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The Government has stuck upon the oldest of all third way approaches to maintain order. Shame is back on the agenda. Last week the Home Secretary announced that the names, addresses, and photographs of people given anti social behaviour orders should be routinely published in local newspapers to ensure that the measures are enforced.

Charles Clarke was right to find time during the most difficult week so far of his political life to beef up the Government’s anti-social behaviour strategy. Most of the week was spent in trying to keep on the road a major piece of legislation aimed at dealing with the type of terrorism which destroyed New York’s twin towers on 9/11. The rise and rise of loutish behaviour in Britain however amounts to nothing less than a low grade terrorism which destroys life as we have come to expect it. But what part can shame play when so many of those who terrorize their neighbourhood do not share our values and to whom shame is a meaningless idea?

The Home Secretary is dead right to recognise that anti-social behaviour is a mega issue with an ever growing proportion of voters. All too many of my constituents see the world in which they grew up being turned upside down. For me the politics of behaviour was born to me ten years ago. A group of pensioners quietly came into my constituency surgery to relay the horrors through which they were now living.

Young lads rang across their bungalow roofs, peed through their letterboxes, banged on their windows while they were watching television and jumped out at them in the dark. Not much shame here. The police said they were powerless. These wonderfully respectable working-class pensioners convinced me that we are not dealing with aberrations, but with the emergence of a new pattern of unacceptable behaviour.

One lad in Birkenhead who had his photograph published in leaflets and circulated came to me incandescent with rage. His anger was nothing to do with shame. What was on the leaflet, he alleged was untrue. An apology was demanded. I said I would ask the council to apologise if he first apologised against whom he directed such vile verbal abuse and for which he was awarded his anti social behaviour order. Incomprehension greeted this suggestion.

In opposition Labour party leaders drew up plans to deal with the growing collapse of decent behaviour. Their approach was to model what became ASBOs on the Criminal justice System. This was mistaken. The Criminal Justice System insists on the collection and weighing of evidence and this takes time. Action against anti-social behaviour needs to be immediate. If possible the aim must be to change behaviour without resorting to criminal justice system.

Most anti-social behaviour is of a different order. It stems from the collapse of well functioning families who, for the best part of a hundred years, who taught their offspring what constitutes proper behaviour. Many families still function well but an ever growing number do not.

What could governments do when families cease to function properly? We obviously need to consider how we nurture values essential to a community being self-governing. This is not an impossible objective but it requires a long term strategy. That long term strategy might again produce a society where wrong doers feel shame. In the meantime my constituents demands action and in holding the line against today’s yobbism shame has little part to play.

What I have proposed therefore is that, as families were ceasing to function properly in nurturing their young, the police should be given the role of surrogate parents. Unruly behaviour would be met immediately by the police showing in effect a yellow card, like a football referee, to warn people that their behaviour is unacceptable. At the moment only a court can impose an anti social behaviour order. I believe the local bobby should have the power to impose anti social behaviour orders after due warnings. It would be up to the yob to go into court if he, and increasingly she, wished to dispute the decision.

The Government rejected this approach and introduced a system shadowing the Criminal Justice System. Evidence has to be collected, analysed, CCTV footage considered and witness statements taken before going into court. This strategy is long winded, cumbersome and all too often now ineffective.

At one meeting with residents from Bentinck Street in my constituency the police chastised them for not keeping diaries of the horrors of their everyday life which were crucial to mount a court action. But demanding an undue amount of evidence can be a cop out for action. I asked one resident, who has now been driven out, why she was not keeping a diary record. Her reply was devastating. She had compiled such records for six years but, with no action following, she had simply lost heart.

Quick and effective action is required both to stop cruel an dyobbish behaviour running down on my constituents. Immediate and effective action is also required to stop the mischief being escalated in order that the yobs can gain ever increasing degree of satisfaction.

The Home Secretary’s new instructions do suggest that he is searching for a new approach. He’s mistaken however to believe shame can still be used by the decent majority to curb their tormentors. But he is dead right in looking to what new powers local communities need to police themselves.

All too many of my constituents need to be able to get off their backs the growing bureaucracy rationing their access to the law. All too many of my constituents, like those in Bentinck Street, find themselves in the position of supplicants turning to middle class advocates to try and persuade them to take action to re-establish order. The Anti-Social Behaviour bill I will be introducing shortly sweeps away the gate keeping powers of lawyers and other professionals.

The current law allows citizens to go down to court to ask the bench to issue a warrant to bring young offenders into court that day to account for their behaviour. It is at this point that the ordinary law abiding citizen has the door to justice banged shut in their faces. Although every decent citizen in Bentinck Street is in court they are viewed as bringing a private prosecution. Because it is a private prosecution the bench has no power to enforce the warrant and order the police to bring the offending ruffians to court that day.

How stupid can the law get? One aspect of my bill will be to give the bench the power to rule that residents are the public and that the resources of public law will used to protect their rights and liberties.

The yobbos brought before the court will no doubt use legal aid to be represented by lawyers. Under the present provisions Bentinck Street’s residents would not have the same privilege. But I would stake my money on the mothers and grandmothers of Bentinck Street giving at least as good as they got from any smart-arsed lawyer representing the town’s hoodlums.

This reform should be part of a fundamental repositioning of the Crown Prosecution Service. It needs to come of the fence to become a truly public service. Last week a parent addressed a small group of MPs on how the CPS belittled her when she was trying to get justice for her murdered son. The CPS has some highfalutin idea that it acts independently of the person trying to use the law to gain justice.

I knew something of how this mother felt though I had only been threatened fifty yards from New Scotland Yard by a young lad. I wanted to face that person in court, to have my say, but hopefully get the lad tied down to an education course (he hadn’t been in school in ages) which might get him back on the straight and narrow. Despite my repeated protests, the CPS settled the case behind my back and the lad got a so-called last warning. The community wants to help enforce anti social behaviour orders but for this they obviously have to know against whom the orders are made. But shame has sadly little part to play in turning the tables against the yobs. Nothing less than a legal reformation, giving communities themselves the powers to get the yobs in court, to argue for binding them over to good behaviour, and having the full force of the law to implement the courts decision, will match the seriousness of the hour.

If the Home Secretary acts decisively in this way, bringing the operation of the law squarely behind decent citizens, he will have built a crucial bridgehead into today’s yobbish culture. Decent citizens will not be slow in using this launching pad to enforce their standards of decent behaviour. In retrospect it will make last weeks uproar against his anti-terrorist measures appear no more than one of those little local difficulties with which Home Secretaries are all too often confronted.


			You can’t shame yobs, but you can let their victims drag them to court

		The Government has stuck upon the oldest of all third way approaches to maintain order. Shame is back on the agenda. Last week the Home Secretary announced that the names, addresses, and photographs of people given anti social behaviour orders should be routinely published in local newspapers to ensure that the measures are enforced. Charles Clarke was right to find time during the most difficult week so far of his political life to beef up the Government’s anti-social behaviour strategy. Most of the week was spent in trying to keep on the road a major piece of legislation aimed at dealing with the type of terrorism which destroyed New York’s twin towers on 9/11. The rise and rise of loutish behaviour in Britain however amounts to nothing less than a low grade terrorism which destroys life as we have come to expect it. But what part can shame play when so many of those who terrorize their neighbourhood do not share our values and to whom shame is a meaningless idea? The Home Secretary is dead right to recognise that anti-social behaviour is a mega issue with an ever growing proportion of voters. All too many of my constituents see the world in which they grew up being turned upside down. For me the politics of behaviour was born to me ten years ago. A group of pensioners quietly came into my constituency surgery to relay the horrors through which they were now living. Young lads rang across their bungalow roofs, peed through their letterboxes, banged on their windows while they were watching television and jumped out at them in the dark. Not much shame here. The police said they were powerless. These wonderfully respectable working-class pensioners convinced me that we are not dealing with aberrations, but with the emergence of a new pattern of unacceptable behaviour. One lad in Birkenhead who had his photograph published in leaflets and circulated came to me incandescent with rage. His anger was nothing to do with shame. What was on the leaflet, he alleged was untrue. An apology was demanded. I said I would ask the council to apologise if he first apologised against whom he directed such vile verbal abuse and for which he was awarded his anti social behaviour order. Incomprehension greeted this suggestion. In opposition Labour party leaders drew up plans to deal with the growing collapse of decent behaviour. Their approach was to model what became ASBOs on the Criminal justice System. This was mistaken. The Criminal Justice System insists on the collection and weighing of evidence and this takes time. Action against anti-social behaviour needs to be immediate. If possible the aim must be to change behaviour without resorting to criminal justice system. Most anti-social behaviour is of a different order. It stems from the collapse of well functioning families who, for the best part of a hundred years, who taught their offspring what constitutes proper behaviour. Many families still function well but an ever growing number do not. What could governments do when families cease to function properly? We obviously need to consider how we nurture values essential to a community being self-governing. This is not an impossible objective but it requires a long term strategy. That long term strategy might again produce a society where wrong doers feel shame. In the meantime my constituents demands action and in holding the line against today’s yobbism shame has little part to play. What I have proposed therefore is that, as families were ceasing to function properly in nurturing their young, the police should be given the role of surrogate parents. Unruly behaviour would be met immediately by the police showing in effect a yellow card, like a football referee, to warn people that their behaviour is unacceptable. At the moment only a court can impose an anti social behaviour order. I believe the local bobby should have the power to impose anti social behaviour orders after due warnings. It would be up to the yob to go into court if he, and increasingly she, wished to dispute the decision. The Government rejected this approach and introduced a system shadowing the Criminal Justice System. Evidence has to be collected, analysed, CCTV footage considered and witness statements taken before going into court. This strategy is long winded, cumbersome and all too often now ineffective. At one meeting with residents from Bentinck Street in my constituency the police chastised them for not keeping diaries of the horrors of their everyday life which were crucial to mount a court action. But demanding an undue amount of evidence can be a cop out for action. I asked one resident, who has now been driven out, why she was not keeping a diary record. Her reply was devastating. She had compiled such records for six years but, with no action following, she had simply lost heart. Quick and effective action is required both to stop cruel an dyobbish behaviour running down on my constituents. Immediate and effective action is also required to stop the mischief being escalated in order that the yobs can gain ever increasing degree of satisfaction. The Home Secretary’s new instructions do suggest that he is searching for a new approach. He’s mistaken however to believe shame can still be used by the decent majority to curb their tormentors. But he is dead right in looking to what new powers local communities need to police themselves. All too many of my constituents need to be able to get off their backs the growing bureaucracy rationing their access to the law. All too many of my constituents, like those in Bentinck Street, find themselves in the position of supplicants turning to middle class advocates to try and persuade them to take action to re-establish order. The Anti-Social Behaviour bill I will be introducing shortly sweeps away the gate keeping powers of lawyers and other professionals. The current law allows citizens to go down to court to ask the bench to issue a warrant to bring young offenders into court that day to account for their behaviour. It is at this point that the ordinary law abiding citizen has the door to justice banged shut in their faces. Although every decent citizen in Bentinck Street is in court they are viewed as bringing a private prosecution. Because it is a private prosecution the bench has no power to enforce the warrant and order the police to bring the offending ruffians to court that day. How stupid can the law get? One aspect of my bill will be to give the bench the power to rule that residents are the public and that the resources of public law will used to protect their rights and liberties. The yobbos brought before the court will no doubt use legal aid to be represented by lawyers. Under the present provisions Bentinck Street’s residents would not have the same privilege. But I would stake my money on the mothers and grandmothers of Bentinck Street giving at least as good as they got from any smart-arsed lawyer representing the town’s hoodlums. This reform should be part of a fundamental repositioning of the Crown Prosecution Service. It needs to come of the fence to become a truly public service. Last week a parent addressed a small group of MPs on how the CPS belittled her when she was trying to get justice for her murdered son. The CPS has some highfalutin idea that it acts independently of the person trying to use the law to gain justice. I knew something of how this mother felt though I had only been threatened fifty yards from New Scotland Yard by a young lad. I wanted to face that person in court, to have my say, but hopefully get the lad tied down to an education course (he hadn’t been in school in ages) which might get him back on the straight and narrow. Despite my repeated protests, the CPS settled the case behind my back and the lad got a so-called last warning. The community wants to help enforce anti social behaviour orders but for this they obviously have to know against whom the orders are made. But shame has sadly little part to play in turning the tables against the yobs. Nothing less than a legal reformation, giving communities themselves the powers to get the yobs in court, to argue for binding them over to good behaviour, and having the full force of the law to implement the courts decision, will match the seriousness of the hour. If the Home Secretary acts decisively in this way, bringing the operation of the law squarely behind decent citizens, he will have built a crucial bridgehead into today’s yobbish culture. Decent citizens will not be slow in using this launching pad to enforce their standards of decent behaviour. In retrospect it will make last weeks uproar against his anti-terrorist measures appear no more than one of those little local difficulties with which Home Secretaries are all too often confronted.

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