Anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) A socialist approach


ALL THE main parties in this election are focusing on crime, and in
particular anti-social behaviour by young people.
Working-class people are the most likely to be the victims of crime and
anti-social behaviour and are therefore understandably concerned about them.
But the knee-jerk policies of New Labour, Tories and Liberals do nothing
to seriously tackle them.
On the contrary, it is their ‘anti-social’ policies of cuts and
privatisation which make the situation worse. Below we feature three examples
of the approach that the Socialist Party has taken to these issues.

Community action in Coventry

ST MICHAELS Ward has the highest unemployment in Coventry. Outside the
city’s main areas investment in community and youth facilities has suffered
and issues involving young people and local residents have grown.

Rob Windsor, Coventry

A year ago these problems came to my attention when I was representing St
Michaels as a Socialist councillor.

A group of young people were playing ball games and bothering residents
including a man with a heart condition. Local residents were fuming. There was
a clear possibility of an "us and them" situation between them and the youth
involved.

I helped set up a meeting attended by over 35 local residents. The police
and community wardens also came.

The meeting was angry but constructive, partly due to the tone we set that
there was a lack of local facilities for young people.

It would have been easy just to demand that the police turned up
heavy-handedly but instead we used the local warden service to approach the
youth.

They did so and discussed with them – one young lad was excluded from
school and had nothing to occupy him.

The wardens helped set up a course for him and helped occupy others.

The police were involved and their presence increased but not in a
heavy-handed way. Within a month the problems had dissipated in that area.

There were sporadic problems and news that problems had shifted to other
streets but for a good few months the area was quieter.

A heavy-handed approach would not have got this result – it may even have
exacerbated it.

Stretched police resources would in any case have made such an approach
impossible to sustain.

Whilst New Labour’s Anti Social Behaviour Bill had some measures that
working-class people would support such as closure of crack houses and
measures against fly-tipping, it helped to create a myth that deep rooted
social problems can be tackled by bits of paper and bureaucracy.

In reality the prisons are overcrowded and the courts can’t cope. And the
more ASBOs are used for low-key offences, the more swamped the system to
enforce them will become.

But New Labour spinners try to use these issues to grab votes and deflect
people’s attention away from the real robbers, like the capitalists who run
Ford stealing the livelihoods of Coventry workers.

Socialists have to be careful – simply blaming capitalism won’t help
communities having to cope with the "Do what you like and stuff the others"
approach initiated by Thatcher and less hope for a secure future for
working-class youth.

The community should be really ’empowered’ to deal with these issues by
strong residents’ and community groups that would seek to help young people as
well as deal with problems.