What’s with the attitude?

The arguments about antisocial behaviour orders continue to be waged. Labour ministers are determined that tackling antisocial behaviour will be a key government pledge for the upcoming general election. People who have experienced the misery that disruptive behaviour causes welcome the action that councils and the police are now taking.

Yet at the current rates, more than 500 young people a year are being placed in custody for breaching ASBOs, including some who have no criminal record other than the breach. Also deeply worrying is that, in some areas, ASBOs are served on young people when little has been done to prevent the kind of behaviour that causes such problems.

In Brent, north-west London, ASBOs were served this summer on seven young people from an estate in Neasden, with huge publicity in the local media naming the “gang” responsible for the bad behaviour. Youth worker Rebecca Palmer is now active with residents and young people on the same estate. She is strongly critical of the failure to resolve problems that “could be remedied by some of the most basic youth work approaches, as well as the specialised skills which exist to help some of the most vulnerable young people”.

As a result of the work she has now done with the young people, one group entered the council project Brent Fame Academy and came second. Another group of five scripted and performed a play at the renowned Tricycle theatre in Kilburn, north-west London, which a professional actor at the theatre described as the “best piece of youth drama I have ever seen”.

In the south London borough of Southwark, a strategy has been developed for preventing antisocial behaviour and crime by young people that is a model of what can be done. This is the area where the murder of Damilola Taylor in November 2000 profoundly shocked the community and strengthened the determination of the council and the police to make the area safer for all its residents.

The strategy targets young people who are involved in serious antisocial and criminal behaviour. A multi-agency panel decides how to deal with them, either with forms of community reparation, parenting programmes or 25 hours of structured activity a week for persistent offenders.

An early intervention team looks after eight- to 13-year-olds, with sports, educational and recreational projects. There are drugs and gang awareness schemes and the On Track project, which works with primary schools to support home learning and home-school relations.

There is also a wider youth strategy, which aims to ensure all young people in the borough have access to advice and support, can avoid the danger of drug and alcohol abuse and have a strong say in the services provided for them.

The results have been impressive: fewer ASBOs have had to be served. From 2003 to 2004, youth crime dropped 12% in Southwark, compared with a national target of 3%.

This approach – prevention is better than treatment – may not lend itself to tabloid headlines but, when it works, it brings three fundamental benefits. Young people are not stigmatised with the ASBO label that a breach of an order can bring, nor do they spend time in custody with all the risks that can bring. And fewer local residents will have their lives disrupted or their safety threatened by acts of antisocial behaviour or, worse still, criminal activity. It’s a strategy that should be followed in every area.