Despite public perception, young people and teenagers are more concerned about anti-social behaviour than their elders.
Everyone’s talking about the big society, but what does it mean in practice?
One thing is clear about the ‘big society’: it is pretty obscure. The concept, which broadly covers community action and devolution of power to local groups, was supported by prime minister David Cameron long before the election.
A document defining the idea, ‘Building the big society’, said it covered everything from the publication of local crime data and the abolition of regional spatial strategies, to training community organizers and allowing community groups to take over state-run services.
Enthusiasts might say that the big society is hard to define because it is about communities choosing their own, varied priorities. Sceptics, on the other hand, could view the concept as a brand, allowing the government to take credit for all manner of community activity that was already happening without its support..
The only thing with the potential to make the big society different from old-fashioned community activism, is if the civil servants really do manage to break down any significant bureaucratic barriers faced by communities.
Ben Rogers from Royal Society of Arts argues that Society should adapt the first aid or ‘Woolwich model’ to address anti-social behaviour. His starting point is that society has a problem with anti-social behaviour.
Crime has fallen, and so has people’s concern about crime, but the proportion of people reporting anti-social behaviour as a serious problem in their area has not fallen over the past few years – though he concedes the most recent BCS figures show a move in the right direction. Moreover we know this is a priority for the public – and we know that we as a nation are particularly nervous about intervening.
A 2006 survey by the Jill Dando Institute found that British people are more wary of intervening than most other European people. Sixty per cent of Germans said they would intervene to prevent a group of 14-year-olds vandalizing a bus shelter but that figure falls to 30 per cent in Britain.
We also know that this is an issue particularly associated with young people – in two ways: first, people report that ASB tends to involve young people – often groups of young people; second, young people are more concerned about it than are older people.
Ben’s suggestion is that we should do more to skill people to deal with anti-social behaviour themselves – that we should complement the recent drive to strengthen neighbourhood policing, by equipping people to intervene and resolve issues without necessarily having recourse to the police
Training in community safety, he argues, could give people the ability and so the confidence to intervene. This confidence is key. There is actually quite a strongly shared set of standards in this country about what is unacceptable in terms of public behaviour. But we are unsure about intervening. There are a number of different factors contributing to this diffidence. There is a concern that the state is not on people’s side. People are worried for their safety. And they are worried about doing something perceived as inappropriate or about losing face.
So what would training consist of? It would aim to teach 3 core skills:
1 )How to read a situation and judge whether it is safe and appropriate to intervene
2) How to ensure one’s physical safety and that of others (how to place oneself to as to be able to escape safely, defend oneself and protect others if they are being attacked)
3) How to manage anger in other people and defuse conflict.
These skills can be taught and often are. The police are taught them. PCSOs are trained in them. Teachers are sometimes taught them but more often acquire them on the job. And experience suggests that people who are taught them value them – and they find it useful not just in dealing with anti-sociable behaviour but anger and conflict wherever they occur.
Who would these skills be for? Most obviously the public service workforce – especially people who work in the local public realm. And also shopkeepers, publicans and similar. But young people and ordinary citizens could be taught them as well.
(Extracts taken from ‘Growing the Big Society’ – Inside Housing, and ‘The ‘big society’ approach to tackling anti-social behaviour’ by Ben Rogers from the Royal Society of Arts.)
Hello – are we all looking forward to Christmas? I know we are here in the offices of ReACT. In the run up to Christmas some people are out getting their gifts, others are frantically writing cards; we at ReACT are out and about installing and training on ReACT 4.
Posted by Mike 
The ReACT Blog 
