Anti-social behaviour (ASB) lacks a universally accepted definition and is a subjective construct in policy and practice. It is unavoidable that people will have different expectations of living and use of public spaces that can give rise to ‘contested notions or tolerance of what is acceptable or anti-social behaviour’. This in turn affects people’s ‘acceptance of difference or “otherness”’ and can give rise to a racialised use of the term ASB. It is important that police forces, local and national government and the general public recognise that ‘all can be anti-social’ rather than ‘focusing on certain groups that “don’t fit in” and entrenching their social exclusion’. Therefore, the government and law enforcement should reassess the value of stop and search in tackling ASB, with the understanding that ASB is inherently more of a socioeconomic structural issue than a criminal one. This article argues that stop and search, even just as a reactionary measure against ASB, lacks credible evidence to support its effectiveness. More significantly, the increasing use of stop and search is a misplacement of resources as this overlooks the fundamental structural factors underlying ASB that should be addressed. Although tackling the structural causes of ASB means a long battle ahead, this is crucial for offering a long-term solution which brings about the change we want to see in society.
An untenable claim of effectiveness
The measure of increasing police patrols and stop and searches lacks tenable evidence that supports its effectiveness. Placing more police patrols on the street gives the impression that ASB is being tackled and has been used as a tool to appeal to older voters. However, its value stops there as it has ‘no measurable effect on actual crime-fighting policing’ and the police often make logically fallacious claims regarding stop and searches’ success in addressing ASB. For example, the Dorset Police stated that the 100 Days of Summer operation introduced in 2023 was a success in tackling ASB and reintroduced it this summer with extra foot patrols, citing a reduction in reported ASB compared to previous years based on their own data to demonstrate the ‘success’. However, the data relied on by the police is found to be prone to error. HMICFRS’ research report on race disparity in police criminal justice decision-making highlighted that police powers are not ‘consistently scrutinised’ and ‘progress has been too slow on creating a single recording standard’. Also, simply because a reduction in ASB incidents occurred during the same period of the police operation does not make police patrols the cause of the ASB drop – correlation does not equate to causation. The police must conduct a more rigorous research process involving regression analyses which control for variables which may impact ASB before claiming that an increase in stop and search caused a lower rate of ASB incidents. This is especially significant given that other variables like population change and individuals’ rehabilitation have been found in existing research to have a causal impact on ASB. This is explored in further depth in the following section.
Addressing the roots
There are gaps in understanding the issue of ASB. Focusing on stop and searches overlooks the more fundamental structural causes of ASB, particularly socioeconomic deprivation. As Jacobson, Millie, and Hough argued, ‘policymakers have not engaged in rigorous thinking about the inter-relationships between ASB and other problems – particularly … structural inequalities and the loss of social capital within the most deprived families and neighbourhoods.’ Along the same vein, Piotrowska et al. proposed that neighbourhood disadvantage and socioeconomic deprivation ‘should be considered intervention targets in order to minimise social inequalities in behavioural problems’. The Department for Culture, Media, and Sport in its research finding states that following a decrease in youth expenditure, local authorities tend to see ‘increased incidences of bike theft, shoplifting, possession of weapon offences, and a higher proportion of young offenders who re-offend’. Therefore, it is important to remind ourselves of ‘the contribution to problems of ASB made by… economic, social and criminal justice policy’. When the government’s measures against ASB only address the symptoms and not the root causes, any effects are unlikely to be long-term.
Some might argue that addressing structural issues such as poverty is time-consuming and is at the expense of swift responses to ASB. However, any claim of stop and search’s efficiency is contradicted by its low success rate: in Dorset, the percentage of suspicions of ASB that turned out to be true remained below 25 per cent in the summer of 2022 and 20 per cent in the summer of 2023. Also, the HMICFRS report shows that ‘there is clear evidence of race disparity in police criminal justice decision making’ with black people being three times as likely to be arrested as White people. In this regard, the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities states in its 2021 report that ‘disparities’ ‘are not always sinister and do not always arise from discrimination’; nevertheless, as HMICFRS contends, authorities should analyse and explain why these disparities exist before claiming the effectiveness of stop and search in tackling crimes.
The question of ‘How?’
Moving forward, the government and local authorities’ approach to ASB should be two-fold. Firstly, authorities should shift more of their focus to directly address structural factors like poverty and poor education, whether through direct fund transfer to families or through investing in facilities such as youth centres. It is important that ‘policing acknowledges the role it has in supporting and shaping the social infrastructure and well-being of communities’. As Berti and Pivetti argued, ‘If you want to improve [the poor’s] financial status, then transfer funds to them directly.’ In terms of their effectiveness, Akee et al. in their research observed that an average of $4,000 additional household income ‘reduces the incidence of ever having committed a minor crime by 22% at ages 16 and 17 for the children from treated households’. Although this research was conducted in the US, it nonetheless offers a point of reference for policymakers in the UK. Secondly, ASB strategies ‘ought to be regarded as part of wider neighbourhood-based and integrated’ programmes. Specifically, to increase the success rate and sustainability of interventions addressing structural causes, authorities must cultivate a societal consensus on ‘a set of values based on moral arguments about fairness and justice’ for dealing with issues of poverty and destitution. Developing such values towards ASB surely is not an easy task, but the normative consensus among society will be a conducive environment and driving force for the implementation of structural measures.
Conclusion
It is oftentimes easier to focus on the symptoms of an issue, as it provides a quick response and gives the impression that effective actions are being taken. However, the current approach of increasing the number of stop and searches is reactionary to the perceived issue of ASB and sacrifices the opportunity to address the root cause of these phenomena. While resource-intensive, investing in addressing the underlying contributing factors to ASB will bring about much needed lasting change and will prove more fruitful than existing strategies.
Written by Haruka Tian
All blogposts are published with the permission of the author. The views expressed are solely the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of StopWatch UK.