Under Surveillance
Anti Social Behaviour and Crime
Fiona & Francesca Pilkington
February 2010
When is a crime not a crime - when it is anti social behaviour? 'Anti social behaviour' has become a catch-all phrase for any offence which is generally unpopular in the public eye. There was always a problem (some might say a convenience) about what in practice the phrase meant. This was identified when the definition was constructed for the Crime and Disorder Act.
Whatever anti social behaviour (ASB) actually meant back then it is now no longer restricted to low level bad behaviour; characterised by graffiti or noise nuisance or offensive. ASB now includes a range of behaviours which previously would only have been described as crimes. Such cases as the Pilkington case or the more recent Lappin case are drawn into the ASB sphere as anti social behaviour problems rather than assaults leading to suicide in one case and murder in the other.
Anti Social Behaviour's Move Upstream
These issues featured as part of the conference discussion at a Westminster Briefing "Setting the Standard for Local Action on ASB", held earlier this month. The experts managed to tease out some of the reasons for this broader application of the law. Partly it was simply that at the earliest stages those involved in the offences leading to serious crime were 'convicted' of anti social behaviour and partly it was that, in a general sense it was more straightforward to describe (both to the courts and to the public) the offences as anti social behaviour and the offenders as ASBO yobs than to go into the detail of what their offences actually were - a kind of obviously recognised negative term, rather like the word 'mugging' used to be.
However, is this metamorphosis a good thing? Doesn't it actually devalue the ASB programme - which aimed to catch low level offensive behaviour whilst also failing to protect the public from more serious offenders? Was the Pilkington case just anti social behaviour and not hate crime and assault and was the Lappin case just a matter of James Moore being a 10 times in breach of an ASBO or a much more serious and intractactable offender who needed vigilant supervision and police intervention?The behaviour leading up to the deaths of Mrs Pilkington and her daughter and of Joseph Lappin were very far from acts of anti social behaviour within any reasonable definition. But is the media to blame, when the those responsible for the criminal justice intervention in these cases (police, courts, youth justice service etc) seemed effectively absent from the scene? To quote one comment from a response from a Liverpool Echo reader "It just goes to show that ASBOs really don't work. The whole justice system in this country stinks!"
SkeweredA few weeks ago the Home Office held a 2 day conference in London for Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships. Ostensibly it was to launch the new National Support Framework (a series of publications about developed best practice and statutory updates).
The Review of People with Mental Health Problems or Learning Disabilities in the Criminal Justice System was published on 30 April. From our point of view it is the most important and timely of government reports to have been published during the current government's tenure. At that very moment that rehabilitation of offenders is threatened by major cuts as the Ministry of Justice tries to balance its books - along come an unlikely knight in shining armor.
As Phil Wheatley (Director General of the National Offender Management Service) to throw the Probation Service to the wolves - a former Home Office Minister (Lord Bradley) has in this report given a practical demonstration of how the National Offender Management Service has got it completely wrong! That in fact, by putting money into genuinely tackling the psychiatric and learning disabilities of those in prison the criminal justice system will succeed in reducing crime and reducing the numbers in prison.
To quote from the report "Evidence suggests that there are now more people with mental health problems in prison than ever before. While public protection remains the priority, there is a growing consensus that prison may not always be the right environment for those with severe mental illness. Custody can exacerbate mental ill health, heighten vulnerability and increase the risk of self-harm and suicide."
The prison service urgently needs to adopt the recommendations contained in Anne Ower's excellent report Disabled Prisoners: A short thematic review on the care and support of prisoners with a disability . The principles contained within that report, of effective oversight and appropriate intervention to tackle the disability needs of those in prison, must also apply to the rest of the Criminal Justice System (CJS) otherwise we will need to await the a successful judicial review of the CJS failure to implement the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA)!
A Shark Attack
Recession bites deep and it comes at us from unexpected angles. A couple of weeks ago I was trying to predict the recession/crime issues. One thing that I was absolutely certain of was that retail crime - especially theft from departmental stores - would be a beneficiary of the recession.
Dr Richard Stone, in his introduction to the recently publish Runnymede Trust paper
"The publication on 24 February 1999 of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry report was hailed as a defining moment in police relations with Black and minority ethnic groups. It highlighted the ways in which the criminal justice system had repeatedly let down the Lawrence family through ‘collective failure’ of the murder investigation and ‘institutional racism’. The report’s recommendations sought improved openness and accountability across the criminal justice system and focused the police and other law enforcement practitioners on tackling institutional racism."
This paper contains 5 recommendations which are worth repeating:
Effective practice on recording racist incidents should be shared across the criminal justice system.
Police forces must improve the monitoring of racially motivated crime.
Public scrutiny should continue beyond the publication of an Inquiry report.
Police forces must address continued problems in the progression and retention of Black officers and staff.
Government should review the effectiveness of stop and search procedures as a crime reduction strategy.
What I could not have predicted was that the way the British Retail Consortium (BRC) would promptly close their Action Against Business Crime project. The project provided the support to around 200 business crime reduction partnerships. Time for a change - well probably yes - but surely one which seeks to improve on a needed service.
One would have thought that limiting stock loss was top of the list for members of the BRC but according to Catherine Bowen, Crime Policy Executive at the BRC, "Unfortunately AABC, although successful in attracting membership income, did not manage to achieve full financial independence, despite support from the BRC and, since autumn of last year, full bridging funding from the BRC. Since there was no prospect of this situation changing in the current trading environment the BRC had no alternative but to close the company."
Cath - is that really serving your members and their customers interests?
2009 - What's in Store?
December 2008
I was recently re reading Recession, Crime and Punishment by Steven Box. I had been asked to give a talk on the subject (I didn't in the end) and wanted to look a little deeper into the issues; rather than regurgitate the reactive stuff popping up in the news - increase in burglary identified in secret Home Office memo.
Box's research indicated the complexity of crime, and the reaction to it, in times of recession. He was quite clear that in his research, in both the UK and the US, it showed crime patterns changed. As a result of the increase in poverty and unemployment there were changes in a whole range of crimes from the petty to serious crime, and changes in corporate crime. Just as importantly, he identified changes in the institutional reaction to crime; harsher sentencing and increased use of policing and the law to tackle poverty related problems.
In many ways we have just started to emerge from the era which reacted to that last recession. There is currently an awareness that prison has not worked, that social issues are not simply dealt with through a new piece of punitive legislation and that society has a collective responsibility for the upbringing of the next generation - and that does not mean finding them a spare place in a boot camp! But those new ways of appraising our social situation have not yet had a chance to bed down and I, for one, am afraid that those ways of thinking could easily be chased out by the mob.
In the UK a lot will depend on where politicians decide to position themselves. In the days of idealism and ideology there was more wriggle room for politicians. Members of committed right-wing parties could produce reformist and liberal penal policies (the party of law and order was naturally theirs) but with the breakdown in the traditional political party roles, over the past decade, the Labour government has taken on the mantle and has often validated it right to rule through its stance on punishment.
It is however possible that the reappraisal of the social causes of crime - which does seem to be present at the momement - is something that could be adopted by any of the larger political parties in the UK and therein I place my hope. In the age of political opportunism there is an opportunity to tackle the real causes - not just react; so hopefully in the political fight for the middle ground common sense will out in 2009.
MD - December 2008
The Challenge of Rising Crime
October 2008
Reading the latest crime figures - crime statistics - one could be forgiven for thinking that crime was spiralling into non existence. In fact the Home Secretary, in her ministerial statement to the House of Commons on 23 October did say, 'I welcome today’s figures which show that crime has fallen by 6%. Fewer people are being injured as a result of violence. Gun crime, robbery and homicides are down, and the chance of being a victim of crime is at its lowest level ever'.
But is it really so? As Jacqui Smith herself pointed out in that same statement '...We revised offence categories for recording the most serious violence and clarified our guidance to police forces.' ; and as the subsequent media coverage has suggested, police are confusingly misrecording types of violent offence and in consequence the real levels of serious violence are just not known but are definitely higher than are appearing in the figures.
So what credence can we have in a Home Secretary who states 'However, for most types of violence where the guidance hasn’t changed – like homicide, robbery and death by driving – the numbers are down since last year'. Totally accepted Home Secretary, but what about the random 'social' acts of serious violence that lead to injury other than death - the knifings and batterings regularly experienced across the UK which are getting discounted - slipping away from both the tactical and operational responsibility of the police and their community safety partners because they are neatly hidden behind a smokescreen of misrecording?
Surely it is about time that we were grown-up enough to accept that the Home Secretary is not responsible for crime itself but she is responsible for the accurate and transparent recording of crime and, based upon a clear understanding of the real issues, the leadership to support tackling those crimes and their causes - where is the violent crime task force; where is its action plan; where are the funds to work on the problems etc etc?
The first session was delayed and delayed as we waited for Jacqui Smith MP to arrive to give the key note speech. Suddenly, from the wings up popped Ms Smith - she made a short intro and said something to the effect that we - the audience - will now understand the delay as she had been waiting for the prime minister who wanted himself to come along to launch this important conference.
What then followed was a lesson in real politik. This was no off-the-cuff speech - apparently Gordon Brown does not do impromptu. As I write this I have a full copy of the monster next to my keyboard - it is typed in single space, font size 10 and is 10 pages long!! Clearly the PM had a lot to get off his chest about neighbourhood crime fighting, community initiatives, Louise Casey and the whole rich diet of political life at Westminster.....and how toe curling to be told "You are all local heroes" .
For the rest of the conference we were left wondering what on earth had this been about - clearly we were seeing the end of UK politics as we had known it over the past 18 months or so and also the end of Home Secretary's career but what of crime and disorder and community safety and the brave new world of the National Support Framework - we are simple souls after all?
For those of you who did not attend I would just like to give you a small taster of GB's conclusion to his speech which illustrated how far we had travelled from the conference theme (and the real world). "To conclude: we must be clear-eyed about challenges we face but we must also be positive about our ability to respond to them; and about our strengths as a country. We will never be defeatist either about the economy or about our society. We will not succumb to the old politics of the 1980's and an age of austerity, with all the avoidable misery that age brought - but we will build an age of opportunity". Huh? (that is my 'huh' by the way).
So it's goodbye to Jacqui Smith - nice to have met you - and hello to Alan Johnson. Alan - if you are reading this - better steer clear of the kebabs its safer to stick to a diet of bread and water for a while as our stomachs cannot handle anything more exotic at the moment.
U.S. June 2009
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Last Thurday, In the humid hall of a Victorian theatre that is Battersea Arts Centre, before an audience of slightly sceptical 'crime fighting local heroes', Alan Johnson made his calm pitch to establish himself as Home Secretary. As we know, since the tenure of Dr Reid, the Home Office 'aint what it used to be; no prisons, no probation service (they were not fit for John Reid's purpose) and really not much muscle at all. So what can a new Home Secretary say at his launch - even with the support of a top civil servant such as Sir David Normington by his side?
Its was crumbs off the table time rather than a descent meal but Mr Johnson tried his best. Singing from the hymn book of Louise Casey (I must admit to having a soft spot for her - even now after two years in the wilderness she is still dogged, determined) but with a slightly encouraging recognition of the small issue of mulitple deprivation that characterises most criminals, he voiced his concerns.
But what did it all amount to? No brave new world of challenging offending behaviour (Jack Straw has his dead hand on that area of crime and disroder reduction), no new funds to capacity build victim or witness support or to encourage neighbourhood watch, no cross departmental initiatives to to develop Home Zones in deprived areas that might go some way to fortifying areas that will come under the cosh of recession. Just a recognition of his powerlessness and a dash for the safe - but most recently vacated - ground of tackling anti social behaviour.
Alan Johnson, after reciting the list of crime and disorder reduction successes of the government said ".....but we must not rest on our laurels". Alan you are right, a new agenda is needed, one that genuinely tries to tackle the causes of crime and is not simply reactive to crime incidents. Yes, over the past couple of years the momentum on ASB has been lost (and it needs to be recovered)but it is about time that the structures and activities of the departments that you and Jack have control of were properly understood and properly supported - to enable offenders and their families to be worked with and worked upon; to enable communities to be properly and consistently supported, encouraged and strengthened. There have been too many initiatives and not enough consistent and responsible leadership.
July 2009
