Antisocial behaviour and equalities legislation Caroline Hunter

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Anti-social behaviour and equalities
legislationCaroline Hunter
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Whats already happened?

• Landlord powers
• Reductions in security of tenure
  introductory/starter, demoted tenancies, family
  intervention tenancies
• Injunction powers
• Exclusion from allocations
• ASB Policy requirement
• Broader powers given to social landlords
• ASBOs
• Parenting Orders
• Welfare benefit conditionality
• Housing benefit sanctions

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What next?

• Further elements of conditionality tenancies
  and benefits
• Further reductions in security (generally)
• Further powers to deal with private rented sector
• Social landlords to get closure order powers

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Equalities issues

• Victims
• Perpetrators
• Gender
• Race
• Disability
• Age
• What we know
• What we dont know

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Gender

• What we know
• Majority of ASBOs against males (Campbell, 2002)
• Eviction disproportionately affects female single
  parents (Hunter and Nixon, 2001)
• Use of powers to target prostitution (Phoenix,
  2008)

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Race

• Only information is about ASBOs raises more
  questions than answers (Isal, 2006)
• Some differential perspectives from professionals
  asb is a problem of white working class (Prior
  and Spalek, 2008)
• Impact of race equality schemes?

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(No Transcript)
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Disability

• Evidence that families complained about had
  disproportionate levels of learning difficulties
  and mental health problems
• Some evidence as to use in relation to ASBOs
• Operation of the Disability Discrimination Act
• (Hunter et al, 2007)

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ASB policies and disability
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Age

• Some letting schemes are excluding young people
  because of ASB
• Are starter tenancies more likely to be used for
  single young people?
• Lack of tolerance of young people

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Ways forward

• No more new enforcement powers
• Reviewing ASB policies and practices equalities
  impact statement
• Better monitoring of whom action is taken against
• More supportive programmes (future of supporting
  people)

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References

• Campbell S. (2002) A Review of Anti-social
  Behaviour Orders London Home Office
• Commission for Racial Equality (2005) Common
  Ground Equality, good race relations and sites
  for Gypsies and Irish Travellers
• Hunter and Nixon (2001) Taking the blame and
  losing the home women and anti-social behaviour
  Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 23(4),
  p. 395
• Hunter et al. (2007) Disabled peoples
  experiences of anti-social behaviour and
  harassment in social housing a critical review
  DRC
• Isal S. (2006) Equal Respect London The
  Runnymeade Trust
• Phoenix J. (2008) ASBOs and working women a new
  revolving door? in in Squires P (ed) ASBO
  Nation the criminalisation of nuisance Bristol
  Policy Press
• Prior D. and Spalek S. (2008) Anti-social
  behaviour and minority ethnic populations in
  Squires P (ed) ASBO Nation the criminalisation
  of nuisance Bristol Policy Press