Between the state and the streets: Parainstitutional authority and neighbourhood social control in street outreach work

Abstract Research on street outreach emphasizes evaluations of violence reduction outcomes; however, few studies examine how workers impact social control in marginalized neighbourhoods. Drawing on ethnographic observations and interviews with street outreach workers in a post-industrial city in the Northeastern United States, this study explores how these actors exercise parainstitutional control—a fourth level beyond private, parochial, and public forms. Outreach workers deploy credibility-based authority to regulate public space, activate collective efficacy, and bridge institutional boundaries. Yet this control is constrained by contingent legitimacy and institutional precarity. Findings demonstrate that while outreach workers provide regulatory functions unavailable to police, these practices operate within fragile institutional contexts, raising important questions about how credibility-based authority is supported within urban public safety systems.