Book Review: Making People Behave: Anti-Social Behaviour, Politics and Policy
| DOI | 10.1177/1473225406065565 |
| Date | 01 August 2006 |
| Published date | 01 August 2006 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
BOOK REVIEWS
Copyright 2006 The National Association for Youth Justice
Published by SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi)
www.sagepublications.com
ISSN 1473-2254, Vol 6(2): 161–166
DOI: 10.1177/1473225406065565
Book Reviews
E. Burney, Making People Behave: Anti-Social Behaviour, Politics and Policy,
Willan Publishing, Cullompton, Devon, 2005, £17.99 Pb, ISBN 1–84392–138–3.
Reviewed by: Professor David Wilson, Centre for Criminal Justice Policy and
Research, UCE Birmingham, UK.
Elizabeth Burney, Honorary Senior Fellow at the Institute of Criminology in
Cambridge, and formerly a staff writer on the Economist, has a long-standing interest in
social housing and nuisance behaviour and therefore, not unnaturally, these interests
have brought her into contact with the reality of a spectrum of anti-social behaviour in
some neighbourhoods, behaviour which she characterizes as ‘the hydra headed monster’
(p.16), and also with the Government’s chosen instrument to counteract that behaviour
– the Anti Social Behaviour Order (ASBO), which was first introduced in the 1998
Crime and Disorder Act.
But whilst acknowledging that some communities are indeed plagued by diverse
behaviours from people whom the tabloids, and indeed politicians, such as Jack Straw
– who is never slow to volunteer information about ‘Family X’ in his constituency of
Blackburn – like to describe as ‘neighbours from Hell’, Burney immediately informs the
reader that the ASBO is the ‘right idea which went wrong from the start’ (p.vii). And,
over eight chapters she quite brilliantly explains why this is so, and how anti-social
behaviour became a focus of political rhetoric and action, whilst providing a critical
examination of current policies of enforcement and exclusion.
The book’s structure has been carefully harnessed to help reveal her conclusions, and
so, for example, Chapter Two explains the story of New Labour’s intervention into
anti-social behaviour, and how the newly-elected government borrowed heavily but
selectively from the USA to define and deal with it; Chapter Three provides a brief
historical survey, so as to set up Chapter Four which seeks to test that standard
common sense favourite that things have ‘got worse’, whilst also seeking to explain the
‘three related phenomena’ (p.13) of the social polarization evident in some
neighbourhoods, the demonization of young people today, and the local impact of illicit
drugs and problem drinking. Chapter Five is concerned with the development of the
legal instruments that have come to be used to control problem behaviour, and how
these are focused on the marginalized poor; Chapter Six compares the experiences of
Nottingham and Milton Keynes so as to show how local history and culture can
determine different approaches to anti-social behaviour; and Chapter Seven continues
j:yj065565 19-6-2006 p:73 c:0
To continue reading
Request your trial