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Introduction: In late 2014, batsman Phillip Hughes was hit in the neck by a bouncer and died 2 days later. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the options for cricket ball shock absorption at the neck and whether the current solutions are feasible. Materials and methods: The impact speed and the kinetic energy of the ball were photogrammetrically calculated from the match video. A library of impact absorber materials providing data on the optimal shock absorption point was used to select the best material for shock absorption based on an acceptable thickness and a maximum deceleration of 250 g according to the British Standard (BS). Result: The impact velocity on Hughes' neck was 30 m/s, and the energy absorbed was 70 J. Using this energy and the mass of a cricket ball, no suitable material was found, either because of the unacceptable thickness (>0.7 m) or the deceleration (>1000 g). Using the data required by the BS (15 J and 5 kg), several solutions were feasible, with a thickness of 14-28 mm and a deceleration of 40-60 g. Conclusion: When testing energy absorbers, it is not only the impact energy that is important but also the speed or mass. Testing an absorber at 70 J and a mass of 0.156 kg gives a different result than at 70 J and a mass of 5 kg. Reducing the impact energy to 15 J only makes it worse. The test conditions of crash cushions shall be based on the worst realistic case. If not, the designed shock absorbers are suboptimal at best. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from a yearlong ethnography alongside police officers, door staff, and venue managers, this article explores my research participants' conceptions, and governance of, "urban nights" in "Greenshire, UK." My research participants used the term "urban nights" to refer to nighttime events where traditionally Black music is played, such as drill, grime, and R & B. In doing this, I reveal how institutional racism is embedded within policing cultures and everyday policing practices used to govern nightlife. In exploring how nightlife is governed in a white provincial context in Southern England, I uncover how the public and private police work together to produce nightlife as an "acceptably white space." The article outlines the impact this has on the governance of "urban nights" and the management, access, and experiences of Black nighttime participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the research on trust in policing by examining how private security actors (bouncers) experience the police as a partner in informal policing networks emerging as part of the ‘war on bikers and gangs’ in Danish nightlife. While much international research about partnership policing has employed a police perspective and a top-down approach, thus emphasizing organizational ties between policing bodies, this article uses a bottom-up, interactional approach, with a focus on bouncers’ everyday experiences and understandings of partnerships with the police. Our findings show that the formation of informal police-bouncer networks has significantly increased the degree of police influence in private nightlife environments such as bars and nightclubs. Our findings also indicate that inter-agency trust building is crucial to the collaborative willingness and capability of bouncers. However, collaborative relationships are challenged when the police use coercive tactics in their dealings with bouncers and, also, when there is uncertainty about the partition of roles and responsibilities between bouncers and police.

Background: In a culture of preloading and late-night licenses, alcohol-related violence remains a persistent problem for police and public health. Understood as a ritualized 'micro-social' interaction (Collins 2009a, 2009b), entry into bars and clubs is a particular flashpoint for violence between bouncers/door staff and customers.Methods: A police-led initiative to deter excessive drunkenness and preloading using hand-held breathalysers (the #RU2Drunk scheme) was investigated from the perspective of security and bar staff using the devices. Interviews (n = 18 + 12), a focus group with security staff (n = 22) and a focus group with a security company (n = 3) were conducted in two seaside towns in the South-West of England, UK. A qualitative thematic analysis was conducted.Findings: Door staff emphasised the normality of 'determined drunkenness' and associated violence in their working lives. Breathalyser use appeared to disrupt the 'ritual' of the violent encounter by reconfiguring it into an interaction between customer and technology. This depersonalized the judgement about who was 'too drunk' to enter the venue, with the more discretionary nature of who to breathalyse hidden from customers. Other door staff found it less useful and saw it as a challenge to their authority and expertise. At a managerial level there was concern about the transfer of responsibility for policing the night time economy (NTE).Conclusion: There is potential to reconfigure the violent encounter for door staff using breathalyser devices. However, this is more likely to succeed where other structural limits (e.g. restrictions on late licenses) are in place, and as part of wider policy initiatives to reconfigure the alcohol-saturated NTE leisure scene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bouncers have recently attracted the interest of criminologists, some of whom have utilized Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts to grasp the sociocultural realities of bouncing. The present study continues this line of enquiry, aiming to demonstrate that bouncer ethnography will benefit from yet another of Bourdieu’s concepts, that of the field. A study of bouncers in a Czech city is utilized to argue that (1) field analysis is a valuable analytical framework for ethnographic research in this context, (2) it allows relationships both among bouncers and between them and other relevant agents to be explored, (3) it has the potential to investigate these relationships without criminalizing them, and (4) it provides a framework for comparative studies of bouncing in different contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rosa, a wealthy young woman, planned an elaborate celebration for her twenty-first birthday. She planned a weekend of activities for her friends in Barcelona, rented a beautiful house next to the beach, booked an expensive restaurant dinner, and for the end of the night made a reservation and paid a deposit for a private party at the most upscale bar in Barcelona. Everything went smoothly until a bouncer at the bar ruined her night. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dynamic electro-optic response of the liquid crystal (LC) director shows a backflow effect that is manifested as an optical bounce in chiral nematic LCs (N LC) during field-induced homeotropic-twisted transition. The bend elastic constant (K33) strongly influences the dynamics of backflow at the N LC in homeotropic-twisted transition. The cyanobiphenyl LC dimers – CB7CB, CB9CB and CB11CB – possess a unique characteristic of inherent bend molecular configuration that lowersK33. With the modulation of the effectiveK33in dimer-doped N LCs, we report the tunability of the optical bounce that decreases with the increase in the length of flexible spacers in LC dimers. The doped LC dimers with short spacer lengths not only generate a strong backflow with an enhanced twist degeneracy of the LC director across the cell, but also prolong the time of disappearance of the optical bounce. Furthermore, we demonstrate the suppression of the optical bounce with surface localised polymer protrusions having 50–100 nm diameters, which allow faster dynamic relaxation process and reduced backflow. We envision a novel design of a tunable microfluidic device for precise flow control of organic or inorganic matter in LC medium that exploits the tunable backflow in LC dimer-doped N LCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the reproduction of ethnified urban spaces and inequalities in an ostensibly cosmopolitan city. It does so by means of a case study of bouncers’ policing practices in the nightlife of the Danish city, Aarhus. In recent years, a substantial body of research has explored the regulatory practices of bouncers operating in the urban night-time economy. This article contributes to the study of nightlife policing by paying special attention to the ethnic governance of bouncers. More specifically, the article investigates how ethnicity is produced in bouncers’ administration of nightlife accessibility; how inclusion and exclusion are negotiated in encounters between bouncers and ethnic minority youth; and how bouncers struggle to avoid allegations of discrimination and to uphold notions of colorblind good governance, while ethnified notions of troublesome individuals continue to inform bouncers’ production of nightlife safety.

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The article offers information on violence associated with night-time leisure economy and control in urban centres in Great Britain. Topics discussed include public-private sector relationship, association of violence and drinking alcohol in bars, and role of public police and bouncers in control of night-time economy.

Conducting research on nightclub bouncers involves fieldwork with actors who have limited interest in having the details of their work become visible to third parties. Conversely, it is the specific interest of ethnography to make the invisible visible. Thus, the research process is a constant negotiation of two potentially conflicting logics of (in)visibility. Furthermore, it is shaped by potential risks and the requirements of ethical codes. Focussing on the study of an inexperienced researcher 'entering the field', this article provides insights into the themes of 'risks' and '(in)visibility' and shows how the two were interconnected throughout the whole process of the project, from fieldwork through to writing and publishing. It also shows how the researcher became an overt, but discreet participant observer whose fieldnotes contained intended and unintended blanks. The article suggests that ethnographic data always stays incomplete as the researcher partakes in a balancing act regarding what is revealed and what remains hidden. Intentional blanks help to confirm the researcher's trustworthiness in the eyes of the research subjects, and so are vital in making such research possible in the first place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, based on interviews with bouncers and on ethnographic observations in two nightlife districts in the centre of two Dutch cities, Utrecht and Rotterdam, shows that public-private collaboration reveals ways of controlling public space that differ from traditional ways of policing. It demonstrates that plural policing does not automatically imply greater responsibility of private actors towards public (nightlife) spaces. A history of mistrust of private security, bouncers' increasingly ambiguous working conditions and the high levels of surveillance bouncers are subject to result in bouncers rather focusing on protecting the nightclub for which they are responsible and guaranteeing their own safety within the surveillance network, than on venturing out into public spaces to 'protect and assure visitors' safety', as is assumed in Safe Nightlife Policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a single case study of a British organised crime network operational from the late-1980s to 1996. The network centred around three security firms which spanned the ‘spectrum of legitimacy’ by legally providing security for licensed venues, whilst taxing and protecting drug dealers, and/or selling drugs in the nightclubs they protected. All three firms employed violence to prevent the encroachment of competitors and extort licensed businesses. Debt collection services were also used as a front for extortion. Actors were individually or collaboratively engaged in: the running of brothels and extortion of sex workers, robbery of drug dealers, burglary, the importation of drugs, and unlawful influence. At least three of the activities (robber, violence and unlawful influence) served a dual purpose: (1) To achieve immediate and tangible goals, such as preventing the encroachment of competing security firms, avoiding prosecution, and material gain; (2) To achieve more distant and abstract goal of creating, maintaining or inflating violent reputations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working as a bartender/bouncer in a rural tavern, the author examines how male masculinity is symbolically constructed through fighting in rural communities. First, male masculinity is introduced as a social and symbolic construct, and its enactment in relation to economic hardship is specifically examined. Second, the methodology used to conduct this study is described, with particular attention given to concerns associated with conducting research in rural areas and in violent settings. Finally, the construction and maintenance of masculinity through displays of aggression and physical altercations is illustrated by examining pre-fight ritual, victory, and defeat in the tavern. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Bouncers (also referred to as “doormen,” “door staff,” “security personnel,” etc.) have received a great deal of attention in the available research on barroom aggression. All too often, researchers blame bouncers for provoking and escalating aggressive episodes in bars rather than functioning in a capacity that controls or prevents such incidents. The primary aim of this review paper is to provide an overview of the available research on bouncers and barroom aggression. Specifically, research on barroom aggression that implicates bouncers as one of possibly several environmental predictors of such incidents, as well as a growing body of research that provides a more focused exploration of the role of bouncers in barrooms and their impact on aggression, is examined and evaluated. Attempts to address problem bouncers and suggestions for future research are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article discusses the covert research relationship. Specifically, it explores the ethical dimensions of fieldwork with reference to a six-month covert ethnography of 'bouncers', in Manchester. Drawing from sociological literatures, the article wishes to raise for scrutiny the management of situated ethics in covert fieldwork which, despite having some increased recognition via debates about risk and danger in fieldwork, remains glossed over. The standard discourse on ethics is abstracted from the actual doing, which is a mediated and contingent set of practices. Traditionally, professional ethics has been centralized around the doctrine of informed consent with covert methodology being frowned upon and effectively marginalized as a type of 'last resort methodology'. What I highlight here is the case for covert research in the face of much conventional opposition. I hope the article will open debate and dialogue about its potential role and possible creative future in the social science community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the emerging role of women who work as ‘bouncers’, or doorstaff, in the night-time economy and examines how the cultural capital of the female bouncer is connected to the methods utilized to control licensed premises. It is drawn from a study that combined ethnographic observations and interviews in five major UK cities which explored a diverse range of issues such as gendered bodies, femininities and violence; the changing needs of the night-time economy in the UK and the experiences of women engaged in ‘non-traditional’ occupations. In this paper, we draw on interview data with one particular category of female door staff; women who share similar histories of exposure to violence and violent cultures, and we examine how their experiential knowledge of violence equips them with the resources to ‘work the doors’. Our attention focuses on this group of women, who we refer to as ‘The Connected’, and examine how they are ‘doing gender’ when they negotiate violence ‘on the door’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — The purpose of this paper is to examine the social and legal requirements of the job of bouncer in British alcohol retailing outlets and to consider the impact of the Security Industries Authority (SIA) requirements. Design/methodology/approach — There is little literature on the topic. Thus, the objectives have been achieved with reference to the limited material and by asking a selection of stakeholders. Findings — The work uncovered the attempts to create a formal career structure within the job, and thus to make a potentially violent occupation more respectable. It would appear that those involved perceive little difference to have resulted. Research limitations/implications — The interviews involved only one small town. There may well be regional differences, and towns and cities may offer different findings. Practical implications — From the limited work undertaken, it would appear that door staff themselves feel that the lack of a practical element within the qualification is a serious omission. Moreover, if the development of professional door staff is to succeed, the SIA needs to make its aims clear to the public at large. Originality/value — Studies of the licensed trade neglect the work of door staff. More research in this area could improve the service offered, and thus benefit all of those who frequent licensed premises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To identify good and bad behaviors by bar staff in aggressive incidents, the extent these behaviors apparently reflect aggressive intent, and the association of aggressive staff behavior with level of aggression by patrons.Data on staff behavior in incidents of aggression were collected by 148 trained observers in bars and clubs on Friday and Saturday night between midnight and 2 a.m. in Toronto, Canada. Behaviors of 809 staff involved in 417 incidents at 74 different bars/clubs were analysed using descriptive statistics and three-level hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analyses.Observers’ ratings of 28 staff behaviors were used to construct two scales that measured escalating/aggressive aspects of staff behavior. Apparent intent level for bar staff was dichotomized into (1) no aggressive intent versus (2) probable or definite aggressive intent. Five levels of patron aggression were defined: no aggression, non-physical, minor physical, moderate physical and severe physical.The most common aggressive behaviors of staff were identified. Staff were most aggressive when patrons were either non-aggressive or highly aggressive and staff were least aggressive when patrons exhibited non-physical aggression or minor physical aggression. Taking apparent intent into consideration decreased staff aggression scores for incidents in which patrons were highly aggressive indicating that some aggression by staff in these instances had non-aggressive intent (e.g. to prevent injury); however, apparent intent had little effect on staff aggression scores in incidents with non-aggressive patrons.Although there is potential for staff to act as guardians or handlers, they often themselves became offenders when they responded to barroom problems. The practical implications are different for staff aggression with nonaggressive patrons versus with aggressive patrons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Door supervisors or ‘bouncers’ are charged with privately policing Britain's night- time leisure economy, sometimes using ‘normal’ force to ensure order inside and at the entrances to urban licensed premises. Using ethnography generated in Southwest Britain, this article explores the lived realities of legal risk among these predominantly male workers. As well as empirically charting interrelated factors associated with the imposition, amplification and avoidance of legal risk, this article supports an embodied, non-dualist approach to socio-legal study. Such an approach, in rethinking unhelpful dichotomies (for example, mind—body, reason—emotion, victim—oppressor, conformity—deviance, order—disorder), incorporates the ‘lived body’ and ‘sex-specific corporeality’ when exploring legal risk, violence and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results from a participatory ethnographic investigation into a traditionally perceived deviant setting concentrating on perceptions, communications, and enforcement of site-specific norms and behavioral regulations. Much of the sociological literature covering strip clubs tends to focus on either the strippers or the customers. The current paper moves beyond this discussion to focus on the power arrangements from the perspective of a security team member or“bouncer.”This unique, exclusively male role is responsible for enforcing the unwritten rules pertaining to both female employees and males customers. This rule enforcement utilizes perceived notions of masculinity found in society in general and exploits these perceptions. Additionally, similarities between bouncers' use of masculinity and similar features of the public police force are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social scientific attention has recently focused upon the private regulation of Britain's burgeoning night-time economy by door supervisors or ‘bouncers’ as they are more commonly known. Contributing ethnography to this literature, this paper explores bodily risk among doorstaff in Southwest Britain. The commonly perceived association between doorwork and high levels of violence renders this a demonised occupation yet doorstaff may also be in physical danger when policing urban nightspots. Centrally, this participant observational study—grounded in the phenomenological ‘foreground’ or lived experience of risk — explores bodily danger within the door supervisors' routine night-time contexts. Interrelated social, cultural and economic factors associated with the attenuation, minimisation or avoidance of physical harm are also noted. Describing voluntary and other-imposed occupational health risks, including physical violence and illicit drug-taking, furthers an appreciative understanding of why doorstaff may simultaneously be in danger and dangerous. More formally, this paper, in underscoring the importance of the ‘lived body’, also supports recent theoretical calls for an embodied sociology. Sociological reflection on health, risk and society, it will be argued, must be grounded in the inescapable corporeality and emotional vicissitudes of actual flesh and blood bodies less it ride roughshod over complex social reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on male interpersonal violence with regards to club doormen from Great Britain. Significance of interpersonal violence to society; Analysis of the discourse of violence; Views of several doormen regarding violence.

Security work in urban licensed premises is a risky occupation in Britain's fast expanding liminal night-time economy. Sociologically, little is known about this masculinist work, including those embodied strategies used by doorstaff or 'bouncers' to regulate 'unruly' bodies in and around commercial space. Using participant observational data generated in south-west Britain, this paper describes how the door supervisors' routine work tasks (largely comprising requests and demands) provide the conditions of possibility for hierarchical conflict and (near) violence between themselves and (potential) customers inside and at the entrances to licensed premises. Besides providing a thick description of this work and the phenomenology of physical violence, the paper supports recent theoretical arguments for an explicitly embodied sociology. Centrally, the paper maintains that bodies matter and that an empirical, interpretative sociology cannot ignore the corporeal dimensions of social life if it is to arrive at an adequate understanding of everynight tensions and conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging studies on private security work in Britain's night-time economy explore important sociological themes such as masculinities and violence. Contributing rich ethnography to this literature, and in furthering an embodied sociology, this paper describes the gendered construction of competency among 'bouncers' or door supervisors within the context of their potentially violent work. Centrally, it explores the door supervisors' variable bodily capital (comprising body build and acquired techniques of the body) alongside normative limits to their violence. Here physicality is central to the practicalities of doorwork, risk management and the embodiment of dominant and subordinate masculinities. Within doorwork culture, embodied typifications such as 'hard men', 'shop boys' and others (eg, 'bullies' and 'nutters') are related to assessments of possible violence against doorstaff, the delineation of (flexible) boundaries for their own (in)appropriate violence against 'problematic' customers and the construction of competent identity. Besides contributing empirical data to the literature this paper underscores the integrative potential of embodiment for social scientists and urges policy makers to appreciate the degree to which (potential) violence is embodied in the night-time economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the working practices and occupational culture of bouncers in the towns and cities in Great Britain. Arts and economics of intimidation; Implications of the development of night-time economy for state surrender of violence monopoly; Competencies of bouncers.

This paper examines the scope, structure and impact of the occupational licensing systems designed to increase the legal accountability of licensed premise security personnel — better known as `bouncers'. Much vilified for a perceived association with high levels of violence, this form of private security now dominates the systems of social control that function across the UK's burgeoning night-time economy. The assured regulation of the trade is an issue of crime prevention within the sphere of public safety. This paper considers the impact of occupational licensing, discusses its lack of coverage and haphazard implementation, and draws out some policy lessons for the soon-to-be-established Security Industry Authority. We conclude by warning that the `bouncer problem' is merely a symptom of the wider disorder related to the rapid expansion of an alcohol-fuelled night-time economy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]