No-Go Glasgow? Crime, Drugs and a City Centre in Crisis

Is Glasgow city centre becoming somewhere people increasingly choose to avoid?

A recent BBC Disclosure programme has put the condition of Glasgow city centre firmly back in the spotlight. In this episode, former detectives Tom Wood and Simon McLean examine what is happening on the streets — and whether the problems run much deeper than policing.

Tom and Simon discuss the disappearance of the highly visible city-centre policing they remember from their own careers, and the shift towards a more reactive system where officers increasingly arrive after something has happened rather than being there to prevent it.

They look at open drug dealing and drug use, antisocial behaviour, dispersal zones, homelessness, rough sleeping, mental-health problems and tensions surrounding asylum seekers and immigration.

But the discussion goes beyond crime.

Simon asks whether Glasgow is experiencing the effects described by the “Broken Windows” theory — when neglected streets, empty buildings, poor maintenance and declining public spaces begin to reinforce a wider sense that nobody is in control.

Tom draws on his own experience working with homelessness and addiction services to explain why seemingly straightforward solutions, such as simply providing accommodation, often fail to address the complex combination of addiction, mental health, physical illness and vulnerability affecting people living on the streets.

Ultimately, both former detectives reach the same conclusion: what is happening in Glasgow cannot be regarded simply as a police problem.

Police officers are increasingly being expected to manage the consequences of failures elsewhere — in housing, addiction services, mental-health provision, social care and the maintenance of the communities they police.

As one senior Glasgow officer puts it:

“We cannot arrest our way out of this problem.”

In this episode00:00 — Cold open: “There’s a time bomb in our city centres”