Antisocial Behaviour

This is an excellent and interesting report, and Committee members should be congratulated on it. I was particularly taken with the discussion about attitudes towards ASBOs, and the barriers those attitudes create at local level. I see ASBOs as a preventive measure. It is important to bear in mind that the young people who are subject to them often have multiple problems; usually, they have spent a lot of time out of school or come from dysfunctional families, and they frequently have alcohol and drug-abuse problems. They are an effective preventive measure when they are not breached, and 58 per cent. of them are not breached. How much more effective could they be in preventing such young people from continuing in a lifestyle and in criminality that will inevitably lead them to have further problems? I agree with Committee members that to talk about enforcement on the one hand and prevention on the other, or about welfare on the one hand and justice on the other, creates barriers between the agencies concerned, which have a tendency to see themselves as being in one camp or another, and that is a pity. With children's trusts in the future and the bringing together of young people's services from across a number of local departments in a local council, there is an opportunity for ensuring that agencies are not at either end of an approach, but that they are part and parcel of achieving the same outcome, which is to give the best possible opportunity to all young people to achieve what they can in life, while at the same time ensuring that the behaviour of a minority does not affect the life chances of other young people. I should be interested in the Minister's response to the fact that one local community problem concerns expectation. The community has become aware that ASBOs are a method by which to deal with young people who persistently create problems. Occasionally, I call meetings in my constituency, which representatives of local agencies and residents attend. A lot of frustration is expressed by residents about when a particular young person's behaviour will be dealt as it is expected that an ASBO can be applied for immediately and the behaviour controlled. Such matters may be local to Stockport, but the part of the ASBO that deals with antisocial behaviour is applied for on criminal conviction, which can delay its application. The criminal system can sometimes be subject to delays while cases are deferred and so on, as a result of which the young person who has created the problem can often be on the streets for months displaying antisocial behaviour that is damaging to the neighbourhood. I want more use made of applications for civil ASBOs and interim ASBOs, which are a method of dealing immediately with antisocial behaviour without them necessarily connecting to the criminal parts of the young person's behaviour. If the community is to have confidence in ASBOs, it is important that they are seen to be a method of dealing immediately with the problem and are recognised by the community as such. Otherwise, there will be difficulties. Frustrations could also be better dealt with if the community were represented on the crime and disorder reduction partnerships. At the moment, local agencies with statutory responsibility to deal with crime and disorder are rightly members of the partnerships. However, if the community were also represented, it could be brought to the attention of the partnerships that priorities concerned delays. There would be a better prioritisation of the behaviour that such partnerships dealt with. Antisocial behaviour would be well up the agenda and such representation would be a useful mechanism. I should be grateful for the Minister's comments on that. May I make a plea? I believe strongly that publication of information locally is important. The ASBO process is a local mechanism and it is important that people know what their local crime and disorder partnership is doing compared with the crime and disorder partnership up the road. The publication of applications for ASBOs encouraged local crime and disorder partnerships to apply for them because that meant accountability, which goes some way towards explaining why their use accelerated after the first two years. I want local councils to publish the housing injunctions that they have taken out under the Housing Act 1996. They are an easy mechanism for housing authorities and social landlords to use. They have an immediate benefit in that they can stop neighbourhood nuisance dead in its tracks at 2 o'clock in the morning by applying to a court the next day. Such a system is also good for those indulging in the neighbourhood nuisance. It is better that, than that they be evicted in six months' time for persistently playing the radio at 2 o'clock in the morning. At the moment, such figures are not published. Of course, we have access to them locally, but I should like to know, for example, Stockport's performance against Thameside and, more importantly, against Manchester. Will the Minister ask councils to produce the figures?