Equal respect? ASBOs and Ethnic Minorities

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Equal respect?ASBOs and Ethnic Minorities

• Sarah Isal
• Senior Research and Policy Analyst
• Runnymede Trust

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This presentation

• Background, aims methodology
• Findings
• Recommendations
• Follow-up since publication

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Project background and aims

• Earlier research on racist violence prevention
• Are ASBOs used/useful to tackle racial
  harassment?
• Are ASBOs served disproportionately to ethnic
  minorities?

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Methodology

• Focus on 6 Criminal Justice Areas
• Greater London
• Greater Manchester
• Leicestershire
• Thames Valley
• West Midlands
• West Yorkshire
• Survey Questionnaire aimed to collect data on
• Number of ASBOs served and where
• Recipients of ASBOs by racial, ethnic and
  religious origin, gender and age
• Behaviour for which ASBOs were served
• 24 Interviews with practitioners

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Findings on ASBOs and Racial Harassment

• Information on the use of ASBOs to deal with
  racial harassment NOT monitored at central level
  and rarely or inconsistently at local level
• Hard to single out the racist element of the
  behaviour that might have led to the ASBO
• Support for using ASBOs in cases of racial
  harassment generally came from those that support
  the use of ASBOs for a wide range of behaviours
• ASBO seen as an alternative to failing criminal
  justice system unable to deal robustly with
  racism
• Lack of monitoring and data makes it hard to
  support the use of ASBOs in dealing with racial
  harassment

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Findings on Impact of ASBOs on Ethnic Minorities

• No central government figures on ethnicity of
  ASBO recipients
• Inconsistent monitoring at local level.
• Why?
• Agencies applying for the ASBO did not think the
  information is required of them by central
  government
• Technical barriers to the monitoring

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Recommendations

• A thorough general review of ASBOs
• Guidance to Local Authorities on ethnic
  monitoring of ASBOs
• Improved data collection to determine the
  ethnicity of ASBO recipients.

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What impact?

• Reluctance to act on the recommendations from the
  ASB Unit
• Government should provide a breakdown of the
  application of ASBOs and fixed penalty notices to
  different ethnic groups. Home Affairs Select
  Committee Report Recommendation

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THANK YOU

• For more information or copies of the report
• Tel [phone]
• s.isal_at_runnymedetrust.org
• www.runnymedetrust.org