Policing Large Scale Disorder: Lessons from the disturbances of ...

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Home Affairs Committee: Evidence Ev w11 (f) There was a wide scale view including from former police officers, that policing in Handsworth and Lozells is conducted differently to other areas in the City. Illustrations cited included slow response times, nonattendance, people being targeted and abused by the Police, ignoring evidence and use of excessive force. The Police need to be called to account for the way they enforce the law. (g) Cuts have affected front line policing and if there are more cuts what will happen in two years’ time if the police force is reduced? (h) Community confidence in the Police is based on relationships that have developed over years. It is still high albeit tempered by concerns about their capacity to deliver an adequate service post-cuts. Delegates urged the Police to engage in more dialogue with grass roots communities and to share with them what impact Police cuts would have in terms of their ability to tackle crime and promote community safety. 3.4 Families (a) There are many single parents doing a great job, often better than two parent families. Stereotyping single parent families is at best an over-generalisation and at worst insensitive and offensive. (b) Parents love their children but are sometimes disempowered by the state. Parental rights to discipline their children and provide the right values have been eroded. Cuts and the loss of amenities, facilities and trained staff are making matters worse. (c) Economic status impacts on parenting. In some families worklessness and outsider culture are intergenerational whilst in other cases unsociable working patterns make it difficult for people to be good parents. (d) Current immigration controls are contributing to the absent fathers’ syndrome. (e) It takes a whole village to raise a child. We need to recreate a “together identity” where local people feel empowered to “clip an ear” of wrong doers and take an interest in the wellbeing of their community. 3.5 Young people (a) We must ensure that the actions of a few do not tarnish a whole generation of young people. In addition we must ensure that those young people who err on the side of antisocial behaviour and criminality are not seen as being “rewarded” through special programmes (eg outdoor activities and residentials) when these are denied to other young people. (b) Young people know right from wrong but seem to have been tempted by the excitement of events and unable to tear themselves away from peers engaging in looting. The community and agencies need to focus on building young people’s resilience to deter them from such temptations. (c) Who influences young people? The third sector was formerly the main means of engaging with young people but it is now in decline. We need to provide greater support and opportunity for all young people. There are insufficient activities available for young people during the long summer holidays and yet schools lie empty. Can they be put to more effective use by local communities? 3.6 Jobs (a) Employment and jobs are key. Birmingham City Council’s Unemployment Briefing August 2011 confirms that at 12.3% unemployment rates in Birmingham are more than twice the national average of 5.5% and higher than any of the core cities against which it is compared. Drilling down to ward levels shows unemployment in Lozells & East Handsworth at 26.4%. Delegates estimated that for under 25’s in the area the unemployment rate is approximately 50%. Young people cannot get jobs. They have certificates but are not employable. (b) Training for young people is not working because there is a lack of jobs for people to take up after the training is completed. (c) Apprenticeships are not leading to jobs. The Work Programme is not comprehensive enough, is not offering enough choice and has such tight budgets that much valuable Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) work provided by third sector organisations has disappeared as they have been priced out of the programme. Pastoral care, mentoring and IAG are important in communities that do not have the in-built experiences and advantages of middle class communities. Our young people are becoming an alienated generation. (d) Public agencies need to consider their roles as employers of young people. How can public sector procurement processes be designed to generate sustainable training opportunities and jobs for local young people? 3.7 Political leaders (a) Our political leaders need to become upstanding moral citizens themselves and use sensible adult language choosing their words carefully to avoid demonising any particular section(s) of the community. (b) There is resentment towards out of touch politicians cutting budgets leading to cuts in services.
Ev w12 Home Affairs Committee: Evidence (c) People were confused about who was supposedly speaking on their behalf—elected Councillors/Members of Parliament or “community leaders”? Local councillors were not very visible on the television, in the press or on the streets and some of the individuals who proclaimed they were speaking on behalf of the community were unknown to the community. 3.8 Ignoring experience (a) Each bout of riots has been followed by government-sponsored inquiries as well as independent research. What does that research tell us about causes and consequences and what can we learn from the remedial strategies adopted? Is there any evidence that we are learning from this body of knowledge? 3.9 Funding cuts (a) We know what works in supporting young people in coming to terms with a hard and complicated world. Mentoring programmes have been important as have parenting support initiatives and family intervention in general. Provision developed and provided by local communities and organisations is particularly valuable, yet this provision has been decimated in the expenditure cuts. (b) The loss of services has had a disproportionate impact on the local community. Youth services are essential for both development and diversionary purposes. Youth Workers have played pivotal roles particularly as positive male role models and voices of authority. This work is expensive but does provide real results. (c) When services are cut back it undermines trust and confidence—eg if the state can withdraw funding from vital public and voluntary sector services what does that say about its attitude to socially and economically deprived communities? (d) Blanket cuts can result in “throwing the baby out with the bath water”. Many valuable services have been lost and communities left bereft of essential support. Government and local authorities should undertake a review of what was working and retain/reinstate programmes that make a real difference, eg Surestart. 3.10 Community/Communities (a) Through the amplified voices and actions of a few, everyone is suffering. (b) Society has become too complacent. The community has a collective responsibility for creating a safe environment. It is neither necessary nor desirable to leave it all to state. Communities need to have more ownership and control over decision-making processes. We need to build on solid foundations, whether faithbased or reflecting traditional community values. We have a range of community foundations on which we can build—neighbourhood forums and residents’ groups, third sector organisations, faith organisations and private sector networks. Some of this is becoming increasingly fragile as a consequence of funding cuts, a trend that needs to be reversed as a matter of urgency. (c) We need to invest in our community infrastructure and in our people. A hypothesis was raised that 95% of all funding into the area is consumed within the system. This needs to be explored and more specifically, more funding needs to be getting through to local grassroots community organisations. (d) Delegates acknowledged the swift action taken by Birmingham City Council to clear rubbish after the disturbances and compared it to everyday issues of rubbish clearance in local neighbourhoods. They expressed concern that the Council needs to improve on this over the long term in order to be trusted on larger more complex issues. They raised concerns about the loss of environmental wardens and depletion of services, concluding that communities are now getting “less” help. 4. Recommendations This section lists the recommendations proposed by Conference delegates. The recommendations uphold the consensus view that this is a complex situation which will not be resolved by a single intervention or a single stakeholder group. Notwithstanding this, the government is perceived as the body that must take the lead and create the environment (policy and financial) where other stakeholders can play their part. 4.1 Policing (a) More (not less) robust and responsive neighbourhood policing. (b) The style of neighbourhood policing needs to be sensitive to issues such as Stop and Search as Stop and Search has the potential to damage police/community relations as well as community cohesion. 4.2 Funding (a) No cuts in policing funding. (b) Funding attracts organisations into an area but when the funding ends they go and there is no sustainability. Funding should be targeted at organisations already located within the area.
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