Content area
Full Text
Introduction
In this paper we reflect on the “new” approach to tackling anti-social behaviour outlined in the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. Despite the difficulty in ascertaining whether such measures will be more inclusive and appropriate – certainly at this early stage – we set out to evaluate the strengths, limitations and challenges of the “new” agenda while incorporating insights from radical moral communitarianism. We start by providing some background context to the changes introduced by reviewing and evaluating the “effectiveness” of New Labour's anti-social behaviour measures which were very much part of that political party's commitment to a more orthodox version of communitarianism.
Background: New Labour's anti-social behaviour agenda
The New Labour Government elected in 1997 put issues of anti-social behaviour at the top of their political agenda although we should note that they did not actually invent the term but simply re-discovered it. To their credit, New Labour – throughout their three terms in office (1997-2010) – demonstrated a great commitment to tackling anti-social behaviour, introducing a range of initiatives with the intention of “empower[ing] communities to take civic pride in their neighbourhoods” (Hodgkinson and Tilley, 2011, p. 2). Previously such behaviour was depicted as merely “a nuisance” and not always taken seriously by the police although this was perhaps due to the nature of the behaviour being largely trivial and not constituting criminal activity – in the eyes of the law at least. Indeed, anti-social behaviour was not considered to be a criminal issue and understood more as a social problem prior to the early to mid-1990s.
New Labour was heavily influenced by communitarianism, a political philosophy imported from the USA, which supported the idea that the rights of the individual, promoted by traditional liberals, should be balanced with social responsibilities (see our discussion below). Nowhere was this commitment more apparent than in the generic youth justice arena. The inference was that young offenders should take responsibility for their actions while the negative personal and social circumstances which had in some way contributed to their offending behaviour should be addressed as a significant part of an inclusive intervention. Central to this agenda was a rigorous offensive against anti-social behaviour in which young people were seen to be overrepresented (Burney, 2005)....