“ Tough on Crime and the Causes of Crime”

The essay will begin by defining New Labour rhetoric on community, and how this ideology of third way politics created policies such as the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and it gave birth to the Anti Behaviour Order (ASBO). 

The Labour party vision was to address the perceived increase in anti-social behaviour and perceived increase of the moral decline of society.

Etzione (1993) define the community as a social web of people, that know each other and have the same moral voice. The communities share a bond that encourages a member to adhere to the shared values, and those that violates these moral norms should be condemned by those who abide by it. 

New labour emphasis on the notion of community was fundamental in the ideology of the party, which was taken from Giddens (1998) Third Way Politics. For Giddens community can be linked to social cohesion and solidarity, he believed could be achieved through practical implementation of means that could further neighbourhoods such as Regeneration.

Third Way Politics advocates welfare spending on crime control, health and public education. Labour wanted to address the problem of disadvantage communities, who were socially excluded, and bring resources that could help communities rid itself of the problem (Levitas, 1998). This could be achieved through fiscal improvement and the use of multi-agency state initiative’s that brings community together commercially and socially.

The theory recognised that families, school and communities formed the moral infrastructure of society. However strong shared values (influenced by the church) can leave many excluded because old communities have a monopolistic power over their member.

Third Way Politics argues, if an individual is integrated into the communities; they are better able to reason and act responsible than being excluded and therefore deter criminal activity. Giddens (1998) thought civil decline was not down to the economics, as the old left suggested but the influence of poverty and the underclass were also to be considered. 

According to Mooney and Hancock (2010) the political and media discourse attacked people experiencing poverty and suggest the need for self-reliance. They argued the welfare state had produced a culture of dependency and asserts the alleged relationship between immorality and crime. They believed society is falling apart because of broken families, teenage pregnancies and single parents. Media stories such as the Ellington boys and programs such as Jeremy Kyle only reinforced these stereotypes.

The Criminal Justice System (CJS) has changed since the 1970-1980 from a pessimistic approach that “Nothing Works” to “Something must Work”. 

Crime was rising and the CJS was in a legitimacy crisis; sponsored government research showed, they were incompetent with dealing with problem. The government putting crime control in the hands of the citizens may be a way to address the crises; however, this seems to have exposed the inadequacies of the CJS which consumes more and more public money. Sparks (1992) argues that, this kind of policy generates public fear; the fear of the unknown, which itself is a product of moral and political intuition. 

The environmental signs of disorder may all conspire to generate a fear of crime.

New Labour saw community involvement as a way to increase public confidence in the CJS and reduce crime and disorder. It was also a way to help unburden the CJS and reduce the fear of crime and bring-forth a more effective crime prevention model; the government saw safety as a way out (Huges & Rowe, 2007).  A softer crime control model seems more achievable, the irony of the solution to a legitimate crisis, was to tread softly on law and order, has done the opposite and become more punitive (Cohen, 1979). 

Labour’s, emphasis was on the moral decline of an individual and linking that to crime and disorder; it seems they were focused on crime, not the causes? They no longer wanted to be seen as the party that is soft on crime. 

Their flagship legislation was the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 CDA (www.legislation.gov.uk). The Act granted local authority greater responsibility in producing audits and developing multi agency strategies for reducing crime, the fear of crime and disorder. 

The Morgan Report (1991) suggested the responsibility of crime prevention and community safety should be developed by the local authority. The CDA linked disorder with crime control and moral decline. The multi agency intervention created new alliance and new line of responsibilities. 

The police could be seen, as being let off the hook because they were, no longer solely responsible for crime control and community safety.

Other key initiatives were developed such as the ASBO and the Respect Agenda. The ASBO was designed to deal with low level criminality such as drinking and vandalism. It could also be seen as a way to keep people in control because modern society has provided the conditions for a new culture to emerge (CCTV) and has changed the way; in how organisation think about crime and justice (Garland, 2001). 

The legislation sought to influence people on a localised level rather than national.

The Respect agenda was criticised for being the UK version of Zero Tolerance Policy that seems to criminalise the most marginalised.The legislation focused on the criminalisation of the anti-social through increasing the powers of local authority to use civil law injunctions to control the movement of people that are considered to cause alarm, harassment or distress. 

The ASBO, does not define the behaviour, nor does it have to be criminal. The order includes curfew or banning of a person from particular locality. The order last for 2 years and can be made in the absent of the person and if breached, this carries a sentence of 5-year imprisonment. The order is granted by the courts but only require a civil burden of proof (Morgan,2006).

The Act overhauled the Youth Justice System as before CDA 1998, this kind of behaviour were dealt with by legislation such as the Harassment Act 1997 and the Noise Act 1996; but it was often problematic to convict young offenders under such law (Morgan,2006). This provides evidence the ASBO was clearly designed with young people anti-social behaviour in mind. 

The ASBO was available to most local authorities from 1999 but there seems to be a reluctance to use the new powers granted. A Home Office Report (Campbell,2002) suggested a number of factors that could have attributed to their reluctance. The report denoted, in the first year of the scheme 484 ASBO were issued, of these 84% were issued to Males and 58% were under 18s. Also the breach rate of ASBO were 61% in 2007. The Anti Social Unit was created in 2003, to encourage local involvement and produced further legislation such as the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003.

The legislation gave police, courts and local authority additional powers to encourage more use. These include interventions for parents dealing with children that truant or behave anti socially, however some may argue this punishes the whole the family. The police were given extra powers to disperse those that were in groups of more than 2 persons’, and curfew could now be imposed on the under 16s, by 2005 ASBO had risen to 800 (Hancock, 2001). ASBO had become the top of the political agenda.

Faulkner, (1998)argued the new approach to the problem of crime and justice were to prevent crime and support people in difficulties but at the same time, coercion of those that do not comply (Child curfew and Banning order). It appears some of Labour Ideology can be linked to Broken Window Theory (Wilson, Kelling 1982). Jack Straw speech in 1998 suggest graffiti is violent and uncontrollable in its image and gives the message, there is a lack of law and order (Anderson and Mann ,1997).

The importance of this policy is unknown, but it seems more and more young people that would not have had any significant contact with the youth justice are being pulled in the net. 

Although Morgan, (2006) found most juveniles that received custodial sentences and the primary breach was of an ASBO already had a previous or serious conviction. These policies were meant to be aggressive on low level disorders and appears to be a strategy to marginalise the under class and the young even more. Young people are kept out of private spaces, for shopping and entertainment they are constantly supervised by CCTV and private guards, which in turns drives them back to the communities that has high crime and deprivation (Morgan, 2006).

New Labour’s community approach in dealing with the problem of crime had good and bad elements. It was obvious the community had lost its trust in the state and this could be a method to regain trust and reduce fear. The idea of Community, Integration and Regeneration are positive signs they are addressing some of the problems that arises from social exclusion. However, New Labour’s focus on moral decline of society and linking it to disorder and crime could have severe consequences for certain groups. 

The ASBO seems to focus on the young and there is an uncertainty of what Anti Social Behaviour really implies. 

The Labour Government had good intentions, but disastrous consequences.

Author: Keithia Grant

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