The fight against organized cannabis cultivation is an important topic within Dutch law enforcement. No longer the sole responsibility of the police, the current trend is for the police to work alongside local government, companies providing energy, housing associations and the Inland Revenue. Together they unite their strengths to deal more effectively and resolutely with the problem. Although different studies have been conducted concerning the (effectiveness of) the fight against cannabis cultivation, there is not much known regarding the way actors experience the fight from ‘within’, that is: the interactions, perceptions and transformations of agreements and premises which are enacted on the ‘molecular level’ of the cooperation. In two large Dutch cities, we have researched, on the basis of semi-structured interviews and observation, how parties implement their role within the integral fight against cannabis cultivation. The results reveal that the execution is more complex and uncontrollable than previously considered. The cooperation turns out not to be deductive, structured and ‘organized’; but rather flexible, dynamic and ‘self organizing’ in character.

In this article we want to show how different actors (amongst whom residents, professional safety-functionaries and street youth) view the safety situation in Rotterdam’s problematic neighbourhood ‘the Old West’ in very different ways and start from very different parameters. We conclude that the one-dimensional image of an unsafe neighbourhood that emerges from the city’s official, quantitative measurement instrument, the so-called ‘Safety Index’ (Veiligheidsindex), does not do justice to the diversity of opinions and visions of the different actors in the neighbourhood and is thus unsuited as the political ‘compass’ for local safety policy it was intended for. This diversity comes much better to the surface in the qualitative, ethnographic research on which this article is based. Such research enables us first to better understand safety as a local phenomenon and secondly offers more concrete points of departure for policy.

Changing public safety problems as well as an increasing societal demand for public safety made way for new policy approaches. During the 1990s, the so called ‘integral safety approach’ was introduced in the Netherlands. This approach manifested itself mainly on the municipal level where the mayor is being held responsible for managing public safety and order. The central question raised in this article is: what are the consequences of an integral approach to public safety problems for the mayor when managing local order and public safety? We will demonstrate that ‘integrality’ is no clear cut concept. Careful inspection of the concept learns that it has multiple meanings. Of these various meanings, especially the ambition to address public safety problems by means of ‘new alliances’ characterized the actual implementation of integral policies. However, working together within these new alliances uniting various more or less independent actors from both the public and private sector, seemed to be hampered by a lack of coordination and control. In that sense, the introduction of the integral approach had consequences for steering and control of public safety policies. These consequences have to be addressed, especially by the mayor who is accountable for local order and safety. The mayor had attributed to him – first in practice, soon by law as well – the role of director of public safety policy on the municipal level. However, as we will demonstrate in this article, the mayor lacks an important trait needed for effective directorship: decisive powers. Therefore the mayor is not able to realize effective cooperation between partners within the new alliances of the integral approach to public safety problems. As a potential solution, we will describe the characteristics of a ‘model of anticipation’ granting the mayor a certain level of decisive powers to be used as an ultimum remedium.

This article describes and judges on the development of three ‘social-safety arrangements’ in a new developed neighbourhood in the city of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Based on different research methods, three key issues are defined: youngsters hanging around on the streets annoying residents and little children, families showing anti-social behaviour, and youngsters showing signs of criminal behaviour. Together with all responsible ‘players on the pitch’ the current policies were discussed and expanded with additional strategies. The development of these arrangements consists of four stages: an objective diagnosis of the area, a more detailed analysis to determine the most urgent social safety issues, determining all actors involved and their role in the system, and, finally, a broad discussion with all actors to determine shortcomings in the current policies and interventions. Social safety arrangements can best be regarded a research-based policy instrument that provides detailed insight in the roles and positions of all actors and helps policymakers translate this knowledge into local policies.