Do tools such as dispersal orders unfairly criminalise the youth of Britain & undermine the justice system of Britain?
After the New Labour Government came into power, there has been an increased political focus, intervention programme development as well as policy onslaughts aimed at curbing Britain’s apparent “anti-social behaviour problem” . This broad definition of ‘anti-social behaviour’ has allowed the government, both past and present, to refine their focus and redefine policy areas spanning youth services, parenting, educational institutions, city planning and management as well as social housing. With a capacious legal definition as “behaviour that causes or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to others”, it is no surprise that encompassing areas of interests such as youth activities, misdemeanours, incivilities and (sometimes quite serious) crimes have been a by-product of antisocial behaviour laws. The Labour Government alongside their Respect Agenda has taken an active role in tackling head on Britain’s ‘troublesome youth’ and ‘to win (back) public confidence…and take action’ . This area of governmental reform has come under contention in recent years for the creation of an undesired overlap between civil and criminal processes, blurring the line between civil liberties, obscuring the boarders between civil and incivilities and in the end, inadequately reforming the youth justice agenda of Britain. In particular, dispersal orders and the issue of public space are of interest for the purposes of this essay, and I intend to demonstrate whether the aims of increasing pre-emptive interventions through dispersal orders in order to curb any future disorder by youth actually work to re-order and mould possible futures of the ‘unhappy, unloved and out of control’ younger generation or whether such measures are having a reversed effect, unfairly criminalising and further alienating the ‘troublesome youth’ further away from society as well as assessing whether such orders are desired.
In England and Wales today, by virtue of Part 4 of the Anti-Social
In England and Wales today, by virtue of Part 4 of the Anti-Social