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Order Maintenance
Definition
‘Order maintenance’ is the aspect of policing concerned with regulating the fair use of public spaces. Examples include the enforcement of rules that restrict public drinking, noise pollution, public indecency, verbal harassment, and aggressive panhandling. The term is often used in a broader sense, as a residual category that refers to most everything the police do that does not involve enforcing the core elements of the criminal law – a task that Michael Banton dubbed ‘peacekeeping’. But it is useful to distinguish order maintenance as the aspect of peacekeeping concerned with the regulation of public behaviour.
Distinctive Features
Order maintenance has always been part of policing, but the phrase itself came into widespread usage after the publication of James Q_. Wilson's Varieties of Police Behavior. Wilson defined ...
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