Introduction

Abstract

A wet afternoon in Eastleigh, Hampshire, England. We’ve just finished a three-hour in-depth interview with a police beat constable and a civilian crime reduction officer, discussing a project they have conceived, planned and implemented to tackle a local problem of drinking and disorder by young people. To put it mildly, we’re overwhelmed by the amount of thought and action they have put in with little if any expert guidance. They had devised and implemented 13 distinct interventions, working through diverse causal mechanisms, and ranging in practical terms from removing a raised planter where young people sat and drank illegally and rowdily, to installing a youth shelter, to running a healthy living centre. The action involved nine sets of collaborators, ranging from parish and borough councils to local shopkeepers and residents; and necessitated addressing a raft of implementation issues ranging from maintenance to exit strategy and revival plans in case problems flared up again. From evidence we’d obtained and analysed, the project appeared to have worked. More to the point, though, the team are pretty astonished with themselves: they hadn’t realised the extent of their accomplishment.