Last week's white paper proposed tougher weapons to help fight antisocial behaviour. But will they work on the ground? Saba Salman asked four Croydon housing workers for their reaction to the biggest measures.
Croydon may only be on the outskirts of London but its housing officers deal with the same sorts of nuisance as their inner-city counterparts. Croydon council, which has already been praised by the Local Government Association for its partnerhip approach to antisocial behaviour, backs the white paper as encouraging more of this kind of joined-up working. But it is district housing manager Mark Pinnock, tenancy manager Ian Gray, senior housing officer Amanda David and tenancy officer Sharon McGregor-Kerr who will have the tough job of putting the proposals into action on the ground (see "Reaction", below).
Under the proposals, councils will have to publish crime reduction strategies and encourage partnership working to achieve them. Croydon already has an antisocial behaviour forum and a crime reduction strategy and, pre-empting the notion of landlords doing more to publicise their anti-nuisance work, the housing department has just published a leaflet for tenants on options available for fighting nuisance. “Some tenants have a one-track mind in terms of what action can be taken,” explains Amanda David. “They think that if someone isn’t behaving, we should evict. They don’t know about things like injunctions.” Partnership with other organisations can also help when gathering evidence for court. “Evidence-gathering is quicker with our forum approach,” says Mark Pinnock. Legal tools: important
The team welcomed proposals to allow police to shut crack houses with 48 hours’ notice and seal them for up to six months. According to police estimates for 2001, one crack den opened in the Croydon area every nine days so, as David says, anything that disrupts them is good. She accepts that such action may just disperse the problem elsewhere, but feels boarding up crack dens sends a strong message to neighbours and perpetrators: “News travels fast in the crack community so if one flat is sealed up, it could have a deterrent effect.” Wider use of injunctions, streamlining of the court process and forcing courts to consider the impact of nuisance in possession cases are all important parts of the white paper’s proposals and welcomed by the team. Measures forcing judges to deal with cases promptly are particularly good news for Croydon, which has used the antisocial behaviour order process only once because of court delays. The case was deferred by magistrates several times, and Gray says: “It was a frustrating process and it hung over us for months.” They are also pleased to see the paper focus on the wider use of injunctions. Davis has a tenant with mental health problems whose flat is often used for drug-taking by bullying friends. She feels it would be unfair to evict him as he is unable to control the behaviour of his friends and that being able to issue an injunction against the non-tenant visitors would be useful. Of plans to allow application for injunctions at the same time as ASBOs, Sharon Mcgregor-Kerr says: “When you get a nuisance case, you might initially find one problem with the adult family members, which you might deal with through an injunction. But when you investigate you might find other problems with the children, where an ASBO might work. This usually means going to court twice, so it would definitely help to use those tools simultaneously.” Tenure: helpful measures
The white paper suggests antisocial tenants could lose security through demoted tenancies or lose the right to buy. Also, landlords would get the right to extend 12-month probationary tenancies by six months. Pinnock welcomes tenancy demotion as “an additional tool” but warns that eviction should be a last resort. Ian Gray adds: “Non-security of tenure can be useful to get a possession order. Sometimes the threat alone is enough.” Cutting benefit: of doubtful use
Croydon’s housing officers have doubts on withdrawing benefit from persistent offenders. “It won’t necessarily stop the antisocial behaviour,” says David. “It might even make people think ‘Well, if I’m going to lose my home anyway, I’ll just carry on for the rest of the time that I’m here.’” Gray agrees, mentioning a case he had last week involving an alcoholic tenant about whom neighbours complain because his alcoholic friends drink at his flat. “He wasn’t so much the problem, it was his associates. So what would have been achieved by stopping his benefit? That was irrelevant to the problem we were dealing with.” On-the-spot fines: difficult to use
On-the-spot fines for low-level criminal damage are good in theory, say the officers, but they question how useful they will be in practice. Pinnock also wonders how far the fixed-penalty approach will go: “What about dog fouling?” he says. “Some would judge that to be low-level antisocial behaviour. You have to establish the perpetrator’s identity, so what do you do? Carry out surveillance on people whose dogs foul the pavement?”
Croydon's approach is based on partnership working: district housing offices deal with nuisance complaints and refer serious incidents to Croydon's antisocial behaviour forum, a three-year-old group that includes education, welfare, social services, housing and environmental health officers, police and housing associations.
Last year, Croydon's housing officers dealt with more than 1200 nuisance-related complaints. Noise was the biggest problem, accounting for a third of these complaints. There were also around 50 reports of vandalism and grafitti, a similar number of drug and alcohol-related nuisance, and around 200 reports of verbal threats from neighbours.
Meanwhile, 43 cases were referred for possession and the council drew up 14 acceptable behaviour contracts, got 13 injunctions and sent 40 cases for mediation.
Reaction
Partnership working: a great ideaUnder the proposals, councils will have to publish crime reduction strategies and encourage partnership working to achieve them. Croydon already has an antisocial behaviour forum and a crime reduction strategy and, pre-empting the notion of landlords doing more to publicise their anti-nuisance work, the housing department has just published a leaflet for tenants on options available for fighting nuisance. “Some tenants have a one-track mind in terms of what action can be taken,” explains Amanda David. “They think that if someone isn’t behaving, we should evict. They don’t know about things like injunctions.” Partnership with other organisations can also help when gathering evidence for court. “Evidence-gathering is quicker with our forum approach,” says Mark Pinnock. Legal tools: important
The team welcomed proposals to allow police to shut crack houses with 48 hours’ notice and seal them for up to six months. According to police estimates for 2001, one crack den opened in the Croydon area every nine days so, as David says, anything that disrupts them is good. She accepts that such action may just disperse the problem elsewhere, but feels boarding up crack dens sends a strong message to neighbours and perpetrators: “News travels fast in the crack community so if one flat is sealed up, it could have a deterrent effect.” Wider use of injunctions, streamlining of the court process and forcing courts to consider the impact of nuisance in possession cases are all important parts of the white paper’s proposals and welcomed by the team. Measures forcing judges to deal with cases promptly are particularly good news for Croydon, which has used the antisocial behaviour order process only once because of court delays. The case was deferred by magistrates several times, and Gray says: “It was a frustrating process and it hung over us for months.” They are also pleased to see the paper focus on the wider use of injunctions. Davis has a tenant with mental health problems whose flat is often used for drug-taking by bullying friends. She feels it would be unfair to evict him as he is unable to control the behaviour of his friends and that being able to issue an injunction against the non-tenant visitors would be useful. Of plans to allow application for injunctions at the same time as ASBOs, Sharon Mcgregor-Kerr says: “When you get a nuisance case, you might initially find one problem with the adult family members, which you might deal with through an injunction. But when you investigate you might find other problems with the children, where an ASBO might work. This usually means going to court twice, so it would definitely help to use those tools simultaneously.” Tenure: helpful measures
The white paper suggests antisocial tenants could lose security through demoted tenancies or lose the right to buy. Also, landlords would get the right to extend 12-month probationary tenancies by six months. Pinnock welcomes tenancy demotion as “an additional tool” but warns that eviction should be a last resort. Ian Gray adds: “Non-security of tenure can be useful to get a possession order. Sometimes the threat alone is enough.” Cutting benefit: of doubtful use
Croydon’s housing officers have doubts on withdrawing benefit from persistent offenders. “It won’t necessarily stop the antisocial behaviour,” says David. “It might even make people think ‘Well, if I’m going to lose my home anyway, I’ll just carry on for the rest of the time that I’m here.’” Gray agrees, mentioning a case he had last week involving an alcoholic tenant about whom neighbours complain because his alcoholic friends drink at his flat. “He wasn’t so much the problem, it was his associates. So what would have been achieved by stopping his benefit? That was irrelevant to the problem we were dealing with.” On-the-spot fines: difficult to use
On-the-spot fines for low-level criminal damage are good in theory, say the officers, but they question how useful they will be in practice. Pinnock also wonders how far the fixed-penalty approach will go: “What about dog fouling?” he says. “Some would judge that to be low-level antisocial behaviour. You have to establish the perpetrator’s identity, so what do you do? Carry out surveillance on people whose dogs foul the pavement?”
Source
Housing Today
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