FixMyStreet! A criminological theoretical perspective on the handling of minor offenses through mobile city applications
Local authorities around the world are adopting new mobile applications that allow residents to report
incidents of urban disorder directly to the relevant municipal department for a rapid, unmediated and
trackable handling of their complaints. These incidents include technical problems such as potholes,
malfunctioning street lights, or wrongly parked cars, but also incidents considered as minor offenses
punishable by law, such as illegal trash dumping, graffiti, or vandalism. These mobile city applications
represent an innovation that empowers many residents to convey their concerns and make their wishes known. Yet these same apps also bring forth a range of criminological questions regarding their role in reporting, handling and prevention of minor offenses in urban public space and the way they affect the relations between citizens and local authorities or between citizens themselves, following their introduction. Through a focus on FixMyStreet, a mobile city application in use in the Brussels city-region since 2013, we propose several criminological dimensions through which this transformation can be explored: as new state-citizens interfaces towards crime control, as prompting technical interventions over social interventions in prevention, and as advancing a societal shift towards participatory surveillance. We then proceed to inquire what kind of fundamental and applied research can best investigate these transformations.