Invisible minorities: challenging community and neighbourhood models of policing

This article explores challenges that non-normative sexualities,\ud in particular ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay’ generate for ‘community’ and\ud ‘neighbourhood’ models and practices of policing. It pursues this\ud objective by way of a series of reflections arising out of a number of\ud encounters with lesbians and gay men, the police, policy makers\ud and activists all of whom have been involved in an ongoing project\ud of generating debate, building policies and changing the day-to-day\ud operation of policing in England and Wales. These encounters\ud occurred over a five-year period in several different geographical\ud and institutional locations. The article concludes with a critique of\ud two themes that connect these incidents: the use of the ‘minority\ud model’ lesbian and gay community and the use of ‘stranger danger’\ud as the model of homophobic violence to explain that community’s\ud distinctive experience of violence