Creating waves on a jet-ski
Feb 15 2005 By Ross Smith, The Journal
£125,000 to target problem families
The Government's law and order policies have been attacked for being the least effective in Europe - just as Ministers launch another crack down on anti-social behaviour.
As the Home Office announced £125,000 was being injected into the North-East to deal with problem families, an independent think-tank has warned of a failure by Government to take the most basic measures to persuade offenders to go straight.
The hard-hitting report from Civitas said Ministers had a tendency to "opt for the clever use of words" - such as Tony Blair's `tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime' - rather than confront the real problems.
As a result, the country was in "danger of settling down to being a high crime society", the report claimed.
Home Office Minister Hazel Blears yesterday announced £1.25m of funding to tackle nuisance neighbours, with five "action zones" in the North-East awarded £25,000 each to help them improve the way bad parents bring up their children.
Newcastle, Gateshead, South Tyneside, Middlesbrough and Easington will all receive the money to help provide intensive family support projects, aimed at tackling neighbours who cause havoc through anti-social behaviour.
It could result in troublesome families having behaviour contracts placed on them and in the most serious of cases forcing families to live in parenting centres and take parenting classes.
But previous rehabilitation schemes have now come under heavy fire in the Civitas study which concluded that a number of crime-fighting schemes were not reducing crime at all.
The report said Offending Behaviour Programmes, such as anger management courses cost £2,000 each but failed to reduce crime.
And 84pc of yobs placed on Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programmes, which have cost at least £45m since 2001, were reconvicted within 12 months of starting.
Drug treatment and testing orders saw 70pc failing to complete them and 80pc reconvicted within two years.
Civitas proposed an alternative strategy based on "social investment in institutions that encourage a law-abiding lifestyle", such as the family, and increased prison capacity.
Ms Blears said the new package of measures unveiled yesterday would help families by providing treatment for drugs and alcohol and encouraging children to go to school.
A spokesman for Northumbria Police said: "We discourage anti-social behaviour by working with the criminal justice system, local authorities, Crime and Disorder Partnerships and landlords to obtain court orders, acceptable behaviour contracts and prosecutions."
