topics across the data set. The first-named author reviewed the topics and grouped them into potential themes that were discussed with the second author before being confirmed or rectified based on this feedback. Both authors then re-read the transcripts to select extracts to represent the themes, which are presented below.

The project received full approval from the Northumbria University Research Ethics Committee.

Findings

The analysis of fieldwork notes and focus group transcripts is presented below in relation to three inter-related themes. First, that potential perpetrators of VAWG offences are not adequately conceptualised; second, that there is the presence of stereotyping with regards to VAWG in the NTE; and finally, we address the issues of VAWG and plural policing in the NTE. Across these themes we develop our key argument, which is that frontline police officers – in the absence of alternative sources of evidence – rely upon their ‘professional knowledge’ in addressing VAWG in the NTE. This is problematic, we argue, because knowledge was found to be predicated on narrow and (sometimes) stereotypical understanding of the challenges in this important policing domain.

Relying on instinct

A key theme that arose frequently across the data centred on the lack of conceptualisation and understanding of perpetrators of VAWG. Findings from both observations and focus groups suggested that police officers often rely on instinct and information developed from a highly police-centric position. It appears that operational deployment is not informed by, and does not reflect, wider perspectives of VAWG from external partners. Shift briefings tended to focus solely on police-recorded data (to identify ‘hot spots’, for example) and contained limited input from other stakeholders operating in the NTE. Fieldnotes revealed that the advice given to officers promoted the approach ‘if it doesn’t look right, it's probably not’ to warrant some kind of intervention, with the implication that it was better to intervene and be wrong than to not intervene at all. This preventative approach is reflected elsewhere in the criminal justice arena (da Silva et al., 2022) and is evidenced to be extraordinarily difficult to achieve through regular policing operations (Ellefsen et al., 2023). While it might be useful that officers were encouraged to address problems of VAWG in the NTE in a proactive manner, there seemed to be little guidance on how to address lower-risk potential perpetrators and thereby address significant types of harm and offending. This has been echoed elsewhere in the form of vague political reforms calling for police preventative action (Bland et al., 2021). The continuum of harm identified in focus group discussions, the diversity of victimisation or the range of sites where VAWG might be a challenge were not generally reflected in police knowledge identified in our fieldwork observations.

Focus groups revealed that the police tend to ‘act on instinct’. As Fleming and Rhodes (2018) argue, professional experience and knowledge can be significant bases for action, and we are not dismissing those in any absolute sense. However, it remained unclear what data or experience informed this ‘knowledge’, especially in a context in which general duties patrol work in the NTE was performed by officers with limited length of service. We develop this point further in the discussion at the end of this paper. In a discussion of the instructions given to frontline police, Officer 1 talked about the general approach officers are encouraged to adopt:

It comes down to awareness, their experience, and their own observations, and sometimes it's just gut instinct of, ‘that's just not right’. You’re almost asking not just ‘act on instinct’, but to act on ‘just in case’ (Police officer, focus group 1)

During the first observation shift with the police, the researcher rode in the van with officers to their safety hub in the city centre. En route, the researcher pointed out a potential suspicious incident in which a woman was stood in the middle of the road, speaking to the driver of a vehicle through the passenger window for some time before eventually getting in it. Officers decided to pull the van over and it emerged that the women did not know the driver of the vehicle. She became upset and was escorted home by officers on shift. Officers at the time spoke of not noticing that something was wrong and admitted they may not have made that stop if the researcher had not pointed out the concerning behaviour. Further police enquiries later indicated that the male driver had a history of violent behaviour, and he was added to the general NTE briefing document for subsequent shifts. This raises important questions with regards to how individual subjectivities (in this instance, the researcher) can inform the instinct to intervene. As is outlined later, it seems that only a relatively narrow, and highly police-centric, range of perspectives form the knowledge base from which officers are expected to exercise their discretion. Most recently, police, academics, third-sector agencies and the College of Policing contributed to the development of a police national operating model to investigate sexual offences, resulting in several improvements in the police's response to victims, among other things (King et al., 2024) highlighting the benefits of multi-agency input. Input from other stakeholders who operate in the NTE or who work with victim–survivors of VAWG might provide a different perspective or source of information in relation to spaces and types of harm and offending, and the diversity of perpetrators, thereby helping contribute to a wider knowledge base.

The focus groups allowed for an examination of police-focused operations from the perspectives of the police themselves and other stakeholders in the NTE. One key feature of an NTE initiative involved the use of undercover, plain-clothes police officers deployed into the NTE in pairs or groups, with the aim of ‘having plain-clothes officers out on the streets, basically intervening in precrime’ (Officer 1, focus group 2). This method of identifying potential perpetrators was viewed differently among participants in our study. The police acknowledge initial pushback from civilians but generally report that feedback is mostly positive towards this intervention:

The public have been very receptive to it. Once the officers explain why they're doing what they're doing, people don't have an issue with it because they understand why we’re doing it [intervening]. (Officer 2, focus group 2)

However, not all participants agreed with this perception, and raised the point that plain-clothes male officers claiming to be the police and flashing their ID badge may actually go some way in causing further harm to women and girls who may be alone and unable to verify the identity of officers. This method of intervention may be seen as troublesome by some because of the recent reporting of police officers abusing their police powers to commit crimes against women such as Met police officers, David Carrick and Wayne Couzens (Cunningham, 2024). Although these cases are not representative of most police officers, they do contribute towards an increase in general feelings of fear and mistrust towards male police officers. One participant identifies this:

A lot of women get that fear especially because of the media and things that come out about the Met basically every flipping day. Police officers have done this and that. It's like women are scared to go to the police. (Sexual violence charity worker, focus group 1)

Similar interventions can be found from other police forces, for example, Thames Valley Police's ‘Project Vigilant’, which also involved the deployment of covert officers into the NTE to identify potential perpetrators. However, the force pointed out that making an arrest was not necessarily the end goal of an intervention, instead it interrupted a potential chain of events leading up to sexual assault by giving women space and time to reflect on their choices and opportunities to change the situation they are in (Magill et al., 2022). In an evaluation of the project survey findings, participants reported they would feel less safe with plain-clothed officers as opposed to officers in uniform (Magill et al., 2022). This evidence supports the argument for using a wider evidence base to inform police knowledge. In the absence of this shared experience, some police-led interventions may fail to fully understand the impact on women and girls.

Our data set indicated that the role of partner organisations was broadly welcomed by police where they were seen to add operational capacity and aid vulnerable people who might be reluctant to approach police. In addition, we argue, further integrating a wider range of partner organisations might positively impact and develop police knowledge of VAWG in the NTE. Our study supports the findings of Swann et al. (2015) who argued that street pastors engendered trust and confidence among the public, who tended to regard them as an effective addition to the mixed economy of policing the NTE. However, not all organisations wish to work in partnership with the police. During observational fieldwork, one organisation discussed how their independence from the police allowed them to support women who did not wish to interact with the legal system or felt unable to approach the police. Other aspects of plural policing of the NTE are discussed later in this paper.

At the time of data collection, the knowledge and experience of women's organisations was not reflected within police operations. Focus groups revealed that specialist victim support staff often worked with clients who had experienced sexual assaults at certain venues across the NTE, but this information was not used or known by police, suggesting fragmented communication between agencies. Collaborative working might have been evident at some levels of policework, but less clearly among frontline officers. Although more senior officers (taking part in focus groups) often spoke authoritatively in terms that reflected wider dimensions of VAWG in the NTE – for example, through recognising the continuum of VAWG, the diversity of (potential) victims and locations – this was not apparent in the perspectives or practices of their frontline colleagues. Narrow understanding of VAWG in the NTE were predominant among operational officers, as the following section illustrates.

The prevalence of stereotypes of VAWG in the NTE

Non-police participants in our focus groups often reported concerns that police tended to have a stereotypical conceptualisation of VAWG in the NTE, which meant that problematic behaviour remained unaddressed, and some (potential or actual) victims were not protected. There was a perception among non-police focus group participants that acting upon instinct and assumed knowledge, meant that officers fail to recognise or address behaviours that are deemed ‘lower level’. When discussing recent police NTE interventions, one participant noted that such behaviours, even though harmful to victims, may not be high on the officer's agenda:

The other stuff that women experience can be really impactful as well, even if it might be less prosecutable. So, I think that there may be a mismatch here between what the police are looking for and what women are experiencing. (VAWG researcher, focus group 3)

The fieldwork observations found that frontline officers did not respond to problematic behaviour at the lower end of the continuum of VAWG and instead took to focusing on the identification of potentially vulnerable women. Despite the operational intention to focus on the actions of perpetrators, the difficulty of doing this in practice compared with identifying potential victims was stark. For example, officers identified lone women, or women who appeared upset and crying, or women with multiple males as at potential risk. However, although not unhelpful, these interventions were still focusing on the behaviours of women and assigning vulnerability. Our findings suggest that police officers are not always well placed to understand the complexity of VAWG in the NTE, just as other studies have argued in relation to the significant challenges of tackling ‘coercive control’ (Myhill et al., 2023), stalking and harassment (Tayebi and Strand, 2022), and ‘upskirting’ (Henry et al., 2018) – all of which are criminal offences found to be under-policed.

Concerns regarding perpetrator identification also emerged in the focus groups. Some participants discussed their own experiences as users of the NTE. Those who work or have worked in the VAWG and women's sector felt that the nature of their work made them more aware of potential incidences of sexual harassment:

And now I hate going on nights out because I walk into a room and, I can pick people out straight away. And I'm like, ‘that's not right, that's not right’ … all I can say is I just get a feeling. (Sexual violence charity worker, focus group 1)

The final words of this extract reflect some of the earlier discussion about the role of instinct in directing police officer behaviour. It also illustrates that ‘instinct’ is inherently subjective and can differ based on a person's occupation, identity and personal experiences. Because women are more likely to have been victims of sexual harassment and assault than men (Walker et al., 2021) it is possible that these experiences cause a heightened sense of awareness of risky behaviour and perpetrators. Although police forces across the country attempt to diversify, the majority of the police workforce (66.5%) for England and Wales is made up of male officers (Office for National Statistics, 2022). The findings also support the call for further integration of stakeholders and information sharing across the NTE to learn, challenge and improve existing knowledge from a range of perspectives. The need for diversification of police knowledge and ‘mentalities’ (Blaustein et al., 2024; Simpson et al., 2020), as well as enhancing the diversity of officers and staff in relation to their personal identity, are both supported by these findings.

Not only was police knowledge limited such that the ambition to focus on perpetrators seemed not to be realised, but the fieldwork and focus groups suggested that it often reflected stereotypes, whether from organisational culture or society more generally. Police knowledge is likely to be a limited base for operational action to tackle VAWG in the NTE if ‘common sense’ perspectives do not take into account under-recognised or emerging forms of crime and social harm. Our research findings indicated that officers tended to rely on untested and partial conceptualisations of the VAWG in the NTE. However, this is not an uncommon problem in the broader landscape of policing, as outlined in the literature review above. Furthermore, as developed here, these policing mentalities also reflected stereotypes about offending and victimisation, such that some groups were implicitly understood to be particularly risky in terms of perpetration and others as especially vulnerable to harms.

It was felt by some participants that the police could do more to interact with and understand the marginalised communities that enter the NTE. Focus group participants sometimes argued that the police should increase their knowledge of how sexual harassment may look or present differently in non-heteronormative communities. ⁴ Participants felt that the frontline officers could be doing more to make a conscious effort to rebuild relationships with those who have had bad experiences with the police in the past. One participant expressed:

At the moment, I wouldn't go up to them [the police] unless I had a problem. But I think if they want to create a better relationship with these [marginalised] groups, they need to actually speak to them and start building up a rapport, like going to the gay bars and actually speaking to people. (Student activist, focus group 4)

Similarly, observations from fieldwork showed that the general NTE briefings often included information regarding known sex offenders, potential perpetrators and vulnerable youths at risk entering the NTE. These data indicated considerable stereotyping across these groups. During the briefings, for example, youths were flagged in PowerPoint presentations to be at risk of child sexual exploitation, county lines and other factors, which made them highly vulnerable. However, that information was relatively downplayed because they were first described in the briefing in terms of their offending behaviour and risks posed to others. Their vulnerabilities were hardly addressed in shift briefings, in which they were primarily cast as offending ‘nominals’ to be monitored. A stark example of this was the description of one of the children at risk who was referred to as ‘little shit’ in the briefing. The language used in that briefing to address young people at risk of sexual violence and exploitation was overall, negative, lacking understanding and compassion for their circumstance. The complexities and inter-relations of offending and victimisation are more widely recognised in the research literature (Sampson and Lauritsen, 1990; Windle et al., 2020), and in this instance the primary identity of these young people was clearly defined in terms of them being offenders.

In relation to those vulnerable to victimisation, it was also sometimes apparent that police officers acted on the basis of gendered (and age-related) perceptions of risk. In focus group 2, one participant described how the police can have victim-blaming attitudes towards young females:

If you’ve then got older police officers out and about, they’d say ‘if this was my kid, if this was my daughter, oh well, I would do this and I would do that, like this wouldn't go on here, she should have done this’. I think the victim-blaming can be so subtle and just talked about as an accepted thing … they would say, ‘I would never blame the victim, I have never said it was her fault’. But you didn't have to – everything else you said around questioning the behaviour and the actions – you already did that. (ISVA, focus group 2)

The view that age can contribute to victim-blaming and feelings of safety and understanding also extended to other professionals in the NTE, such as doormen. One participant discussed the difference in treatment they have received from various professionals in the NTE as they have aged:

I can’t speak on other people's experiences, but I can speak from being a 20-year-old to a 30-year-old and I just feel more respected by doormen, I feel more respected by police, and they really listen … I think age is a big factor in how much support or how safe you feel on a night out. (Domestic abuse specialist, focus group 4)

And I feel like, a lot of them [the police] have this image in their head like, ‘oh you’re young stupid girls who drink too much’ and that's what happens. (Student activist 1, focus group 4)

The ‘young stupid girls who drink too much’ model of vulnerability to VAWG in the NTE, is problematic in terms of victim-blaming and detracting from a focus on perpetrators. This use of ‘common sense discretion’ or certain ‘mentalities’ of policing led to some ‘ideal [potential] victims’ being foregrounded in terms of operational focus, which inevitably means that others – whose risk was poorly understood or not recognised at all – become lesser priorities.

In spatial terms, victimisation in places outside the territory of the ‘traditional’ NTE (the bars, pubs and clubs of the central city domain) with a long historical association with alcohol and ‘hedonism’ did not feature in the policing mentalities identified in this study. Non-licensed venues, for example, in places peripheral to the urban centre were mentioned in focus groups as increasingly significant spaces in the NTE. Some minoritised ethnic communities for whom alcohol consumption is less common were noted to frequent cafes and ‘dessert bars’ in the evening. Students in residential districts adjacent to the city centre were also noted to socialise in private venues that also did not feature in the imagined geography of VAWG in the NTE. Of course, these localities are subject to regular policing attention, and it is not claimed that they are not policed at all; only that these venues are not recognised within policing operational practice and mentalities in relation to VAWG in the NTE since that continues to be understood in relation to licensed premises within traditional city centre spaces.

VAWG and plural policing in the NTE

The limitations we have identified here in terms of police officer ‘knowledge’ of the problem extend much more widely across the plurality of policing agencies. This is significant because misogyny within policing is often only considered in relation to public police officers, rather than private, public and third-sector parties in the mixed economy of policing. Hadfield and Measham (2015) argued that the complexities of plural policing in the context of regulating the sale and consumption of alcohol in the NTE have led to contradictions and ambiguities that weaken ‘official’ policy priorities. Similarly, our research participants discussed mixed opinions and experiences in relation to different agents within the plural policing landscape. Some reported that the behaviour and actions of door security staff (‘bouncers’) enable users of the NTE to feel safe and comfortable. The authors note that participants explicitly referred to male door staff in this study, but it is acknowledged that this role is not exclusively undertaken by men. Some argued that private security staff at venues are more effective than police in preventing VAWG, particularly within private bars and clubs. This reflects a point made in relation to plural policing of football matches, where some argued that private stewards might be better trained and more experienced in crowd management than their counterparts in the police service (Garland and Rowe, 1999). However, contrary to this, many participants argued that bouncers create a hostile environment. The overtly macho and aggressive stance of security staff as they seek to maintain control over venues may help deter perpetrators of violence more generally, but they also reported that it did little to help them feel safe, because aggressive displays of masculinity were inherently problematic. One participant describes their personal perception of doormen:

I think they have too much power. And I think because they have so much power it attracts the complete wrong type of people that want that toxic masculinity and that want that power. (Student activist 2, focus group 4)

It is of interest that instead of preventing or removing potential or known perpetrators from venues, some participants felt that the door staff themselves were fuelled and led by misogyny when interacting with female customers, thereby contributing to the problem.

I knew how to look, I knew what eyes to look at them [door men] with because that meant that you would get in if you played along with their misogynistic narrative, you would get in [to the venue]. If you wore a short enough dress, you would get in. (Domestic abuse specialist, focus group 4)

In relation to the plurality of policing in the NTE this suggests that stereotypical and misogynistic belief are of concern beyond the public police. Many door and security staff are employed by private companies who contract separately to individual venues. As Liempt and Aalst (2015) argued in their study of policing the Dutch NTE, this means they operate in an ambiguous role: not aligned directly to public safety or the private interests of commercial venues. Because they work across multiple sites and shift patterns change frequently, some communication may be lost between venues, staff, police and other partner agencies. Although some participants noted that security staff sometimes operated in close liaison with one another and with the police this seemed to be (as far as we can establish from our data) on an ad hoc basis in circumstances were staff had established relations with police officers over time and/or collaborated with security teams at other venues close to their own. This was not, according to our respondents, on an organised or sustained basis, which sometimes meant inconsistency and gaps. As one focus group participant noted:

You might kick somebody out of one club … What's to stop them going next door? Does it need to be more joined up? (ISVA, focus group 2)

Some participants also felt that incidents such as public harassment were left to volunteer groups, but that door staff could do more to help; for example, by ‘not kicking people out who are intoxicated and potentially vulnerable’ (Volunteer, focus group 2). In these situations, dealing with intoxicated vulnerable people, door staff’s duty to the licensed venue that employs them do not always align with public safety. Moreover, security staff were seen not to recognise forms of sexual harassment that were not instances of violence or threats, which were often seen as an inevitable – and relatively innocuous – part of the culture of the NTE. Just as public police officers, as we indicated earlier, were not recognising forms of VAWG in the NTE at the ‘lower end’ of the spectrum (for example, cat calling) so too, private security teams were seen to behave in ways that did not support safety.

Discussion

A key finding, as outlined above, is that police officers deployed in the NTE were encouraged, at shift briefings, to use their professional knowledge and instincts to tackle VAWG. As Fleming and Rhodes (2018) note, this is a common strategy in policing. Furthermore, experiential learning is a key feature of police officer education and professionalisation as officers are encouraged to be reflexive practitioners able to apply research-based data to applied practice (Norman and Fleming, 2022). Officers observed in this study appeared to take VAWG in the NTE seriously and did not indicate that this was a trivial or ‘non-police’ matter. It is important also to acknowledge that they were not deployed solely to tackle VAWG, but had to prioritise that alongside competing demands relating to public safety, anti-social behaviour, crime prevention and the myriad duties of operational patrol. In relation to VAWG, our data suggested, that the basis of their professional knowledge was narrow – based on a police worldview and some ‘common sense’ assumptions about VAWG, perpetrators and victimisation.

Non-police participants identified dimensions of VAWG in the NTE that were not recognised in most of the police knowledge that featured in our research study. The narrow basis of police knowledge might explain why certain well-established ideas about victims came to the fore: isolated and intoxicated young women were typically in need of help. Others potentially vulnerable to VAWG were less likely to be identified by officers. Similarly, perpetrators were understood in limited terms that were often racialised or stereotyped in other ways. Perpetrators were understood to be predatory males focusing on certain ‘types’ of victim to commit ‘serious’ sexual and physical assaults. Same-sex perpetrators, incidents involving people known to one another, male victims and incidents targeting vulnerable underage children were among those that were marginalised in terms of the operational perspective of officers deployed on patrol. These dimensions of perpetration and victimisation did not feature in the police knowledge that was the basis for operational practice.

Building from this general point that police knowledge did not reflect the nuances and complexities of VAWG in the NTE, the study reaches a number of more specific findings. First, there was little meaningful possibility that perpetrators would be identified. The use of undercover officers is unlikely – in isolation – to significantly impact on perpetrators, simply because the scale of deployment is unlikely to meet operational need. Second, officers’ analysis of the nature of VAWG in the NTE seemed to be at odds with perspectives offered by research participants in focus group discussions. In practice, police were only focused on addressing a set of behaviours that were distinctly criminal, perpetrated by certain ‘types’ of predatory offender, and against specific targets. In broad terms most of the other stakeholder research participants who took part in our study spoke instead of VAWG in terms of a spectrum of problematic behaviour and values, some of which was legitimised in aspects of the cultures of the NTE. There were a number of inter-related dimensions to the ‘gaps’ in police knowledge that were identified by non-police stakeholders. Among these were gaps in terms of identification of key locations for VAWG. Participants sometimes, for example, spoke in detail about particular venues that were known to be sites in which underage girls would be subject to sexual harms and criminal exploitation. These were not, our participants argued, adequately monitored by operational police (of course other policing activity could be targeting those locations). A second set of ‘gaps’ in terms of venues emerged, this time in relation to the tendency for police operations to prioritise licensed premises – pubs, bars and clubs – within the central downtown area. The authoritative geography of policing (Keith, 1993) focused attention on selected parts of the city centre. While these are traditional sites for night-time cultures of drinking, carnival and celebration that stretch back for many centuries and for which the city is renowned, there are contemporary variations in social practices that do not fall within this ambit and are therefore largely un-policed in terms of patrol work. Venues that do not sell alcohol, for example, attract many young people who might not, for various reasons, frequent licensed venues in the city centre NTE.

Third, members of the plural policing family (in this case security and door staff) were also identified by our research participants as sometimes displaying problematic behaviour. Our findings suggest that current debates about misogyny in policing need to be extended to incorporate the existence of such problems across the broader range of policing agencies, whether public, private or third sector. Increasing research and policy focus on policing beyond state agencies needs to extend to include consideration of these actors and agencies working in the public and private spaces of the NTE. Private and third-sector policing partners add capacity in terms of resources and, our findings indicate, bring other benefits in terms of widening perspectives on the nature and dynamics of VAWG in broader forms. Relations between those actors and agencies and public police remain complex, however, and cannot be taken for granted as a straightforward solution.

Limitations and future directions

Our study is not without limitations. Although the combination of observational fieldwork and focus group interviews allow for a mixed method and layered approach to understanding how VAWG is policed in the NTE, the data sets are limited. The data captured by both methods are limited in size and therefore only presents a partial picture of both the police and other stakeholders with regards to the NTE. The data set is further limited by its focus on one police force in one city in England and can only be conceptualised within that context. Despite these limitations, we provide rigorous analysis of the operational application of police knowledge and original insight into the policing of VAWG in the NTE.

In terms of future research, an extension of the current project, observing the work of perpetrator-focused police operations across other parts of the UK and beyond, may provide useful insight into the effectiveness of different operational practices in other force areas. Future research may also wish to explore the opinions of victim–survivors of sexual violence in the NTE, aiming to capture the voices of those with marginalised identities and those who may be less likely to interact with the police. Finally, the opportunity to investigate or pilot a programme which focuses on multi-agency approaches to perpetrator prevention initiatives that are not solely police-focused may provide crucial insight into the potential benefits of information sharing across the VAWG sector to inform police leadership and practice.