LONDON: More than a decade ago, Tony Blair said we must be “tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime”. He was right. No serious attempt to improve the quality of life in our communities can ignore the need to understand and deal with the root causes of criminal and antisocial behaviour.
Blair has had nearly nine years in power. He could have mounted a systematic challenge to one-dimensional, knee-jerk populism. He could have put in its place a more thoughtful approach.
Instead, he has put short-term tactics before long-term thinking. His approach to this issue has been driven by a desire, in his words, to come up with “eye-catching initiatives with which [he] can be personally associated”. Remember the plan to march yobs to cashpoint machines? To ban alcohol on public transport? We’ve had 30 criminal justice acts since 1997; just nine in education. But passing new laws isn’t a sign of toughness — it’s often a sign of defeat.
Blair has been neither tough on crime, nor its causes. And today’s announcements on respect show that he’s abandoned any serious attempt to be either.
The real respect agenda must go deeper than gimmicks. It has to address issues such as drug addiction and chaotic home environments. The tragedy is that almost all the key long-term indicators — family breakdown, hard drug use, binge drinking, domestic violence, teenage pregnancy — are heading the wrong way.
These issues can’t be addressed by top-down national initiatives: they need patient, personal support.
In every community there are fantastic social entrepreneurs and volunteers who have found solutions to these problems. A real respect agenda would see government stepping back from direct intervention and trusting local people and organizations to do the job.
We won’t be hidebound by such outdated thinking. Instead, we’ll set out ideas such as our proposals for Social Enterprise Zones, which would remove the many regulations and bureaucratic obstacles that hold back social entrepreneurs.
And we have to recognize that we’re in this together — we have a shared responsibility to build respect. So I’ve suggested a National School Leaver Programme to offer every young person the chance to participate in community activity at home and abroad after leaving school. Leading youth organizations will join me soon to explore how it might work.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service
— David Cameron is the leader of the Conservative party
