Examination of Witnesses (Questions 415-419)
22 FEBRUARY 2005
PROFESSOR ROD
MORGAN, MS
CECILIA HITCHEN
AND MS
PAM HIBBERT
Q415 Chairman: Good afternoon everyone.
There has been a slight delay in starting the fifth session of
our inquiry into anti-social behaviour. I wonder if each of the
three witnesses could introduce themselves briefly for the record,
please?
Ms Hitchen: My name is Cecilia
Hitchen. I am assistant director in Hounslow and I am representing
the ADSS today.
Professor Morgan: Rod Morgan.
I am chairman of the Youth Justice Board.
Ms Hibbert: I am Pam Hibbert and
I am representing Barnardo's.
Q416 Chairman: In the first session,
we are looking essentially at youth issues and anti-social behaviour
but it would be useful if I could start with a general question
as to how serious each of you or your organisations regard the
problem of anti-social behaviour in the country at the moment.
Professor Morgan: We know from
various surveys—notably, the British Crime Survey—that
the public is concerned about anti-social behaviour and we know
that they attribute a good deal of that to young people. We do
not think there is significant evidence to show that the incidence
of anti-social behaviour, however defined, is significantly worse
today than it has been in the past, but there is no doubt that
the public is concerned by it.
Q417 Chairman: On what basis do you say
there is no significant evidence? Because we have been recording
public perceptions of this over a long period of time or because
we have only just started recording it?
Professor Morgan: Over the period
that we have been asking the questions in the British Crime Survey
the most recent survey indicates that there is a slight diminution
in public concern about anti-social behaviour. I do not think
there is any satisfactory index of it, not least because it is
so broadly defined and it covers such a multitude of behaviours.
All of the indices that you might want to refer to for the numbers
of complaints or calls for service to the police, for example,
are by definition, as the chief constable of the West Midlands
has pointed out, likely to respond to particular campaigns and
opportunities to raise the issue. Levels of tolerance and intolerance
are likely to shift quite dramatically, depending upon the amount
of publicity and the initiatives taken by local authorities and
police forces. I live on an ex-council estate here in central
London which is said to be a major problem. I receive publicity
fairly frequently now asking me whether I wish to complain about
anti-social behaviour and providing me with a telephone number.
I would be very surprised if that did not result in an increase
in the number of calls for service.
Q418 Chairman: Are you backing the view
that has been expressed to us that there is not really such a
thing called anti-social behaviour; there is just a government
that has whipped up concern about it and if we just stopped talking
about it it would not be there?
Professor Morgan: Absolutely not.
If your first question were to lead on to others, how can we know
that whatever we are doing is a success? It is very difficult
to pinpoint a particular index, be it in the British Crime Survey
in relation to the degree to which the public is concerned about
it or thinks that something should be done about it or calls for
service to local authorities, to conclude from that that there
is less or more of it. All you can really say is whether or not
public confidence that something is being done about it and public
wishes that something further be done about it have shifted.
Ms Hitchen: I would agree. Local
authorities certainly do take anti-social behaviour seriously.
There is the issue about how you define anti-social behaviour
and what may be anti-social behaviour to one person may not be
to the other. The other point from the ADSS is that some of the
most vulnerable people in society that we work with may also be
victims of anti-social behaviour as well as being sometimes perceived
as perpetrators of that behaviour. If you like, we have an interest
in both senses from the work that we do.
Ms Hibbert: I would agree with
Rod Morgan in terms of the evidence. There has been perhaps an
unhelpful focus on children and young people as the main perpetrators
of anti-social behaviour. If we look at the guidance that came
out when the first Anti-social Behaviour Orders were introduced,
it indicates that it would be exceptional for them to be used
on children and now we are in a position where around 48% of all
orders are made on children. There is some evidence that publicity,
particularly media publicity about children and young people,
perpetuates that fear of them. Children and young people's views
are something we are very concerned with. We have done a lot of
work, including a recent publication on children and young people's
views on social issues, including crime and anti-social behaviour.
They are very conscious of the impact of anti-social behaviour
on them and their communities. They are also very clear about
the counter-productiveness of them being the focus of anti-social
behaviour and being seen as the cause. They feel quite resentful
of that, particularly when they are not the cause, but it is not
helpful because as with young people there is a tendency to live
up to the label that they are given.
Q419 Chairman: I am interested in what
you said about them being very mindful of the impact on them but
did not your survey and many others amongst young people show
that they are the primary victims of anti-social behaviour? I
am interested in why Barnardo's as a young people's organisation
does not start from the point of view of young people who are
victims of anti-social behaviour rather than those who are accused
of perpetrating it.
Ms Hibbert: Because they are often
one and the same. Young people who are victims are often also
the perpetrators both of anti-social behaviour and crime. We want
to focus on those children and young people in their entirety
and not label them either as victims or perpetrators.
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