An interesting & possibly worthwhile implementation of 'subsistence'. For present-day New Labour I doubt they'd have the courage or insight to use a scheme of this sort.

Pity

Posted by: Thersites at June 21, 2005 07:28 PM

Frank Fields seems to think he’s hit on a new idea. He needs to join the real world. The Dutch idea is essentially that which prevailed in the UK until the last 20 years or so. I could name four towns in which I have lived where the scummiest of the scum were segregated into particular streets. This practice must have been widespread up and down the country until the Thatcher revolution.
As council houses were sold off, local authorities lost effective control of many estates, and would have been unable to continue the segregation policies, even if they still had the will. Which they didn’t. With the rise of our touchy feely society, “social inclusion” became one of the buzz phrases. Many scummy families were integrated (via housing associations) into areas which had previously been almost entirely owner occupier. I’ve personally known two families who worked and saved hard to get away from rough areas only to find that the social engineers moved an anti-social and violent example of the underclass within a few houses of them.
We seem to be obsessed with the idea that, “If only we get the housing right, everybody will live in harmony”. Witness the latest crazy initiative from two Jags only a few months ago, to demolish large swathes of Northern England.
Why not tackle the core of the problem. Make it clear, that no matter what it takes, scum bags won’t be tolerated.

Posted by: John East at June 21, 2005 09:10 PM

Thersites:

You are right. Frank Field was memorably the minister charged by Tony Blair with thinking the unthinkable on welfare reform. Field did so and was fired for his trouble. Why he remains in the Labour party is beyond me.

Posted by: Bishop Hill at June 21, 2005 10:03 PM

No chance. They'd screw up their core vote (people who subsist on handouts, whether benefits or quango jobs).... I think they'll go for more taxes on wealth producers and the south.... clairvoyant me.

Posted by: Paul at June 21, 2005 10:19 PM

"I could name four towns in which I have lived where the scummiest of the scum were segregated into particular streets. This practice must have been widespread up and down the country until the Thatcher revolution."

That's a charming recipe for sink estates. Who decides what constitutes a "scummy family" or indeed whether all members of said family are scummy?

Surely simple segregation in council housing merely allows these people to continue being unplesant, at our expense financially, and at the expense of any relative unfortunate enough to end up bracketed in these hell holes.

I would have thought vigourous zero tolerance policing and a liberal use of incarceration is what's needed. After all, that helped many families regain the areas they lived in and reform their communites when Bratton and Guilani tried it in NYC.

Posted by: James Hellyer at June 22, 2005 09:59 AM

I think that the problem of anti-social neighbours within such estates is a side-effect of the housing policies of local & national government in that there is little effective curb on such behaviour. Such people can do almost anything, bar serious criminal activity, before the State's obligation to house & feed them is abrogated. In the private sector such behaviour would usually lead to termination of the tenancy agreement.

As a GP I have to visit such areas & I can see at first-hand the effects of such behaviour. One or two of these anti-social families will destroy an area, with those able to moving out fairly rapidly. The families who exhibit such behaviour are not poor in the real sense, they just live in squalor & accept no limits to their behaviour. John East quotes the aphorism “If only we get the housing right, everybody will live in harmony” & shows it up for the mindless cant that it is. I could re-phrase this aphorism as “Do pigs make sties or sties make pigs”? As a young Houseman I remember talking to a retired GP who practiced in an area that was re-built as a New Town after the Second World War. This GP described how some of the population from the East-End of London was moved into brand-new local authority housing (not towers) & within a few years a substantial minority had trashed their housing. Indeed pigs do make sties.

As Bishop Hill states, Frank Field was appointed in 1997 to ‘think the unthinkable’ & for that he lost his job. A golden opportunity was lost to have real reform of the Welfare State & now we are left with the usual left-wing responses of more taxation & less responsibility. Sooner or later the tax-payer will realise this mistake & demand reform, probably when tax-bills have risen yet further & the problem deteriorated to a point where it is obvious for all to see.

Paul makes the important point about the Underclass, of which the people under discussion probably belong for the most part, being part of the core Labour vote — indeed he is correct. The best evidence for the characteristics of the Underclass was published in The British Journal of Sociology in a paper by Alan Buckingham (1999) entitled Is there an underclass in Britain? Buckingham used a cohort of children from the National Child Development Study, identified Underclass members & then investigated this sub-group for identifying characteristics. Underclass membership was identified by welfare dependancy, lack of housing equity & occupational history. 5.4% of children grew up to become Underclass members & their voting patterns were described as “unswervingly pro-Labour”. Any political party would require strength of courage to address the problem behaviour of part of its core vote, I cannot see this happening with New Labour.

James Hellyer asks the question “Who decides what constitutes a "scummy family" or indeed whether all members of said family are scummy?“, to which my answer is — their neighbours who are desperate to move out or have the scummy family dealt with. However James is right in that the answer lies in actions having consequences. To his recipe of policing & incarceration I would add eviction (even onto the streets) & reduction of welfare back to subsistence levels.

What interested me about the discussion last night was that it sounded like two of the three left-wing commentators were in the studio & James Bartholomew was somewhere else. James — do you think that this made it more difficult for you to comment & marginalised you somewhat?

Posted by: Thersites at June 22, 2005 12:17 PM

James Hellyer,
My point about the segregation of anti-social families in the past was not meant to be an endorsement of the policy. It must have been hell for children and spouses when they were forced to live in violent ghettos just because one of their family was incapable of living in a civilised society.
I agree with your last point about zero tolerance being the answer, the concept as well as the phrase have been debated for many years now, but do not seem to have gained a foot hold in the UK. I wonder why?

Posted by: John East at June 22, 2005 12:48 PM

Can recommend to anyone who wants to read about "the Underclass "Life at the Bottom" by Theodore Dalrymple (Antony Daniels).

It's says much of the "head in sand" attitude that this excellent book apparently had to be published in the US.

Posted by: Paul at June 22, 2005 02:48 PM

John East: "My point about the segregation of anti-social families in the past was not meant to be an endorsement of the policy."

My mistake!

"I agree with your last point about zero tolerance being the answer, the concept as well as the phrase have been debated for many years now, but do not seem to have gained a foot hold in the UK. I wonder why?"

I'd say there are two reasons: cost and the perceived causes of crime.

By its very nature zero tolerance policing costs a great deal (at least in the short to median term). Increasing police numbers and prison capacity is not cheap. However, eventually people get the message that actions have consequences and costs can be reduced (as they have been in NYC).

The other factor is the cause of crime. A great many people think that crime is not a matter of choice but something that people are forced into by an uncaring society. After all, Labour and Conservative supporters may draw very differnt interpretaions of the phrase "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime".

By all means, we should do something to deal with what Oliver Letwin called "the conveyor belt to crime", but we should also recognise that in the end individuals are responsible for their own lives.

In the end. continuing to pay for a "scummy" family's bed and board will hardly dincentivise them to cease their destructive behaviour.

Posted by: James Hellyer at June 22, 2005 04:52 PM

There's absurd numbers of Policemen. They just aren't "policing".

Proactive crime prevention is absolutely non-existent, and the cops simply won't bother with complaints about the "scummies" most of the time.

Posted by: Paul at June 22, 2005 08:30 PM

There are lots of policemen, and yes they don't do much that would be considered policing, but I believe the number of police per head of population is still lower than it was in New York when zero tolerance polices were introduced.

And even if I have misremembered, that doesn't negate the requirement for greater prison capacity (and the associated costs).

Posted by: James Hellyer at June 23, 2005 09:32 AM

John East:

“My point about the segregation of anti-social families in the past was not meant to be an endorsement of the policy. It must have been hell for children and spouses when they were forced to live in violent ghettos just because one of their family was incapable of living in a civilised society.”

Posted by: Thersites at June 23, 2005 11:23 AM

Thersites,
You said, "Do you not think that if a family cannot restrain one of its own from anti-social behaviour then that family has failed?" Yes I most certainly agree with you, but what do we do with a "failed" family?
I said in one of my posts above, "Why not tackle the core of the problem. Make it clear, that no matter what it takes, scum bags won’t be tolerated." The logical conclusion anyone who supports this or any other zero tolerance solutions must face is that after trying to help these people, if they do not improve their behaviour, we must be prepared to act. As a society do we have the will to break these families up, put children into care, and send parents to prison? Imagine the outcry if we did.
However, far from condemning tens of thousands of poor unfortunates to prison and child care institutions I believe that there need only be a handfull of high profile cases. Once the message got round that society wouldn't tolerate the worst of behaviour, for the first time in 50 years our society could begin to turn round.
I won't be holding my breathe as we are currently steaming full speed ahead in the other direction, still trying to analyse, sympathise, and empathise with the problem.

Posted by: John East at June 23, 2005 03:10 PM

From a typical Westminster Council Housing lease (Sixth Schedule - Covenants of the Lessee):

15. "Not to commit or permit others (including for the avoidance of doubt other occupiers of the Demised Premises his or their visitors or licensees or minors) to do or suffer to be done on the Demised Premises or the Property any act or thing which may be or become a nuisance or inconvenience to the Lessor or to any other owner or occupier of any of the Flats or to any other person..etc"

17. (a) Not to use the Demised Premises or permit or suffer the same to be used for any purpose of an illegal immoral improper unpleasant noisy or noxious nature (b) Not to damage or otherwise deface or permit the damage or defacement of any part of the Reserved Property..etc"

It's all there, and has been for years!

Posted by: MQ at June 23, 2005 03:29 PM

MQ, how right you are. Such clauses appear in many tennant agreements but the political will is just not there to enforce them. On a technical point, I suspect that these clauses could only be acted on through a civil court so perhaps their use to curb anti-social behavior would not be easy, particularly as the court would only have one sanction - eviction.

Posted by: John East at June 23, 2005 05:10 PM

To answer Thersites' question: no, I was not away from the studio. I was there. The criminologist was the only speaker who was not present. If I seemed marginalised on the programme, it was a mixture, no doubt, of my lack of effectiveness on radio and the fact that I was in the minority.

Radio 5 has a particular way of doing this programme. It has two people with contrasting views (myself and the criminologist in this case), the presenter of course and also two other people who stay around for much of the programme adding in their comments. These people have no special knowledge of any of the subjects under discussion. In fact, in some cases they might be said to have special ignorance. Their main contribution is to bring to the table the prejudices of the middle class media elite. Some of them did not start off middle class. But frankly once you have reached the position of being a Radio 5 'panellist' you have become middle class.

I think the idea must be to make the programme seem more like an evening social event - like some people meeting in a pub and having a chat. I can understand the appeal of the concept. But frankly I prefer the format of the phone-in programme after 9.00 am in which much more time is given to people ringing in. I have often found in the past that on phone-ins, views of mine which would scandalise BBC-approved panellists are strongly supported by people at the coal face of the problems of the welfare state.

Posted by: James Bartholomew at June 23, 2005 06:23 PM