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Abstract
This article draws from ethnographic research that examined the impact of neighbourhood based community safety policies on young people living in social housing in the south of England. It begins with a brief examination of what local community safety practitioners considered the primary crime and disorder ‘problem’ on the estate – youth ‘anti-social behaviour’. It then shows that the most significant generator of fear and insecurity amongst young people themselves was the sudden, and often violent, deaths of peers. This article examines the extent of the peer bereavements that punctured the lives of the young people in Hillview and demonstrates that these experiences left them feeling profoundly vulnerable and acutely fearful of their own safety and for the safety of friends and family.
Notes
1. Civil orders granted by the courts to pose contractual restrictions upon the adjudged ‘anti-social’ elements of an individual's behaviour.
2. ‘Written agreements between a young person, the local housing office or registered social landlord and the local police in which the person agrees to not carry out a series of identifiable behaviours which have been defined as anti-social’ (Bullock and Jones Citation2004, p. 4).
3. A dispersal order provides the police with additional powers to disperse groups of two or more people where the officer has reasonable grounds for believing that their presence or behaviour has resulted in, or is likely to result, in a member of the public being harassed, intimidated, alarmed or distressed.
4. Defined by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 s1 as acting ‘in a manner that caused or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household as himself’.
5. To protect the confidentiality of participants Hillview is a pseudonym.
6. In contrast to other research (Pitts Citation2008, Young and Hallsworth Citation2010) which has shown this term to be one used by young people in inner city areas involved in gang activity.
7. A monthly forum meeting held in Hillview that focused on crime and disorder issues and was attended by members of the local CST, other local community safety partners and residents.
8. In 1930 the Slum Clearance Act was passed by the British government. This gave more power to Local Authorities to compulsorily purchase housing in designated slum clearance areas and rehouse the mostly poor families who occupied them. This legislation also gave Local Authorities the right to build and let new homes to families moved out of the slums (Goodchild Citation2008).
9. References are omitted to protect the anonymity of the area.
10. A General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification taken in a specific subject by children in England and Wales between the ages of 14 and 16 years.
11. Social housing tenants can, within quite strict guidelines, swap houses with other social housing tenants and advertisements for moves, which often include details of the house, any financial incentives on offer and desirable areas, can be found in the local paper, Free-Ad magazine, and at local housing offices.
12. New Deal for Communities was an area based regeneration initiative designed to transform 39 socially and economically deprived areas in England by achieving change in three place-related outcomes: crime, community and housing and the physical environment, and three people-related outcome: education, health and worklessness (SEU Citation2000).
13. A group of practitioners responsible for the implementation and development of policies aimed at reducing crime and disorder and promoting the safety of the community.
14. Launched by the Neighbourhood Policing Programme in 2005 Safer Neighbourhood Policing Teams are a team of police officers responsible for the policing of a designated geographical area and a key part of the reassurance policing agenda developed by New Labour (Quinton and Morris Citation2008).
15. Court orders that forbid a person or member of a household from carrying out identified ‘anti-social’ acts. Failure to comply with the order can result in eviction.
16. An initiative that seeks to engage young people between the ages of 8 and 13 who have been identified as ‘at risk’ of offending.
17. For more information see http://www.t2a.org.uk/alliance