Community: New Labour’s Policies on Anti-Social Behaviour

Abstract

When New Labour came to power in 1997, it inherited from the Conservatives an increasingly divided society in which an underclass of people was ‘cut off from [the] mainstream, without any sense of shared purpose’ (Blair, 1997b). These individuals, and the areas where they lived, often suffered from a range of difficulties associated with high levels of social deprivation, such as unemployment, poor basic skills, bad housing and anti-social behaviour. New Labour introduced the New Deals in an effort to address the first two problems, while the latter was the target of a number of measures, including the Crime and Disorder Act (1998), the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003), and the ‘Together’ campaign, which was launched in 2003. These initiatives formed the basis of New Labour’s ‘Respect Agenda’ (2005), which aimed to tackle anti-social behaviour by teaching respect for society’s values. As Blair put it, ‘the only way to rebuild social order and stability is through strong values, socially shared, inculcated through individuals, family, government and the institutions of civil society’ (1996c, p. 148).