Examination of Witnesses (Questions 420-439)
22 FEBRUARY 2005
PROFESSOR ROD
MORGAN, MS
CECILIA HITCHEN
AND MS
PAM HIBBERT
Q420 Chairman: Some are more primarily
victims than perpetrators, are they not?
Ms Hibbert: Some will be, yes.
Q421 Chairman: What do you say to them?
Ms Hibbert: We would say the same
to them as we would say to adults in the community. The answer
is not merely taking a punitive or prohibitive approach but working
with children and young people in communities.
Q422 Chairman: Cecilia Hitchen, I do
not want to misquote you but you referred to the idea that what
is anti-social behaviour in one person's eyes is not in another's.
Why should we not simply say in local communities that the local
people who live in that community should be the people who determine
what is an acceptable level of anti-social behaviour, rather than
having it as something that seems to be debated in our evidence
by police, by local authorities, by lawyers, everybody but the
people who live there? Why not simply let local people say what
standards they would find acceptable in their area?
Ms Hitchen: I can see why people
might feel that is an attractive option but potentially that will
criminalise some young people for behaviour in one area which
would not be seen as anti-social behaviour in another area. It
is confusing for young people potentially not to know what the
boundaries of behaviour are. The other issue comes back to the
publicity, where you have this raised perception of anti-social
behaviour and unacceptable behaviour. It is difficult to say this
is okay here but it is not okay here. I am thinking more of the
non-criminalised anti-social behaviour, the anti-social behaviour
which is not a criminal act but is more of a nuisance.
Q423 Chairman: You say there is a possibility
that that might happen. Do you know if any of your member local
authorities have ever tested this out? As a Member of Parliament,
my experience is that constituents are generally quite tolerant
and understanding of people with genuine differences and do not
take a simplistic view of these problems. I ask the question because
one gets the sense at this stage of the inquiry that there are
an awful lot of professional organisations who think their job
is to protect communities from themselves because communities
are not able to come to a rounded vision of these problems. Do
you know if any of your local authorities have gone out and asked
local communities what standards they would like to enforce in
those areas?
Ms Hitchen: I do not.
Professor Morgan: This is done
quite naturally by a large number of local authorities through
the audits that they have ever since 1998 been required to do
as the foundation for CDRPs. They were required to undertake audits
both of crime and other behaviour that now would generally be
regarded as falling under the anti-social behaviour heading. I
do not think there is a radical distinction between the problems
we have been discussing in relation to anti-social behaviour and
crime of a minor sort which could be criminalised. Every area
has a natural ecology of crime and anti-social behaviour which
means that what disturbs people, what they tolerate and what they
complain about, differs from one neighbourhood to another. That
has always been the case. It always will be the case and there
is no radical distinction here. As to involving the public at
large, yes, I think the audits for CDRPS, for example, are a very
useful way. What one cannot really rely upon is attendance at
public meetings and consultative groups because, as we all know,
the people who tend to attend those meetings are usually not particularly
representative of the wider public, so we must be careful.
Q424 David Winnick: Ms Hibbert, as I
understand it, you spoke about a number of people who may be demonised.
Recognising that a large majority of young people are perfectly
law abiding as we make clear as Members of Parliament at every
opportunity, would you nevertheless recognise that a small number
of youngsters—they could be as young as 13—can cause
havoc in a community? We, as Members of Parliament, have received
over the years, before anti-social orders came into being, constant
complaints. Are you saying that in effect those constant complaints
are often exaggerated?
Ms Hibbert: No. We would agree
there is a small number of children and young people who do persistently—
Q425 David Winnick: You accept that?
Ms Hibbert: Absolutely—who
do persistently engage in anti-social behaviour and criminal behaviour.
I do not think we would argue with that. What we would argue is
that those children are often from the poorest and most deprived
families and communities and that early intervention and support
that does not stigmatise them or label them as criminal is likely
to be more effective. There will always be some children and young
people who need a very high degree of intervention in order to
stop or change their behaviour and we believe that our resources
should be concentrated on those children.
Q426 David Winnick: Some of the more
prosperous young elements can be unruly in different circumstances
but the fact is that a good number of those who do cause havoc—we
are talking about a very small minority—do come from deprived
backgrounds and those issues would need to be addressed in general
policy matters. Would the three of you accept that that is no
consolation to our constituents, very often who are elderly, law
abiding and want to be able to live their lives just like the
rest of us without constant harassment and making their lives
a misery night after night? Usually it is such occurrences late
evening and night. Do you accept that those people I am talking
about have a right to privacy and a right to a quiet life?
Ms Hibbert: Absolutely.
Ms Hitchen: We would accept that
absolutely. What we would want to emphasise is that there are
different ways of dealing with young people's behaviour and that
there should be more emphasis on the prevention and the engagement
with young people rather than the simply punitive.
Q427 Chairman: There are according to
Home Office figures literally hundreds of thousands of instances
of anti-social behaviour reported by the public and complained
about each year. There have been fewer than 5,000 Anti-social
Behaviour Orders in five years. It is not as though Anti-social
Behaviour Orders are raining down on the youth of Britain. The
reality is, is it not, that the vast majority of cases of anti-social
behaviour are not being dealt with at the moment by punitive means
but by all the other mechanisms that you and your members are
responsible for? It is a caricature, is it not, to suggest that
the main emphasis in practice out there, whatever the rhetoric
might sound like, is punitive?
Professor Morgan: Yes, you are
absolutely right. If you look at the imposition of ASBOs in most
part of the country, ASBOs have been resorted to relatively sparingly.
Most local authorities would adopt a tiered approach whereby one
investigates precisely what is happening, one moves from a home
visit to a warning letter to an ABC or whatever, and only if these
interventions fail should one reach for an ASBO. Most local authorities
clearly take that stance. If you look at the distribution figures,
some 40% to 45% of all ASBOs imposed are coming from two parts
of the country. The rest are rather more moderately spread.
Q428 Mr Singh: Cecilia Hitchen, you said
that local authorities do take the issue of anti-social behaviour
very seriously. How does this work in practice? Do different sections
of local authorities come together, agree a common strategy and
then agree it with other agencies or does everybody pull in different
directions?
Ms Hitchen: The ideal is obviously
that everyone comes together within either the Community Safety
Partnership or some similar body and works together around anti-social
behaviour. The involvement of different agencies will vary across
the country. Possibly the involvement of the welfare agencies,
social services in particular, will vary across the country. Given
that the majority of these young people are young people in difficulty,
many of whom will be known to education, social services or the
youth offending team, probably in some places action could be
taken to make that work better and to integrate the children's
agenda better with the crime reduction agenda. I think that is
one of the gaps. The two are not properly integrated at the moment.
Ms Hibbert: We would like to see
a much better, more robust requirement for a link between crime
reduction partnerships and children's strategic partnerships in
local authorities.
Professor Morgan: My impression
is that because the anti-social behaviour initiative from 1998
onwards has morphed it has changed and grown, a bit like Topsy.
To begin with, because anti-social behaviour covers such a wide
spectrum of behaviour and age groups, there was not involvement,
for example, by the Youth Justice Service very heavily. My impression
now is that in most part of the country YOTs are more and more
closely involved. This is reflected in events at the centre whereby
the Youth Justice Board, together with the Anti-social Behaviour
Unit of the Home Office, together with ACPO and the Magistrates'
Association, are agreeing guidance in relation to juveniles, joint,
agreed guidance as to procedures and measures. That reflects the
fact that both at local and central level there is a coming together
but it is fair to say that historically it was a bit piecemeal
and often there was a lack of co-ordination and communication.
If I could illustrate it, the essence of the youth justice reforms
of 1998 is that intervention should not be taken with juveniles
without involvement of the YOT and without a full assessment to
ensure that they were both proportionate and appropriate. There
is evidence that historically YOTs were often not consulted when
orders were sought or obtained. Our impression is that that is
gradually diminishing and this guidance that we are shortly to
issue will stress the importance of full involvement and a joint
assessment.
Q429 Mr Singh: You said earlier that
there were two parts of the country where Anti-social Behaviour
Orders were being applied for in larger numbers than elsewhere.
Does that mean that those two parts of the country are taking
the issue more seriously than the rest of the country?
Professor Morgan: No. What we
ought to be doing is finding the best measures of whether anti-social
behaviour and public concern about it is diminishing. That is
what we are all aiming at and we take that very seriously. What
we should not be doing is measuring success in terms of the number
of orders of particular types that are being imposed, certainly
not the number of ASBOs. A local authority applying for and obtaining
a very large number of ASBOs could mean an indication that it
is not doing effective preventative work. It does not necessarily
mean that they are taking it seriously. It just means that they
are reaching for that tool in the box significantly more than
elsewhere. I cannot answer the question as to precisely what large
or small number is necessary. We need to interpret those figures
very carefully. The important thing is that we measure whether
there is diminution in anti-social behaviour.
Q430 Mr Singh: The Home Office have recently
said that some YOTs still struggle to understand their role in
anti-social behaviour and have not been fully engaged in local
decision making. Is that changing?
Professor Morgan: Yes. We are
hoping that the issuing of joint guidance will make sure of the
degree to which YOTs lie outwith the consultative process. My
impression as I go round the country is that increasingly YOTs
are more and more integrated in the process of determining who
the problem children are, because there is undoubtedly a minority
where we have to take action, how we can best target them, how
we can make effective interventions and what orders it is appropriate
in a particular case to seek with what conditions.
Q431 Mr Singh: Cecilia Hitchen, in terms
of the duty on every relevant local authority department to tackle
that sort of behaviour, what impact is that duty having on social
services departments?
Ms Hitchen: One of the difficulties
is resources and that is an issue for the YOTs as well, some of
whom are within social services departments. For instance, ISOs
are not accompanied by additional resources to undertake the supervision
of these young people. That is making it difficult to provide
anything meaningful to young people who are subject to those orders.
There are good models of diversion across the country and I suppose
what we would argue is that, properly resourced, they could be
built on. That brings you back to trying to stop the behaviour
before it starts or divert youngsters earlier down the line so
that you will not have a need for formal orders at the end of
the day. I think the main issue is resources rather than willingness.
Q432 Mr Singh: In your view, which agency
should take the lead in this push against anti-social behaviour?
Ms Hitchen: I have thought about
this. I think it has to be a partnership because you have to see
it as part of what the local authority is doing for all children
in the area and part of the implementation of the government's
Change for Children agenda, which is focused a lot on prevention,
joined up services etc. It has a role in community safety but
I think it has to be a joint agenda and the one cannot really
progress without the other.
Q433 Mr Singh: What is the impact on
a young person who receives an ASBO? Does it control their behaviour?
Do they see that limitations and parameters are being put round
them or is it something like a badge of pride and they are not
really bothered? I have not met a young person who has received
an ASBO yet so I do not know what impact it has on them.
Ms Hibbert: All children and young
people are different and the impact on individual children and
young people will be different. What does not happen is enough
separation between what happens with adults who are made the subject
of Anti-social Behaviour Orders and what happens with children.
There is no recognition of the different understanding levels
or the different impacts that these things have on children who
are still growing and developing and adults. For example, the
minimum order is for two years and there are some examples of
children being made subject to Anti-social Behaviour Orders for
ten years. When you are 13, two weeks is an awfully long time.
Two years is almost impossible to envisage. We believe that is
counterproductive. If a child cannot see an end and cannot understand
that they have to stay out of a town centre for two years, it
is very unlikely that they are even going to attempt to do it
in the first place.
Professor Morgan: I am asking
the same question that you are asking, Mr Singh, and I cannot
answer it. All we have at the moment is anecdotal evidence. We
have not done the data collection. We have not done the research,
which is one of the reasons why we have commissioned a more intensive
study. We hear anecdotally of everything on the spectrum which
you indicate. We hear occasionally of young people who arrive
at a young offenders' institution with a custodial sentence for
breach of an ASBO flaunting the local authority leaflet with their
photograph on the front as if it is a war medal. Equally, we hear
of ASBOs which have been perfectly complied with and they have
worked as a deterrent. It is everything on the spectrum but we
do need to know very much more and it will depend critically,
I suspect, upon the conditions and upon the support arrangements
which are concurrent with the order. We do not know enough about
that.
Q434 Mr Singh: What is your view on this
two year period of the ASBO?
Professor Morgan: Personally,
I regret that that is the minimum. I am slightly appalled at the
length of some of the orders we know about. We know in our recent
survey of a ten year ASBO on a 13 year old. I do not think that
makes any sense. There ought to be scope for a shorter period.
We had a very interesting example of this. The Home Secretary
at our convention decided that he would like it to be opened by
discussing issues with a group of young people on the platform
in front of 800 people. His opening question was, "Where
do you see yourself in the future?" I think he was looking
for an answer that related to five to ten years and they wanted
to talk about tomorrow.
Ms Hitchen: The effects obviously
will be different for different young people. The fact that young
people have been linked with adults in the anti-social behaviour
agenda does mean that there has not been the attention to their
developmental stages. A child of ten is much different from an
adult of 18 or 19. It is very difficult for a child to understand
why they cannot associate with their friends. If all your friends
are over here and you are not allowed over there, for some children
that is going to be extremely difficult. The other thing it does
not take account of and where you get your individual assessment
is the level of understanding of a particular child, the level
of any learning difficulties. There is a whole raft of things
that come into play. I would support the view that two years is
too long. It is out of kilter with the criminal sentencing policy
for young people and it would make much more sense if it matched
more closely the length of other kinds of orders and sentences
that are passed on young people.
Q435 Chairman: Would it be fair to say
that in the majority of cases where an ASBO is issued to a young
person, if you look back through that case, there will be precious
little prior social services involvement?
Ms Hitchen: I do not know if I
know the answer to that. Somebody would need to look into that.
My guess would be that there would have been involvement or knowledge
by a number of agencies but probably not consistently. For instance,
the young person may be well known to education and may be a poor
school attender. That would be a very likely scenario. They may
have had only peripheral contact with social services. In many
instances they may have had none.
Q436 Mrs Curtis-Thomas: You have talked
about two years being an inappropriate minimum sentence. Do you
think that if the time allocated for an ASBO was dramatically
reduced or started at six months there might be a greater take-up
of ASBOs as far as the magistrates' courts were concerned?
Ms Hibbert: That is a really difficult
question to answer. What is important is that what we would like
to see is some sort of guidance that says there has to be some
assessment made of that child's ability to understand what is
happening, to understand what the conditions are and to have some
support in meeting those conditions, which is probably more important
than the length of time. We can perhaps learn from the criminal
justice system where there has been some criticism of short detention
and training orders, for example, but this is different. We are
not talking about depriving children of their liberty. If the
purpose of an Anti-social Behaviour Order is to stop anti-social
behaviour, which we all assume it is, we really need to do everything
to try and make sure that happens. It is not going to happen if
we just make a long order on a child that bans them from something
and does not give them any support in all the other areas that
are going on in their lives.
Q437 Mrs Curtis-Thomas: Two years is
acceptable, providing there is appropriate support around that?
Ms Hibbert: I still think it is
too long personally but the support issue is perhaps more important.
Q438 Mrs Dean: Can we look at how we
measure success and the best response? Do we know yet what is
the most effective response to anti-social behaviour and how should
we strike the balance between reaction or contracts, ASBOs, etc.,
and diversions, either non-formal, formal or indeed family interventions?
Professor Morgan: The Youth Justice
Board has always taken anti-social behaviour very seriously from
the inception of the board. We have pioneered the development
of a number of early prevention schemes which seek by one means
or another to identify children who the key services perceive
to be at risk of persistent crime or becoming criminals. That
will include, incidentally, quite a lot of what will pass for
anti-social behaviour. There is no clear cut boundary between
those two. There have been cost benefit evaluations of that and
all the evidence shows that they are highly effective in terms
of reducing offending, reducing the seriousness of offending and
the frequency of offending and the likelihood that children subject
to those targeted interventions will subsequently be arrested.
Children who commit anti-social behaviour have frequently been
the victims of anti-social behaviour. They are simply reproducing
the behaviour to which they have been subjected. We know that
very low attendance rates at schools are quite often because children
are frightened to go to school because of the intimidatory behaviour
of other children, either within the school or en route to school,
which is why we think that there should be less discussion of
ASBOs, because that is the pinnacle, and much more about neighbourhood
work with whole neighbourhoods, with parents and carers, working
with the weft of the local community to address that. There are
relatively few of these projects. We are talking about 200/250
in the country. The Home Secretary has announced that there is
going to be increased funding for those projects. We think there
are possibly 1,300 difficult neighbourhoods/estates that could
benefit from such schemes and at the moment we have a couple of
hundred, so we could do with a lot of that. We should be concentrating
upon that sort of preventative work in which ASBOs play a part.
Frankly, it is quite a small part where you have done that work
and it has been spurned totally so that one has to take a tougher
route.
Ms Hibbert: I would agree. We
were talking earlier about the need for local authorities to work
co-operatively and multi-agency. In the provision of preventative
work, our evidence suggests that it has to be a multi-agency approach.
There are two reasons. One is because obviously that way you can
take a holistic look at what is happening in that child's life.
The other is that it stops children and families becoming labelled
or stigmatised. No disrespect to YOTs who are clearly part of
that but if it is led by a criminal justice agency there is a
tendency for a label to appear. Of course I am going to say this,
but we have several youth intervention projects, one particularly
in Blackpool which is led by the voluntary sector. That stigmatisation
and labelling is not around. I would agree with Rod Morgan about
the need for more of these but we should remember that there are
other services who may not be titled YOTs or YIPs or whatever
who are doing that. A number of our community projects are working
very much on those similar sorts of problems. I have an example
of one in Dudley that has done a really innovative piece of work,
brokering between the adults on an estate who were complaining
about the anti-social behaviour and the young people who felt
they were being unfairly picked out. There are projects and there
is work going on that does not necessarily have that title, but
still has the same impact.
Ms Hitchen: I would agree with
everything that has been said. There is also something about the
fabric of where people live and part of the work with communities.
If you live somewhere that is nice that you are proud of, you
are less likely to either allow your children to damage it or
damage it yourself. Again, there are things that the local authority
in its widest sense can do and that regeneration can bring to
some of these areas, where there are perceived to be more instances
of anti-social behaviour. It is really looking at things around
children and the environment as well.
Q439 Mrs Dean: Should we be concentrating
on those children who potentially have problems or should we be
trying to create a more positive future for all children in an
area by providing more activities?
Ms Hitchen: Both, because there
will always be a smaller group of children who have additional
needs. In a lot of areas there is very little for young people,
particularly between the ages of about 10 and 17/18, to do. There
is a dearth of youth services often, or a dearth of youth services
of the kind that young people want to use. Some of the detached
youth work has been very useful on some estates in engaging young
people. Initiatives like that are helpful that pick up on what
young people want to do and what they are interested in.
Professor Morgan: For us, it is
fairly fundamental that there is no antithesis between welfare
considerations and justice considerations here. If you look at
the characteristics of children proceeded against in the criminal
courts and those proceeded with in regard to family matters in
the family court, they have very similar characteristics. Most
children who get into trouble, be it for repeated anti-social
behaviour broadly defined or criminal matters, have multiple problems
of a welfare nature. We are not talking about two radically different
groups. This, after all, was the rationale for the 1998 Act and
the youth justice reforms. They tend to have been failed by mainstream
services. They are not in school. They are not getting mental
health attention etc.
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