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Abstract
The New Labour Respect Agenda fuses anti-social behaviour policies, Third Way active citizenship, and a theory of community-based support and regulation. The Respect Agenda itself has a specific focus on, and direct implications for, children and young people, as well as for children living in vulnerable families. This paper argues that the theoretical basis for New Labour's ‘Respect’ is limited and ultimately flawed. Whilst New Labour policy demands respect from young people, young people's lived citizenship is too often experienced in terms of disrespect and even shame of the self. Young people respond to these feelings of disrespect by seeking out other ways through which respect can be acted out and negotiated. Respect, as conceptualised through the New Labour lens will criminalise vulnerable young people, thereby further stripping them of self-respect, inter-personal respect and societal respect. The paper concludes that respect should be an outcome of policy and a philosophy of a social justice led politics, rather than a conditionally led policy.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Dr Cathy McIlwaine, Professor Jane Wills and Professor Jon May for their supervision and support in writing this paper. Thanks also to the ESRC for funding the research.
Notes
1. These groups are already disproportionately targeted by existing policies (such as stop and search) that serve to regulate public behaviours; the creation of yet more regulatory policy will only increase this experience. Data for the research area shows that proportionate to the population, minority ethnic groups are three times more likely to be stopped and searched, young people are five times more likely to be stopped and searched than the adult population (25 years and over) and men are 38 times more likely to be stopped than women (Metropolitan Police Citation2007).