Speeches and Statements

Anti-Social Behaviour: We're Not Having It speech

Speech by Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary, at the 'Anti-Social Behaviour: We're not Having It' Conference on 8 May 2008.

Introduction

Good morning everyone.

I’d like to start by thanking you all for being here to take part in today’s conference.

I’m conscious of how much talent and expertise is gathered here today.  From right across the country – from local councils, police forces, the housing sector, community organisations and government departments – everyone in this room has experiences and knowledge to share.

There’s something else we all share as well – a single, common purpose to improve the daily lives of everyone in our communities. To make them safer, better places to live.

You all know what works in your areas. You know what it takes to face down anti-social behaviour and get results.

It’s a healthy mix of commonsense know-how and no-nonsense determination – backed up by laws that work and are seen to work.

I want to use today to learn from each other’s successes, and to distil some of your local experiences into clear national action.

No excuse for inaction

As Home Secretary, my number one priority is to do all that I can to make sure that people can get on with their lives free from the fear of crime and disruption.

Everyone should be able to play a full part in their community – with their neighbours and on the streets where they live, as part of their kids’ school, where they go out and where they go to shop, and at the local park or leisure centre.

We should all be able to go about our business without suffering the abuse and hassle of problem behaviour.

Over the past year, I’ve seen the difference that Neighbourhood Policing Teams are making – familiar faces on our streets, offering reassurance and building confidence by working closely with communities to tackle the problems that matter most to them.

At the beginning of April we reached the landmark of a dedicated Neighbourhood Policing Team in every area – almost 30,000 sergeants, constables and community support officers committed to policing our local neighbourhoods.

I’ve also seen how local crime partners are working closely with the police to bear down on the issues that concern our communities – the so-called ‘low-level’ blights of graffiti, rubbish, and abandoned cars, or the apparently ‘minor’ disturbance that can be caused by verbal insults or yobbish behaviour.

As we all know, there’s nothing ‘low-level’ about being intimidated by your local environment, nothing ‘minor’ about feeling apprehensive or afraid in your own home.

By working together, with early interventions matched by tough action to punish persistent offenders, we are getting results. Over the past year, we’ve seen crime figures come down, and we’ve seen public concerns about anti-social behaviour ease.

But even though recorded crime is down 12% for the last quarter of 2007; even though robbery is down 21% and violence against the person is down 10%, that certainly doesn’t mean it’s at an acceptable level.

And even though the numbers of people worried about ASB are dropping, that certainly doesn’t mean we can sit back and think we’ve cracked the problem.

Far from it. There can be no excuse for inaction while people still fear for the safety of the streets and estates where they live. We need to do more to protect them. We need to sharpen our resolve to tackle both the symptoms and the causes of anti-social behaviour.

This year sees the tenth anniversary of one of this Government’s first ground-breaking innovations – the ASBO.

Irresponsibly dismissed by some as a gimmick, the ASBO answered the needs of communities across the country who were beginning to despair that anything would ever be done to stop the wayward and unruly few hell-bent on making people’s daily lives a misery.

After years of no-one taking responsibility, the ASBO was powerful proof that people no longer had to suffer in silence or just put up with it.

Over the past decade we have built on the success of the ASBO, developing new tools and new ways of working to protect the quality of people’s daily life and assert the value of order in our communities.

Alongside these new powers, we have expanded our ambition to ensure that all live up to their responsibilities.

In housing, that has involved landlords working in partnership with residents through the Respect Standard to challenge ASB with tough sanctions.

With young people, the Youth Task Force is helping to tackle ASB by going deeper and addressing the causes that can start the vicious cycle of disrespect and bad behaviour. And it has established the importance of parents taking responsibility for their children’s actions.

Today, the full range of tools and powers are being used – and where ASBOs may be applied in fewer cases [drop of 34% between 2005-06], it is because we are now stepping in much earlier with Acceptable Behaviour Contracts, Parenting Orders and Individual Support Orders to nip ASB in the bud.

We are not taking it easy on ASB – we are getting in early.  These early interventions have increased almost fourfold in the past year, putting a stop to problems before they get out of control and before ASBOs are required.

To take the two examples of housing and young people that I’ve just mentioned, in the year to last September:

• Housing injunctions increased by nearly 80% [78%]
• Eviction orders increased by 75%
• Notices Seeking Possession increased by the same margin [74%]
• There were 76% more Acceptable Behaviour Contracts as well, more than 30000 [30115]
• Parenting Orders nearly doubled [91%] in use
• Parenting Contracts more than doubled [102%], to more than 8500 [8603].

Tough questions

These figures underscore my determination to keep up the momentum and keep up the pressure on ASB wherever it raises its head.

Behind each of these statistics, there are very human stories.

One particular case in Grimsby struck me with real force last year, where a couple setting up home together came under sustained and vicious attack from a gang of youths.

Their life was made a misery by kids throwing stones, sticks and bricks – anything they could find – at their windows. When they took a claw hammer off a small boy battering their front door, his mother turned up to hurl abuse and threats.

The word ‘scum’ was spray-painted on their roof. Bottles were smashed into their back garden in order to cut their dogs’ paws. Even the boards they put up to cover their broken windows were torn down. Both suffered physical injury and had to be signed off work.

They felt what anyone would feel in that situation. Alarm, distress, fear – and anger. And they asked what any one of us would ask – how can we be terrorised in our own home?

There was, eventually, respite and justice. When the police couldn’t take immediate action because of lack of evidence, the local neighbourhood team installed CCTV – and that gave them the proof they needed to take action against the offenders. The abusive and threatening mother was evicted with the help of the council and the police.

Officers got youth workers involved, getting the young people to take responsibility for their actions and giving them something worthwhile to do with their time – including repainting fences and removing graffiti in the local area.

That’s just one example of the sort of case we could all find ourselves dealing with. And although the situation was resolved, it forces us to ask some tough questions about what more we need to do:

• Why should residents suffer in silence or feel they just have to put up with a situation like this before the authorities step in to take action?
• Where there is clear evidence of under-age drinking, criminal damage and anti-social behaviour, why isn’t direct action taken against the young people using existing tools?
• And, for me, one question above all – where were the parents?

Taking action against persistent offenders

Some people might just shrug their shoulders in despair, and say there’s nothing that can be done.

I think everyone in this room would beg to differ with that – every day, you and your colleagues are proving that action can be taken, justice can be done.

This afternoon, I’m delighted that you’ll be hearing from Inspector John Burgess and Sergeant Gavin Brook from Essex police about the success of Operation Leopard, which has shown the strength that comes from putting neighbourhood policing into action.

Operation Leopard is exactly the sort of intensive policing that can bring persistent offenders their senses – involving daily police visits to their homes, repeated warnings for the hard core of trouble-makers, and relentless filming of them and their associates throughout the day and night.

It creates an environment where those responsible for anti-social behaviour have no room for manoeuvre and nowhere to hide, where the tables are turned on offenders so that those who harass our communities are themselves harried and harassed.

It’s struck a chord not just with me, but with other forces, who now want to learn from its success in cutting out crime.

It’s obvious to me that people should not go on suffering while remedies go unused. So I am today announcing £250,000 of funding this year for an ASB Action Squad that will inject new drive into the take-up and use of ASB tools and powers.

The Action Squad will also make sure that underperforming areas receive targeted help and advice to reclaim our public spaces, target persistent offenders and focus on the role of parents.

We know the powerful deterrent effect of interventions like ASBOs, ABCs and Parenting Orders on an individual’s behaviour. As the National Audit Office has found, two-thirds [65%] of people stop after one intervention – and all but 7% clean up their act after a second and third intervention.

That’s still too many. And what’s more, that’s the 7% who commit the majority of all anti-social offences.

In Chorlton Park in Manchester last summer, the council and police worked with dozens of separate agencies to crack down on all aspects of ASB. I now want the Action Squad to co-ordinate a new drive against the hard core of ‘hard nut’ cases.

• That car of theirs – is the tax up to date? Is it insured? Let’s find out
• And have they a TV licence for their plasma screen? As the advert says, “it’s all on the database.”
• As for their council tax, it shouldn’t be difficult to see if that’s been paid
• And what about benefit fraud? Can we run a check?

If persistent offenders know they’re able to get away with it, then they will – by definition – persistently offend. They will try it on again and again.

We need to send them a strong message that we’re not having it – that there’s no room for that sort of behaviour in our communities, and that there are tough sanctions for it.

Stop tolerating poor parenting

And we need to do more to support parents who struggle to keep their kids under control.

We know that structured parenting programmes, like the excellent Family Interventions Projects, can work. But between 2000 and 2006 only 96 Parenting Orders were attached to the 5000 or so [5110] ASBOs issued to young people.

That does not make sense to me. I want to see more parents getting the support they need to meet their responsibilities – both to their children and to their communities.

And so I am now proposing that – as is already the case with Individual Support Orders – there should be an automatic requirement on the courts to consider making a Parenting Order when issuing an ASBO to a young person.

Protecting public transport

I also understand people’s concerns about anti-social behaviour on public transport. Working with passengers, transport staff and operators, Ruth Kelly and I will take action to answer these concerns.

We want to stamp out ASB on our buses, trains and trams. If more powers are needed to protect staff and the travelling public, we will provide them.

Conclusion

‘Anti-social behaviour’ is a phrase that can sometimes slip off the tongue too easily, without giving real thought to the anxiety, distress and injury it causes.

Aside from the physical damage and personal threats, anti-social behaviour undermines our sense of personal safety and our faith in order right at the point where it matter most – in and around our homes.

And in doing so it corrodes our faith in other people – it is a form of behaviour that wilfully abuses people’s trust, and makes a mockery of the duties and responsibilities we each owe to our communities and to one another.

ASB has no place in our daily lives. No-one should have to put up with it.  And no-one should think they can get away with it either.

Our success to date has been hard-won. You know, better than me, that it takes commitment and will over a sustained period to make change happen and for people to notice the difference.

And it takes political resolve too – the determination to listen to communities and act on their concerns, to do the decent thing by them.

Thank you, once again, for the work you are doing. Your efforts are bringing security and self-confidence to communities across the country.

I know that, together, we can make a real difference – not just to national statistics, but to our local streets as well.