Anti Social Behaviour

Outline of the Issue

The graph above shows that antisocial behaviour has been on the increase throughout recent years in Starley Cross. Furthermore, there have been numerous reports from Starley Cross residents of youths from the Manor Estate engaging in antisocial behaviour, here are some of the issues raised:

• Racism towards the Asian families living in Frykman Terrace and Kray Street, creating social divide.

• Loitering around the Shopping Area and Starley Green, which has made residents from surrounding areas feel uneasy, especially the elderly residents living on Hall Street.

• Threatening behaviour – a resident from Brookes Close told us she is fearful of the “hooded youths” from the Manor Estate. Furthermore, a survey of Starley Cross residents also revealed that 48% of people do not feel safe at night, suggesting a fear of crime.

• Violence – one lady told us her son was threatened at knife point.

• Vandalism can be found around Starley Cross, especially near the shopping area where the youths loiter.

Explanation and Research

These issues can be explained by subculture theory (Cloward and Ohlin 1960) which categorises deviant groups into three types of subculture: criminal, conflict and retreatist. The youths from Manor Estate would fall under the conflict subculture, which forms in deprived area that lacks social cohesion, thus limiting opportunities to obtain mainstream goals (Cloward and Ohlin 1960).

This will lead the youths to group together and form gangs, which allows them to gain respect from fellow members by engaging in antisocial behaviours such as vandalism (Cloward and Ohlin 1960). Support for subculture theory comes from research into the 2011 London Riots which found that youth subculture which celebrates antisocial behaviours was a potential cause for the rioting and street crime that took place (Hallsworth and Brotherton 2011).

Future Issues

A further concern is that the youths engaging in antisocial behaviour may go on to involve themselves in organised criminal activities such as drug dealing. This can be explained using two theories: deviancy amplification (Wilkins 1964) and labelling theory (Becker 1963). Firstly, deviancy amplification is when an initial deviant act, for example the youths loitering on Starley Green, causes the rest of the community to exclude them and label them as deviant (Wilkins 1964). Then, labelling theory (Becker 1963) would suggests that once a negative label has been applied to a group it will cause the members of the group to internalise that label, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Becker (1963) explains that a self-fulfilling prophecy is someone acts according to the label society has placed on them, so if someone is labelled as deviant they will continually engage in deviant acts which may lead to a life of crim . These two theories explain how anti-social behaviours can eventually lead to more serious offences (Wilkins 1964; Becker 1963), therefore in Starley Cross we aim to help youths disengage with antisocial behaviours to prevent them from committing serious offences later on in life.