The networks that disseminate local knowledge, gossip and informal surveillance in the neighborhood were transformed by the loss of community spaces. One participant recalled that when there were more sites for social interaction, “there wasn’t one thing that we didn’t know about under the old system. We knew about everything.” Social media has partly substituted for the decline of physical spaces allowing for the rapid spread of local news concerning localized dangers, such as the capture of alleged paedophiles by self-styled “paedophile hunters”.

It wasn’t common knowledge like it is now. Thank God there’s the internet and Facebook because otherwise we’d have never known what was going on.

Fears that child abusers lived in the vicinity and the perceived absence of official action to either tackle such threats, or to share information with residents, were common as one participant observed,

They’ve lived here forever. It’s not like someone’s moved in and you didn’t know, some of them probably lived here longer than we have.

These deeply held concerns had two main outcomes that shaped community dynamics and the nature of the response. First, it generated mistrust and suspicion that largely confined social support within networks based on long-standing ties of locality, friendship and kinship. Second, it strengthened the belief that the area was detached from, and ignored by, state institutions designed to protect them as the following resident argued,

Nobody knew, why hasn’t the police been telling us? We’ve got babies go to these schools and play out on the streets and we don’t know about it.

The most notable illustration of the minimal confidence in official agencies was the emergence of informal and unofficial community surveillance and policing. This was conducted largely by the neighborhood’s males. While the public presence of large groups of young men in poor localities is often regarded as a sign of danger and disorder by outsiders, the following resident told a different story.

That’s why you have the big groups of men and big groups of boys. Don’t want them here [paedophiles and drug-dealers] and the police ain’t doing nothing. I don’t know if they don’t care or they’re scared but nothing is being done.

Many of the women particularly reiterated that the deficit of law-and-order meant public safety was provided from within the neighborhood not from official agencies: one woman commented “what’s happening here the only reason we’re safe is because the men on this estate are policing it for us”. Another argued that informal security was effective in deterring social deviants and wresting control of public space by indicating to potential wrong-doers “once you’re more visible in our community and then they [criminals etc.] know you lot ain’t tolerating that”.

The dilemma for such grassroots responses to perceived local dangers is that ultimately, they can fuel the disorder and insecurity that they were designed to address. The line between informal policing and vigilantism is a thin one especially when the latter is perceived as the only available recourse against undesirable locals. Likewise, the balance between maintaining a visible presence to deter criminal activity and taking reprisals against transgressors can tip towards the latter, when state agencies are seen as failing to execute their duties. One participant argued that.

It won’t be long before houses get burnt down and all of that because you’re going to find that people go “Do you know what, you’re [police, social-services] taking the piss we’ll get them out ourselves”.

Residents’ frustration at feeling spatially excluded from protection by the state and its agencies and perceived inaction against local criminals and social deviants therefore meant the threat of violent reprisals and a further breakdown of social order remained a constant possibility.