Drugs & Alcohol
Downtown Drinkers: The Perceptions & Fears of the Public in a City Centre
This document is published for archival/historical purposes. It will not be updated.
Crime Prevention Unit Paper 19 (1989) - Downtown Drinkers: The perceptions and fears of the public in a city centre by Malcolm Ramsey reports on a survey of public perceptions of street drinking prior to an experimental byelaw being introduced.
Alcohol has a well-established place in British society. On occasion, however, drinking can pose problems. For instance, the traditional pattern of weekend binges has often been associated with outbreaks of trouble.
Similarly, although drinking out-of-doors is something that many people do, on family picnics, outside pubs, or in other settings, open-air drinkers in certain contexts may be intimidating to other people. After careful consideration, the Home Office enacted a number of experimental byelaws, to curtail drinking in the central parts of various towns and cities.
One of the areas chosen was the centre of Coventry. It was here that, before the byelaw came into force, a survey was carried out of over a thousand users of the city centre.
The results were presented in this paper and provide a fascinating snapshot of how the public perceived drinking and disorder in the main shopping area of a large city.
Key points
Fear of crime was widespread.
Many of those interviewed reported that they made a point of avoiding, in particular, drunks, winos and tramps.
These three groups were seen as a common problem by over half those interviewed, and people of this opinion were particularly likely to worry about crime and disorder in general.
There was, by implication, at least a possibility that the byelaw – which was, in prospect, extremely popular – might foster some broader sense of reassurance
Getting a copy
Downtown Drinkers: the perceptions and fears of the public in a city centre 
PDF (109 Kb).
Last update: Wednesday, August 27, 2008