Dealing with anti-social behaviour

The former Director of CPAG and now Labour MP, Frank Field, is no stranger to controversy. In his latest book, Neighbours from Hell, he calls for a radical shift in how we deal with anti-social behaviour, which would include the use of benefit sanctions. He took a break from his busy Westminster schedule to talk to Paul Dornan.

PD: Would you mind summarising for Poverty readers your overarching concerns?

FF: I think something really quite fundamental is happening in British society and the difference can be seen in what my constituents now present to me as being the big issues. When I first went to Birkenhead after leaving CPAG 25 years ago, these were class issues: Are we being treated fairly? How do we get access to the welfare state, to benefits, to housing transfers? That has now been transformed into a position where most of the questions raised are not about what can I do for them, but how can I stop the bad behaviour of others. No one now in the House of Commons will get up and say this is not a huge issue for them in their constituencies. Neighbours from Hell is one of the results of me trying to engage with my constituents on the issue that most concerns them.

PD: I was interested that in your book you associate the growth in anti-social behaviour as starting in 1992. What do you think has caused this?

FF: We've never before as a community had to address the basic question of what sort of people we want our citizens to be. The job was done for us and over the centuries we became a peaceful kingdom because two great forces, the evangelical revival and the discipline that neighbours and the welfare state imposed on people, ensured that families functioned well. Parents taught their offspring that you could only get by in life if you also had regard for other people. And because families increasingly functioned well, individuals were given the social skills to negotiate the outside world. What I've witnessed in Birkenhead is because we've never replenished that capital – certainly over a 50-year period we took it for granted that these things happened and they no longer do – we've got a small, but increasing, number of non-functioning families who do not teach their offspring common decency and the basic requirements of civilised living. This fact stole up on me. I describe in my book one occasion when a group of very respectable pensioners came into my surgery. Like all decent working class people they put more into the community than they take out, yet their lives were being wrecked by arbitrary guerrilla attacks by young – very young – youths, running across their bungalow roofs, breaking their windows, peeing through their letterboxes, jumping out at them in the dark. The police were powerless to do anything. Initially, I thought it was bad luck that people were being treated like this, but I realised that the individual events that I had kept in my mind up until that point as just individual events were in fact beginning to make up a pattern. It was a breakdown in decent behaviour.

PD: One point you make very clearly in your book is that this type of behaviour is very hard to define and without defining it we cannot start to tackle it. How would you define it?

FF: I define it as unacceptable behaviour; unthoughtful behaviour, which if very occasionally experienced may be acceptable, but whose mere repetition elevates the whole process into a different sphere. And that behaviour makes more and more lives – peaceful lives – impossible. You never know when it will be inflicted upon you. Even when it's not happening, you're waiting for the attacks to begin.

PD: What about the link with crime?

FF: The Government is mistaken to have a criminal justice model for its anti-social behaviour strategy. I believe, in the first instance, that you should keep them separate. In other words, you need something that intervenes in a way that parents have failed to do to prevent the whole business escalating into crime and people actually getting a criminal record. And this distinction is not being made by the Government. But while anti-social behaviour is different from crime, it clearly becomes a recruiting sergeant for crime if it goes unchecked. There are two reasons: If you get away with it the rules of the game no longer apply, so why not stretch them to the limit? And to get more of a buzz out of misbehaving you have to become more extreme. Bad behaviour can tip into criminal behaviour because without it some people do not get the thrill they are experiencing by running amok.

PD: You refer to the British Crime Survey, which shows some shocking statistics. How accurate are they?

FF: The latest figures from the Merseyside police show that in the last complete year there were something like 340,000 enquiries about anti-social behaviour, of which 53,000 were about youth annoyance. These figures minimise the issue because some of the behaviour is not carried out by individual youths but by families. In Neighbours from Hell I talk about the whole family being dysfunctional, including the parents. People are also afraid to come forward to give evidence. We now have to use professional witnesses because people are so scared. The British Crime Survey underestimates, I believe, the extent of anti-social behaviour.

PD: What about any specific geographic elements?

FF: The national surveys show that everyone experiences this behaviour, but that middle class people are more likely to experience it away from home. The reasons why the demand to counter anti-social behaviour is strongest from people living in the poorest areas is because it's carried out against them in their neighbourhood and from which they can't escape. The poorest people find it the greatest threat. And this phrase, 'Oh this is an attack on the poor', is absolutely absurd because it is poor people who are being attacked in a totally unacceptable way.

PD: My crude interpretation of what you describe is that we've got a fairly small core of 'neighbours from hell' surrounded by a much larger group of those who might go either way and who, if we don't intervene, might develop anti-social behaviour.

FF: Yes. It's very important that our intervention is successful to stop the growth of lawlessness among young people. If they believe that this is the normal way of living they will, in turn, create the next generation behaving similarly.

PD: Let's move on to the causes. I was struck by your view that this is a new problem. I would have thought it's been going on for much longer. What do you think are the key origins?

FF: I think the key to a peaceable kingdom developed over a number of centuries and probably reached its peak in the middle of the last century. One of the forces which shaped our character in this country was the evangelical revival which gave people a personal sense of responsibility. Most people acquired this and it was reinforced by the fact that you had to behave decently to be a member of, say, your friendly society, or trade union or co-op. Those two great forces shaping behaviour have not been replaced.

Things were probably speeded up by the collapse of manufacturing employment under Thatcher, when fathers in many areas were disenfranchised from their role as breadwinners. And the benefits system was such that you got on just as well without having a bloke around. We're now reaping that harvest. The task of nurturing children is a most difficult one. And one which we take for granted. We've lost the sense of order in lots of families, which came from work and all the responsibilities that family life entailed. I've seen things really speed up over the last eight or nine years, but the roots are deep.

PD: You use the term 'dysfunctional families'. What do you mean by this?

FF: A prime function of families is to nurture children successfully. An essential part of this involves balancing the individual's self-importance with the needs of the other members of the family. Increasingly, that is now not happening.

PD: To what extent is it the case that problems like youth annoyance boil down to communication – that the young don't understand the old and the old don't understand the young?

FF: For 50 youths to gather outside your home and shout very occasionally, although unpleasant, is neither here nor there. For them to do it night after night is totally unacceptable. An annoyance becomes something unbearable. It's nothing to do with the failure to communicate. It's about the failure of people to understand that they have a duty to respect other people. And to be fully human themselves requires them to grasp that basic point. If they cannot have proper self-respect for themselves they cannot conceive that respect for other people.

PD: One thing that struck me when I was reading your book was how ultimately short-sighted this sort of behaviour is for the people who perpetrate it. What happens to make some individuals so short-sighted?

FF: I think that all of us – children and adults – need to live life within a framework, a certain set of rules where we know what's acceptable. And these rules, built up over time, ensure that we can get the most out of life. And what's horrifying is the lack of structure in some people's lives. All of us have to learn that if we are to make the most of our talents we need a certain amount of discipline. And by applying ourselves our talent does develop. This seems obvious to you and me but it's not obvious unless we've grown up in a family which has taught us this.

PD: To what extent does the severe economic decline in certain industries or the appalling lack of social mobility in some groups breed that short-sightedness, that people feel they have no way out?

FF: If only they had a sense that there was no way out. I don't think they think about that at all. It is true that the decline in manufacturing employment has speeded this process up. In Birkenhead, for example, in the steelworks and shipyards young men were taught how to behave, if everyone else had failed, because bad behaviour would have endangered their workmates and could have resulted in injury or lost lives. Activities in the town which were not liked were also sorted out in the workplace. And what we've failed to give this group of young men today is a sense that their safety, and their mates' safety, depends on their proper behaviour because we've stripped out all these jobs. And while good liberals might be appalled by this, it actually did create cohesion. There's a tendency for the middle class Left to think that cohesion is a 'nice' term, like a warm overcoat; it is often quite brutal. And it needs to be.

PD: In your book you outline various policy options that could address the problem – by both dealing with the behaviour and by preventing it happening in the first place. Where do think the balance between the two lies?

FF: I think the balance is a long way ahead of us because we're doing neither properly. But we do need to stop the situation getting any worse. Disorder brings disorder. And at the same time we need to intervene successfully to stop the supply line producing even greater number of malfunctioning families. Because of the root cause, the failure of families to teach common decencies, we need to target parents. The only body that can target parents are the police. And because I want to keep this away from the criminal justice system, but give the police the authority that a decent parent has, I want the police to be able to apply, after due warnings, sanctions – unsocial behaviour contracts and unsocial behaviour orders – immediately. The check on the police would be that people would have the right to go to court to have these decisions overturned and it would be noticeable if police were abusing their power. Immediate action would show that the behaviour is not acceptable and not tolerated, show it doesn't pay. It stops people from being sucked into the criminal justice system. Backed up by sanctions. If you refuse a contract or a behaviour order you will lose benefit. This is the last resort and is really a sign of failure. But all law is a sign of failure. We're looking for people to be self-governing and the law is most successful when it doesn't have to be used.

We then need to think about what will be the great teaching forces for common decency because the old ones which served us well are sadly not on the cards. I see two areas. One would be by totally changing welfare from one based on rights to one based on contracts. There would be two sides to this – what society provides to you and what you provide in return. A starting point could be a registration of a birth. This would be a public ceremony welcoming a baby into a wider community, saying: This is what the community wants for your child and here is what we expect you as its parents to do. The young people I've spoken to in Birkenhead have said they would welcome an opportunity to be given guidelines. So welfare would be a great teaching agent.

Schools are the other great force and for some children often the only centre of stability, order and decency in their lives. And we have to build on this strength. I don't want to burden teachers with yet more tasks, but if schools are to play such a central role in determining what sort of people we want our fellow citizens to be, then we have to reshape the national curriculum. Childhood and parenting could be incorporated very easily into existing subjects, but we cannot think that all we need to do is to tell schools to do this. It needs a revolution in our thinking as politicians in how it is delivered.

PD: CPAG is particularly interested in the debate about benefit contracts and conditionality. At what stage would you apply a benefit condition and what impact do you think it could have?

FF: If you look at the children in nurturing groups in Birkenhead I question whether all of them should be with their parents. Children are being locked up when they come home from school and then beaten the next day because they are wet. Children are snatching food off the table because they're so hungry. Some parents do not have any idea of their responsibilities and I do not believe that children should be brought up in these conditions. Whereas in the past we've been too free in hoovering up children into care, there is clearly a need for some children to be fostered rather than to be so hurt and damaged by the behaviour of their parents as they are at present. The remedial work we now have to do is to give a semblance of order to children's lives.

The intervention at the end of the day, when all else has failed, has to be fundamental. The primary purpose is to service the needs of the children and in the most extreme cases – for their own welfare – they must be taken away, I think, until the parent learns to behave. The children should not grow up thinking this is normal behaviour. At this stage parents would lose benefits. And I think that CPAG stands in danger of isolating itself and not realising where the debate is. No community in history operates without sanctions as a last resort and that's the issue that has to be faced.

My arguments on conditionality really started when I was at CPAG. I argued then against means tests. We said then, and CPAG still says, that means tests affect people's behaviour. What is so different then about other ways in which benefits might affect people's behaviour? We both start from the premise that means tests give all the wrong signs: that if you work hard you're penalised; if you save you're penalised; if you're honest you're penalised. It works against the grain of human nature. And I see that if we are trying to teach behaviour, this is one area. But only one.

PD: You also talk about service intervention in relation to how contracts may be enforced. How would this work?

FF: I've begun discussions with young people in schools in Birkenhead who would like a say in drawing up their school contracts. At the moment they are imposed on them. And they said that if they were to have a say in these contracts, they'd have parenting classes as well as powers to exclude those who disrupted their school. Again, we see how new this debate would be because grown ups would have to concede part of their authority to younger people – and we know how tough they are in this area. We would embrace this.

One of the projects which I mention in my book, the Dundee Project, was set up to provide intense care and support for families who are nightmares. Two important things have to be noted. The families opt to go onto the project, they're not compelled to. And secondly, while the project has many successes it also has failures. The Dundee Project doesn't address the crunch issue. Ghettos are being created. The question is: do we determine where these ghettos are or do we let the market decide? There is no third way. We can't pretend that such areas are not being formed. I'm for intervening. At the moment families are evicted from public sector housing and housing benefit allows them to re-settle themselves in vulnerable neighbourhoods. Many private landlords have no concern about how people behave. We have a 'hidden hand' creating ghettos and driving out poor decent families.

Frank Field is Labour MP for Birkenhead and was Director of CPAG between 1969 and 1979.

Neighbours from Hell: the politics of behaviour, is published by Politico's, price £8.99

Paul Dornan is CPAG's policy officer

Poverty 117, Winter 2004