Respect Zones

The Government is to spend even more money on a new initiative to tackle the problem of anti-social behaviour.

In return for extra funding, the 40 areas - to be identified next month - would be expected to use their full powers to combat anti-social behaviour.

Louise Casey, the government's "coordinator for respect", said: "We approached these local authorities and asked if they wanted to become 'respect' areas, and now they have signed up for it.

"The figures very clearly show that kids who are breaching Asbos are breaching everything else as well.
"It is not the failure of the Asbo; it is the failure of getting the offending behaviour of that young person under control."

Well, I'm sure this is a very nice New Year initiative from the Government who have also promised to issue guidelines to help authorities deal with anti-social activities, but as usual I think they are missing the point.

This Government have been in power for a decade. It has been their responsibility to "get tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime". What a dismal failure they have been.

Please, please don't spend another penny of our hard earned taxes on futile gesture politics.

This country deserves to be a national respect zone, not to have singled out areas, no doubt labour marginals, and it should be a national issue, tackled at a national level.

Yes I know there are areas of the country which have specific problems that are more severe than other areas but this cannot be tackled by spending more money or introducing more and more and more legislation.

Anti-social behaviour is very difficult to tackle because it is a very subjective term to begin with.
Labelling all behaviour that "offends" an individual as anti-social undermines the whole concept. When I am trying to sleep and my neighbours have a noisy party, should I call the police and should they be served with an ASBO?
What if they have a party once a month, once a week, or every night?

In a multicultural society it becomes harder and harder to recognise what constitutes anti-social behaviour. What may be seen as tradition in one country would be construed as very anti-social in another. This worked fine when we had separate countries to live with and this is the very tradition of nations working together with broadly the same ideas and outlook on life.

Under Nu Labour, Nu Britain is now a melting pot of different cultures and traditions. Church bell ringing has been restricted in some areas due to it being classified as anti-social and yet Mosques may broadcast over loud speakers 5 times a day in others. In a 24 hour society people work at different times, so if I use my drill at 3:00 in the morning, I'm not being anti-social because it's the middle of the afternoon to me.

You may think that I have missed the point because this is not really what they are talking about. They are talking about "hoodies" terrorising the neighbourhood, intimidating people and the like.

Well, that's problem number one: the boundary between illegal behaviour and undesirable behaviour has become very blurred.

It may not be pleasant to walk through a crowd of youngsters whilst visiting the local takeaway or wherever it may be, but if you are not assaulted either verbally or physically, if they do not bar your way or make threats then it is your problem not theirs.

If they were to carry out any of the above then it would be an offence at which point then something should be done.

But this brings us to problem two: very rarely is anything done, indeed a lot of people's perception is that the police will only attend if they, the aggrieved party, take some sort of action themselves.

On the rare occasions that the police do arrive quickly enough to apprehend the offender then a lot of the time no action will be taken other than to move the offenders on.

On the even rarer occasion that the offender is arrested and prosecuted, we then find the third and biggest problem that is faced by us all, regardless of how much money the Government spends now or in the future; the punishment does not fit the crime.

Whilst Judges promise us that they will not consider a prisoner for parole on a life sentence for at least five years, and when it is the case that shop lifters are almost never considered for imprisonment no matter how many offences thay commit or to what value, when criminals feel that they are pretty much invulnerable as some police force's detection rate run as low as 3%, what reason is there to fear the law.

In most cases, offenders of the kind the Government wants to target know that nothing will happen to them, I know nothing will happen to them, and I imagine anyone who reads this knows nothing will happen to them.

That is what has to change, and that does not need any extra money, not one penny. All it needs is the will and determination to enforce the law and allow society to put the victim first, to allow children to grow up with the discipline and sense of values that come from a secure family upbringing.

Surprisingly, this is what we had before successive Governments decided they knew best and needed to "intervene" in people's lives.

So once again Mr Blair, save our money and do what you are paid for, which is to represent us, the law abiding decent people of this country, and stop wasting all our times with puerile gestures like respect zones.