Many people have witnessed this: A night out on town that's filled with fun, but also violence, accidents and people unable to look after themselves.
"Who reacts becomes less important than the fact that someone reacts," says researcher Marina Hiller Foshaugen.
Foshaugen has conducted 350 hours of observation in Oslo at night, and interviewed the police, private security guards and Night Ravens to understand how order is maintained after dark.
"The project provided useful insight into how the management of nightlife actually plays out," she says.
Acceptance of night-time chaos
Foshaugen has taken a closer look at what happens at the crossroad between police authority and public expectations. While there is a notion that law and order should be predictable, insight from her project paints a different picture.
"It's uncontroversial to say that the city is chaotic in the early hours of Saturday and Sunday. Everyone knows it, everyone's seen it. Most people have a perception of nightlife chaos," says Foshaugen.
People are loud and noisy. They vomit and urinate in public places.
The incidents that arise often lie within the grey area of something unlawful, but may also be innocent nuisance in the prolongation of nightlife. It also offers a lot of joy and positive experiences.
"The social world of the night can be understood as a distinct context, where control is not just about maintaining order, but also about facilitating for partygoing. A certain degree of chaos also has to be tolerated. It's an 'order in chaos' logic with many grey areas," she says.
"It's not a given that there'll be time to prevent or stop unwanted incidents when the urban landscape becomes chaotic."
Foshaugen says she found a certain amount of acceptance for the chaotic nature of nightlife.
Limiting damage and unwanted incidents
Police, private security guards and the Night Ravens are visible in the urban landscape and operate alongside each other. The police have the authority to intervene towards the public if offences occur, such as violence or fighting, whilst dealing with everything else that happens at night. They prioritise serious incidents first.
Private security guards often work in or outside nightclubs and bars. They can refuse people entry but aren't allowed to use force or physically intervene. In practice, they're ordinary citizens in uniform.
The Night Ravens are volunteers who stroll through the streets in yellow vests. They observe, offer help and make reports when needed. They're not supposed to use physical force, but act as 'eyes on the street' at night.
The police, private security guards and Night Ravens strike a balance between preventing unwanted incidents and illegal activity, and making it possible for people to go out at weekends and have fun. Such events characterise much of the social life that is visible in urban areas on Friday and Saturday nights.
"Night-time is a distinct arena where risk, partying and acceptance of chaos occurs simultaneously. The formal social control that unfolds in this setting is characterised by this, and therefore has an ambiguous focus," she says.
Does it matter who does what?
Foshaugen's research shows that the legal framework for nightlife can be perceived as ambiguous.
"Only the police should intervene if a criminal offence is committed, for example, such as violence or fighting. Private security guards and the Night Ravens are not supposed to intervene in such situations," says the researcher.
Private security guards and the Night Ravens shall primarily make reports to the police and don't have the same formal power.
Despite not having the same authority as the police, uniformed personnel can still signal a form of power and authority. In some cases, this creates an expectation that uniformed personnel will intervene when needed, regardless of whether they are legally authorised to do so.
Private security guards and the Night Ravens may find themselves navigating conflicting expectations. While work instructions and the law say one thing, the expectations of the public may be different. This lack of clarity affects the choices they make in situations that arise during the night.
"This means that the private security guards' and Night Ravens' assessment of the situation is essential," says Foshaugen.
Through her work, she hopes to shed light on the complicated interaction between the various controllers that look after those who are out at night.
For those watching and controlling the streets, it's more than just following the law. They navigate a landscape where the boundaries of control change as soon as the sun goes down.
Nocturnal policing
Marina Hiller Foshaugen has written the doctoral dissertation Nocturnal Policing: Order Maintenance, Plural Policing, and Nightlife Environments at the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law.
The dissertation explores how police activity and the maintenance of order unfold in a nightlife context. Foshaugen emphasizes the night as an arena where a particular form of control takes place. A central finding and argument of the dissertation is that understandings of "order" change over the course of the day. The dissertation shows how this coincides with the many sources of insecurity in the urban landscape, especially in areas with clusters of nightlife venues and potential public-order disturbances.
