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This chapter summarises findings from research into the work of community safety managers in Wales, entailing responses to anti-social behaviour (ASB) in each of the 22 community safety partnerships in the country. The data are used to question prevailing assumptions about the problematisation of this signal issue in popular concerns about crime and disorder. The chapter challenges two diametrically opposed but equally ‘smooth’ narratives: that governing ASB is either a morally righteous, enlightened and commonsensical campaign against a feral minority, or else that it represents a moral panic manufactured to support an increasingly punitive and intolerant state. The chapter considers the complex and hybrid narratives of disorder which underpin the problem-solving work undertaken by community safety practitioners. The resilient Fabianism of community safety managers' accounts of their own work disturbs narratives of social control in critical social science, which are in danger of believing the hype of the very political projects they seek to challenge.

This chapter deals with two main topics both of which were key recommendations of the Independent Commission – the establishment of district policing partnerships (DPPs) and the introduction of policing with the community. It sets out the legislation and the appointment of the first DPPs by the Policing Board (in Northern Ireland’s largest ever public appointment exercise), their roll-out, their work and the support provided to them by the Policing Board, challenges to their members in terms of personal security, and their successive reconstitutions. The second half of the chapter deals with policing with the community which the Commission defined as the police participating in the community and the community participating in its own policing and supporting the police. The chapter again brings out the role of the Board in promoting policing with the community in a variety of ways. It looks at the relationship between DPPs and Community Safety Partnerships and makes comparisons with Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships in England and Wales.

There is a close focus on the role of the Home Office and the Inspectorate of Constabulary in determining national outcomes for police and crime commissioners. How the commissioners perceive these wider relationships is explored in the first part of the chapter. The context for local accountability of the police and the role of influencing partners and colleagues is also considered, illuminated by the confidential comments of the commissioners and their police teams. The possible demise of Community Safety Partnerships is examined, together with the expanding police and crime commissioner role in local criminal justice outcomes.