Punishing families is no cure

Darren Rodwell, the Labour leader of Barking and Dagenham council and parliamentary candidate for Barking, has threatened to evict council-tenant families not working with the police over knife crime.

“If your child is involved in an incident and knows who the perpetrators are, and refuses to speak out, we will look at reviewing your housing agreement,” Rodwell said. “Everyone must play their part in stopping these crimes. As parents, it is up to us to know where our children are, and that we play an active role.”

He added: “If families know their relatives are linked to crime, they must speak up or we will start to look at tenancy agreements.”

Barking Council is writing to parents telling them they must act to stop violence and antisocial behaviour during the “lost hours” of 3pm to 7pm, the hours where children and young people are no longer at school but many parents are still at work.

The plan is clearly an attack on the basics of criminal justice. There is no detail on burden of proof required to take action against a family for insufficiently working with the police, but clearly it will be less than that required for conviction of any crime, or the threat would not be necessary.

It is also another sign of the socially conservative direction of the Labour Party. Labour Councils have closed youth services and have stood by as life got worse for most working-class people. The blame for social ills is placed with parents (especially mothers), and the solution is police and losing everything if you don’t satisfy the police that you are cooperative enough.

The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has said Labour will deliver 13,000 additional police officers and community support officers, and claimed that “only Labour is the party of law and order now”.

Labour has chosen meaningless law-and-order rhetoric over solutions that might actually reduce knife crime. Local government budgets for youth services have been cut, including safe young people’s spaces and targeted services to help young people leave or avoid gangs. Inequality has been shown to drive an increase in violence, and London is becoming more unequal. By placing the responsibility for violent crime at the door of mothers, Labour is indulging is placing additional burden on working-class mothers whilst letting the true culprits off the hook.