The Developing Habitus of the Anti‐Social Behaviour Practitioner: From Expansion in Years of Plenty to Surviving the Age of Austerity
| Date | 01 September 2013 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6478.2013.00631.x |
| Author | Kevin J. Brown |
| Published date | 01 September 2013 |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 40, NUMBER 3, SEPTEMBER 2013
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 375±402
The Developing Habitus of the Anti-Social Behaviour
Practitioner: From Expansion in Years of Plenty to
Surviving the Age of Austerity
Kevin J. Brown*
Specialist anti-social behaviour units are common within social
housing providers, with many established in response to the policies
of the New Labour governments of 1997±2010. These units now find
themselves operating in a different political and financial environment.
Following the English riots of 2011, the Coalition government, whilst
imposing budgetary cuts across the public sector, called on social
housing providers to intensify their role in tackling disorder. This
article explores the habitus or working cultures within anti-social
behaviour units post-New Labour. It does so through empirical
research conducted in the aftermath of the English riots. The research
finds that practitioners view their work as a core function of social
housing provision. They have developed an understanding of human
behaviour, which crosses the criminal and social policy fields with a
wide skillset to match. A number of factors including national policy,
community expectations, and multi-partnership engagement influence
their dynamic working culture.
INTRODUCTION
Following the English riots of summer 2011, the perceived problem of anti-
social behaviour (ASB) and disorder once again came to dominate the
375
ß2013 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2013 Cardiff University Law School. Published by Blackwell Publishing
Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
*Newcastle Law School, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1
7RU, England
kevin.j.brown@ncl.ac.uk
The author would like to thank Newcastle University for funding the 2011 research
project. Thanks also to those who participated in the research and those practitioners who
provided feedback at a subsequent day conference. Final thanks to Richard Collier, Colin
Murray, Kathryn Hollingsworth, Jane Donoghue, Chris Chipchase, and the anonymous
reviewers for comments on earlier drafts of this article. Any errors remain my own.
political and media discourse.
1
In the United Kingdom, ASB represents an
umbrella term for low-level criminality, nuisance, and public disorder.
2
How
to tackle such behaviour has been the subject of continued debate and
political attention in the country for almost two decades.
3
A combination of
national and local policy innovation, overseen first by the New Labour
governments (1997±2010) and now the Coalition has produced an expanding
toolkit of interventions to deal with the perceived problem.
4
Combining
social and criminal policy approaches, these interventions ± epitomized by
the anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) ± have been the subject of much
academic critique.
5
Through this period of hyper-innovation in ASB manage-
ment,
6
a cadre of practitioners has developed who implement, interpret, and
transform national policy at a local level. They `are the human subjects
through whom and by whom . .. [the ASB agenda] has been brought about.'
7
Within this broad family of practitioners, there exist specialist ASB units
based within social housing providers. They make for an interesting case
study of working culture within the ASB industry as they are dedicated solely
to the task of tackling ASB, they have some of the broadest powers to do so
and they have been the subject of sustained central government attempts to
influence their working practices. This article explores through empirical
research, including an analysis of policy documents and semi-structured
interviews, the working cultures found within social housing ASB units in
2011, after thirteen years of New Labour and following the first full year of
the Coalition government.
The approach taken in this article is influenced by the work of Hughes and
Gilling who have explored the habitus of a relate d occupation, the
community safety manager.
8
As with their research, this article approaches
376
1 A. Stratton and A. Sparrow, `Cameron and Miliband go head to head over riots'
Guardia n, 15 Augu st 2011 at < http:// www.gua rdian. co.uk/u k/2011/ aug/15/
cameron-miliband-head-head-riots>.
2 A. Millie, Anti-Social Behaviour (2009).
3 S. Hodgkinson and N. Tilley, `Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour: Lessons from New
Labour to the Coalition Government' (2011) 11 Criminology and Criminal Justice
283; Home Office, Putting victims first ± more effective responses to antisocial
behaviour (2012; Cm. 8367).
4 Hodgkinson and Tilley, id.
5 E. Burney, Making People Behave: Antisocial Behaviour Politics and Policy
(2009); E. Burney and L. Gelsthorpe, `Do We Need a ``Naughty Step''? Rethinking
the Parenting Order after Ten Years' (2008) 47 Howard J. of Criminal Justice 470;
A. Crawford, `Dispersal Powers and the Symbolic Role of Anti-Social Behaviour
Legislation' (2008) 71 Modern Law Rev. 753.
6 Crawford, id.
7 D. Garland, The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary
Society (2001) 24.
8 G. Hughes and D. Gilling, ```Mission Impossible''? The Habitus of the Community
Safety Manager and the New Expertise in the Local Partnership Governance of
Crime and Safety' (2004) 4 Criminology and Criminal Justice 129; G. Hughes, The
Politics of Crime and Community (2007).
ß2013 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2013 Cardiff University Law School
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