Punitive management of urban space

The reaction of several municipal authorities to the fear of crime, anti-social behaviour and the resulting City-dwellers’ intolerance is to produce legal instruments to deal with « incivilities » and to promote peaceful coexistence in the city. In the case of Barcelona, this instrument is the so called « Good Citizen’s Charter of Barcelona », which came into effect on 15th January, 2006. After one year of enforcement we have evaluated the consequences of the implementation of this by-law. We have specially focused on the decrease of the tolerance threshold and how it leads to the criminalization of several social groups and to increasing demands for harder punishment without taking into account social problems related to urban life.

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Punitive management of urban space