Narrow Margins
The criminalisation of trespass in England and Wales
Narrow Margins is a 2-year Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded research project investigating the steady criminalisation of trespass and its impact upon marginalised communities in England and Wales.
Leading the project is Dr Sam Burgum, senior lecturer in Sociology at Birmingham City University, and pre-doctoral research assistant, Isabella Pojuner. In collaboration with research partners, Leeds GATE and Streets Kitchen, they are investigating the impact of the Police Act 2022 on the mobility of street homeless people, Gypsy and Traveller communities, and environmental activists.
Research Questions
What are the everyday impacts of the criminalisation of trespass on marginalised and silenced groups in England?
What are the common and contrasting contestations and experiences of property across marginalised and silenced groups, who trespass with different motivations and aims?
What assumptions and rationales underpin recent calls for criminalising trespass in England? How do these presuppositions interconnect with global inequalities and (postcolonial) histories of trespass and property?
The aim of this project is to explore the steady criminalisation of trespass and its impact upon marginalised communities in England. In 2019, the UK government proposed that trespass – which they defined as the ‘unjustifiable intrusion’ upon land or buildings in possession in another (Dawson 2019) – should be changed from a civil to a criminal offence in England.
This represents the latest in a long trend of parliamentary acts that have sought to strengthen police powers against trespassers in the UK (e.g., Criminal Law Act 1977, Highways Act 1980, Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, and the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012). These most recent proposals, however, have largely gone without public debate and scrutiny.
Whilst the British exit from the EU (Brexit) dominated national conversation as the consultation was carried out in 2019, COVID-19 has since (understandably) been at the forefront of public attention. Yet, when ‘home’ became ‘the frontline defence against COVID-19’ (UN 2020), we’ve since witnessed the impact of stark divisions between those able to access shelter under lockdown and those who were not.
Social Sciences Research
Research in Social Sciences at Birmingham City University aims to create real-world impact across the themes of sociology, psychology and criminology. Find out more about research projects here.
