The End of Respect?

Abstract

During the 2005 general election campaign, the Prime Minister Tony Blair began to promote an approach to urban disorder that was designed to put ‘the law-abiding majority back in charge of their local communities’. Through the use of anti-social behaviour strategies and interventions, Tony Blair appealed to popular notions of civic responsibility and stated: ‘I want to make [anti-social behaviour] a particular priority for this government, how we bring back a proper sense of respect in our schools, in our communities, in our towns and our villages’. Aimed at improving community cohesion by tackling anti-social behaviour ‘more effectively’, the policy was officially launched as the ‘Respect Agenda’ on 10 January 2006. However, shortly after Gordon Brown became Labour Party leader and Prime Minister in June 2007, the Respect Agenda, which had been one of Tony Blair’s flagship policies during his term in office, was effectively sidelined. The drive to address anti-social behaviour through the use of ASBOs (amongst other new interventions such as Parenting Orders and Closure Notices) coupled with New Labour’s broader political campaign on community values and ‘rights and responsibilities’, appeared to have run out of steam. Gordon Brown had split responsibility for anti-social behaviour policy between the Home Office and the new Department for Children, Schools and Families (DfCSF).KeywordsSocial BehaviourPrime MinisterBreak WindowCriminal Justice PolicyCivic ResponsibilityThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.