Since 1997 the British state’s armoury of oppressive laws against young, working class people and their families has grown. These now include warning letters, behaviour contracts, parenting contracts, dispersal orders, fixed penalty notices and, most notoriously, Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs). The creation of a ‘Respect’ Task Force within the Home Office in January 2006 indicates that the existing draconian legislation is only the beginning.
ASBOs
ASBOs, the jewel in Labour’s police-state crown, can be handed out for offences including ‘harassment’, vandalism, littering, flyposting and begging. People can be banned from areas of their own neighbourhoods, from wearing certain clothes, from hanging around with certain people and from using certain words. Along with the 2003 Anti-Social Behaviour Act – under which 17,000 people have been given on-the-spot fines – and CRASBOs (Criminally Related Anti-Social Behaviour Orders) – which account for over 70% of ASBOs and have made ‘naming and shaming’ of ‘criminals’ by police in communities and press a common practice – these measures represent a concerted drive to keep down young working class people. According to the Policy Research Bureau, the average age of those receiving ASBOs is 16 and many have been served on children as young as 10. ASBOs are racist, with a disproportionate number imposed on young people of black or Asian origin. Other victims of ASBOs have included prostitutes, Travellers, people with severe mental illnesses and those with Asperger’s, Tourette’s and learning difficulties.
Between 2001 and 2005 9,853 ASBOs were imposed in England and Wales, mainly in areas with some of the highest levels of poverty and deprivation. ‘ASBO capital’ Manchester leads the way, with 1,237 imposed up to December 2005. The city has the lowest number of people in employment in England. Regions with more affluent populations, on the other hand, have the lowest number of ASBOs, such as Wiltshire (52) and Surrey (110). The latest statistics, due in the first quarter of this year, are expected to continue the acceleration of recent years: in the first year the number issued was 104; in 2002 426 and by 2005 there were 4,060.
‘Respect’
Now the Labour government has appointed an anti-social behaviour ‘tsar’, Louise Casey, the government’s ‘Respect Co-ordinator’. In response to recent criticism from sections of the ruling class that ASBOs ‘don’t work’, following a report that 55% of those given an order don’t comply with its conditions, Casey blamed the youth: ‘I’m not surprised by the breach rates, when you are dealing with such criminal groups of people…kids who are breaching ASBOs are breaching everything else as well… It is not the failure of the ASBOs, it is the failure of getting the offending behaviour of that young person under control. That is a wider debate for the Home Office to have. This small minority who are in the “super-criminal” groups are breaching everything under the sun.’
Casey’s job is to make it clear to Labour’s middle class supporters that the government’s priority is to protect them from Britain’s dispossessed and to take care of ‘the residents in the communities. Their voice needs to be heard a lot louder…We’ve got to take action.’ Echoing Tony Blair and other Labour leaders: ‘My parents would have been astounded by some of the wealth and choices that many of us have – but we can’t walk away from those who don’t enjoy those choices…We can only have liberty and live without fear if we are secure in the knowledge that rules are there to make us safe.’
Casey is calling for a ‘wide debate’ on how to strengthen the police and councils. There are new plans to give councils powers to force compulsory parenting courses on parents of ‘problem’ children. The ‘tsar’ feels that ‘anybody who has got children who are behaving anti-socially should be offered a parenting course. If they won’t take that, we’ve got to consider whether we have [to force them to undergo] parenting orders.’
Alongside this Home Secretary John Reid announced that £4m would be spent on ‘supernannies’ across England to give ‘advice’ to working class families in 77 local councils by the end of March. So, apparently, it is not enough to punish youths for the social situation that they grow up in. Now Labour wants to tell families how to bring up their children in the first place.
The government has approached town halls asking them to sign up to be ‘Respect areas’ – to agree to a crack-down on ‘anti-social’ neighbourhoods in exchange for extra funds and resources from the Home Office. Forty local authorities have now been selected on the basis of criteria of deprivation and high levels of street crime as well as truancy, exclusion from school and other factors. The attack on the working class continues.
Louis Brehony
FRFI 195 February / March 2007
