Introduction

The Hillside Estate is a geographically isolated area of social housing in the south of England. Like many similar areas throughout the country, it has been subject to the combination of situational and social crime prevention measures used to tackle crime and ‘anti-social behaviour’ since long before 1998. Yet how these various strategies, designed to penetrate neighbourhoods in order to establish ‘safer communities’, have impacted upon young people in particular has been the key question facing the three-year ethnographic project on which this chapter is based.

What follows will be an introduction to some of the tensions and contradictions between the management of anti-social behaviour (ASB) in Hillside and the experiences of children and young people who live there. Concerns are raised about how the broad definition of ‘anti-social behaviour’ is central for practitioners but often leaves children and young people exposed to intervention for a range of behaviours not necessarily identified by them as ‘anti-social’. In addition, the use of surveillance cameras, targeted policing initiatives, curfews and Dispersal Orders, and a range of ‘contractual’ agreements established to detect and prevent ASB perpetrated by young people has resulted in those who participated in the research feeling vulnerable, angry and frustrated at their perceived inability to influence these developments, or defend themselves and their families. A particular consequence for young people of being targeted for management of ASB is their increasing spatial marginalisation within their own neighbourhood. The data suggest that this shift has been precipitated by feeling unable to control being drawn into the intervention process itself, combined with targeted ASB prevention and detection strategies, including closed-circuit television (CCTV) and policing.

Methods

All of the data for this research was generated over a 14-month period using a multi-method qualitative approach. Voluntary work was conducted at two sites regularly used by young people on the Hillside Estate: a local youth club open five nights a week and during the school holidays, and a small group for young mums between the ages of 14 and 19 that met once a week. In addition to this, the Hillside Crime Prevention Forum, a monthly partnership meeting used to discuss, monitor and take action against local crime and disorder issues, was attended for nine months.