Gangs

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted to be making my first speech as a shadow Home Affairs Minister on the issue of gangs. Like many of the Members here, I have lived and breathed this issue for many years as a resident, an MP and a community activist. In that spirit, let me put it on the record that I am sad that my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) cannot be here because I know how strongly and passionately he feels about the matter. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field), the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) and for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) for their contributions. What we are seeing today is a strong commitment from all parts of the House to tackle the issues that are driving gangs in communities across Britain. Clearly, many of us in London are living with these issues on a day-to-day basis, but we recognise, as the hon. Member for Hexham pointed out, that these problems are experienced across the country and as such they deserve a joined-up approach.

With that in mind, my contribution on behalf of the Opposition is a reflection on what is important in terms of the evidence base that we draw on when we have conversations about gangs. I am mindful that the Government have said that they will bring forward a gangs strategy in October. I want to ensure that the lessons that have been very well drawn out in the debate today—about the need for a joined-up approach and for a range of Government Departments and partners at national, local and community levels to be involved—and some of the concerns that we have about the ability of that work to happen, are made clear.

It is important to have two debates on this subject this week. This debate about gangs is different from the debate about riots that will happen later this week. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham pointed out, these issues have existed in our communities for many years. What we saw over the summer was not a reflection of those issues, but it was informed by them. It is important to draw that distinction.

It is also important to have a clear understanding about what gangs are. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington made that point very well. When we talk about “gangs”, sometimes we all think that we are talking about the same thing but actually we are not. I am mindful of the work of Professor John Pitts, who made a number of studies about the nature of gangs in our communities. In fact, he studied my own community in Waltham Forest and he came up with six different typographies of what a gang might be.

It is helpful to think about the difference between the organised and serious crime gangs that we see in the UK—there are estimates that about 30,000 people are serious, hardened criminals who are part of those gangs—and the gangs that we have talked about more today: the gangs of young people who are drawn together in our communities, sometimes involuntarily. Professor Pitts talks about the “reluctant gangster”, the young people who feel they have no option but to be part of a gang in their local community, either to gain protection or to get opportunities that they do not feel they are getting in other parts of their lives. We must understand that we need approaches that tackle both those types of activities, rather than simply having one approach. That is also important given what my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington said about recognising that this issue affects not just young men and that increasingly young women are a part of gangs, and also a part of the solution in terms of addressing how we might tackle gangs.

When the Government are looking at gangs, although we may only be starting to understand the nature of gangs in our communities and the variety of gangs that we must address, it is important to remember that a lot of good work has already been undertaken in local communities and indeed at national level. I urge the Minister to draw heavily on the joint thematic report that was produced last year, which I found to be a very useful guide. I think that the hon. Member for Hexham also drew on it, when he talked about the importance of the youth offending teams and the work of the youth offending institutions in tackling gangs. The joint thematic report was a very useful guide to some of the good work that is going on to join up services. It looked at some of the challenges that exist, including what we can do from Whitehall to join up services and to help to co-ordinate action.

The borough of Waltham Forest in my constituency has had a problem with gangs and so has been piloting a range of ways of dealing with gangs. I feel strongly that that work is important, not least because today—purely by coincidence—a young man’s family is coming to visit me in Parliament to meet Louise Casey and to talk about people who are victims of gangs. Eze Amosu was a young man killed by a gang in my community. When we talk about gangs and how we might approach them, it is important that we recognise that young people are primarily the victims of those gangs. It is important to support victims’ families too in the work that we do.

We know the importance of a joined-up model. As I said, Waltham Forest has been one of the areas piloting a range of activities, following on from the Strathclyde model that the hon. Member for Hexham talked about. The right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington was also right to talk about the Cardiff model and how we join up the reporting of what is going on in hospitals. The police are sometimes late to the game in terms of knowing where gangs are and what incidents have occurred. We have seen some real progress in the past couple of years in working together to identify people who have been victims of gang crime and in supporting them to come forward, either to remove them from gangs or to help to bring prosecutions.

What do those lessons teach us? They teach us, not least, the lesson that my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham referred to, about the tricky question of resourcing the work to tackle gangs. As I think the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster accepted in his contribution, such work is an investment and joining up those services to get a preventive approach rather than a curative approach is the way forward.

Bearing that in mind, I have some concerns about the future of some of the projects that have worked so far. I am particularly mindful of family intervention projects, which we know are facing cuts. Also, our youth offending teams face cuts. When we are looking at cuts of 20% in our youth offending teams, and indeed at some youth offending teams being cut entirely, as we have seen in Cornwall, many of us have genuine concerns about the nature of the expertise that we may have to draw on in tackling gangs and what might happen to that expertise in the years ahead.

It is also important to look at some of the projects that are peer-led. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East talked strongly about the importance of young people themselves addressing some of the concerns about gangs. We have seen some fantastic work with projects such as Leap that teach conflict prevention in schools. Equally, Citizens UK has promoted safe havens. Young people themselves have identified such places. All of us who know about the “postcode wars” recognise the concerns that many young people have about going from street to street. We are also mindful of the experience that they have in places that can offer them safety. That work is important.

Even if we are aware of individual projects, the challenge is how we draw all these issues together. That is the test that I want to set the Minister today. If the Government are serious about tackling gangs, policing must be more than a deterrent; it must be part of a preventive approach. In that sense, there are some real tests for the work that must be done across Government.

First and foremost, the Minister must challenge his colleagues within the Department for Education about what is happening to our youth services and more generally about what is happening to the role of schools. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington put it incredibly well when she talked about the importance of schools in these relationships. When we are seeing the unhooking of the relationships between local authorities and schools, we are seeing a challenge to young people’s ability to achieve educational attainment. On a more pragmatic level, safer neighbourhoods partnerships and safer schools partnerships rely on those relationships being in place. I think that my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham put it well when he talked about those relationships continuing but on an ad hoc basis. Those relationships are too important for funding and support for them to be unhooked. I hope that the Minister will challenge those within the DFE who are complacent about this issue.

We have already talked about cuts in youth services; some areas are facing cuts of 100%. Without the people who can work at the grass-roots level in our community—to bring the intelligence, and to build relationships between the police and young people—our ability to tackle some of the issues that lead to gang membership will be compromised as well.

On a long-term basis, I hope that the Minister will challenge his colleagues within the Department for Work and Pensions about the issues of unemployment, particularly the cancellation of the future jobs fund. With 50,000 young people in London now out of work, it simply does not make sense to cancel one of the key programmes to help young people who want to get on and make positive choices about the kinds of careers they can have. I hope that the Minister will challenge his colleagues in the DWP accordingly.

Many of us have already talked about the importance of investment in communities and grass-roots projects. I have already touched on the role of youth offending teams and the concerns that we have about the cuts to those teams. However, this process is also about the partnerships that we can build with the voluntary sector and those on the ground in our communities. Many of the youth workers in Walthamstow who I have worked with in the past 18 months have had their funding either scaled back or cut entirely. Clearly, that affects their ability to be out on the streets and to build relationships with our young people to help them to make good choices in their lives. It also affects their ability to work with the police, both when we have events such as we saw over the summer—when we have riots—and in the longer term to build positive relationships.

I also hope that the Minister will challenge the Mayor of London, because one of the central parts of our relationships in London has been the role of the safer neighbourhoods teams and particularly in my area the sergeants who have been able to work on gathering intelligence, and on building relationships with voluntary sector partners and with young people themselves. Clearly, losing 300 sergeants in London will impact on our ability to build those relationships and to work in those ways.

It is not just about the Minister challenging his colleagues in other parts of Government. I also urge him to rethink the proposals on CCTV. The basic ability of the police to monitor where young people are travelling around and where there are gang incidents, and therefore to respond quickly before those incidents escalate and knives or other weapons are drawn, is critical. In my local area, CCTV has played a role in that police activity.

The Government must also consider their approach to antisocial behaviour orders. In Hackney, the police have used ASBOs to great effect to tackle some of the problems around gangs. I know that people have raised concerns about the gang injunctions. I urge the Minister to look again at the evidence on how those measures have been used to deal with some of the issues around gang behaviour.

Above all, the relationship that the police can have with communities is crucial. At a time when we are facing cuts in our policing budget, it is clearly difficult for the police to think in the longer term, yet there has never been a greater need for them to do so. When we are seeing unemployment and poverty rising, the landscape in which the police will be operating will be very difficult. To build those relationships with communities, they need to be able to have the people on the ground. Poverty is not a cause of gangs, it is not an excuse for gangs and it does not explain gangs, but it creates a landscape in which all the work that many of us have talked about today—work that can be the answer to some of the issues about gangs—is harder to do.

I hope that the Minister will take on board some of the concerns that we have expressed that some of the things that are happening in other parts of Government will undermine his ability to address gangs, and that he will act accordingly. I hope that the Government’s gangs strategy in October will be cross-Government, that the police will play their part and therefore that the Minister will champion such approaches. Otherwise, I fear we shall be holding similar debates in the years ahead, with the evidence worsening monthly. All of us who care about our constituencies and our country foresee the consequences.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend takes a particular view of the facts. From the Dispatch Box, I must take the view that the decision was taken by the Scottish Government on the declared basis of humanitarian grounds. No Minister of the Crown—certainly not me—is in a position to add to that.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Given the proposed review of legal aid, does the Justice Secretary agree that the problems faced by the Refugee and Migrant Justice organisation because of the late payment of fees and the lack of clarity about the number of current cases affected—the Home Office has told me that it is 5,000 and the Legal Services Commission has admitted that it simply does not know—mean that it is vital for the Government to intervene until these problems are resolved to prevent that organisation from going into administration and to avoid the possibility of further chaos, with expense, within our asylum system?

[Mr Djanogly]

I am pleased that the hon. Lady has brought up this important issue. The RMJ was maintaining that it had 10,000 clients, but the administrators who went into that organisation to put it into administration assessed the number of clients at more like between 4,000 and 5,000. What is important is the clients. We need to move on from the administration of that organisation to concentrating on its clients, and I assure her that the Department and I are doing exactly that.

Defendant Anonymity

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to contribute to this debate, which is on an important and sensitive subject. I am very honoured to take part in a debate in which so many hon. Members have so much experience to contribute to our thinking. My desire to speak reflects my personal concern that the current proposals are both unworkable and, more importantly, counter-productive to our shared stated aim of achieving better outcomes for rape victims and justice for our society as a result.

This is a difficult debate to participate in, not least because it is still not clear what measures the Government intend to introduce. What has been published on the proposed legislation poses a number of questions. For example, what does anonymity actually mean? Are we talking about printed or public or local knowledge of a case? How could that be secured at any level? Inevitably, as hon. Members have said, people in the criminal and legal system will know, or will be able to secure access to, the identity of an accused person, as part of the day-to-day functioning of our court systems. Given the concerns about the relationship between our courts, our media and our criminal system, which were admirably outlined by the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), the difficulty of enforcing anonymity is a clear challenge to the proposals.

Moreover, how far would the anonymity have to go to be sustainable? As my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) pointed out, what if somebody is accused of a number of interrelated offences? Would co-defendants be covered? They might be accused of less serious crimes, such as aiding and abetting, but would they be given anonymity to protect another defendant? What would it mean for a case if the name of a defendant or co-defendant became public? Those questions go alongside more important ones that we need to tease out. Would anonymity apply at arrest, charge or trial? It is clear that the nine words in the coalition document have stirred up a hornets’ nest, and I am grateful that we are having this debate to try to tease those things out. I hope that the Minister will answer the many questions that right hon. and hon. Members have asked.

It has been said that the measure needs to be introduced because the offences in question are so distinct that to accuse people of them falsely is to destroy lives. As others have asked today, why only rape? Why are teachers accused of such offences in a category alone? The inclusion of teachers reflects the fluidity of the thinking and its inconsistency. If anonymity throughout a criminal case were possible and desirable, could we define and measure the social penalty of being accused of a crime, or being exonerated, including before charges were made, in a manner that was satisfactory to all concerned? Anthropologists will tell us how shame, as a concept, contributed to many different accusations. It can be argued, as many in the debate have, that false accusations of paedophilia, murder, serious violence, hate crimes or domestic violence can just as easily destroy somebody’s life and those of their loved ones. Indeed, why are teachers alone in our public services afforded such protection? Why not doctors or care workers?

The debate is about more than legal semantics, and Members on both sides of the House who are concerned about the proposals care for more than intellectual consistency. It is clear that they are also worried that giving those accused of rape anonymity and not those accused of any other crime sends the message that rape is different and separate. In doing so, the proposals take us backwards as a society in addressing rape rather than help us to make progress. Furthermore, the proposal flies in the face of the evidence available to us about the nature of rape and how it is prosecuted. We do not have enough data on false accusations.

Many hon. Members have already referred to the excellent report on this issue by Baroness Stern, which identifies many of the challenges that we face with this crime. Above all, her report tells us that if victims do have the courage to come forward, and are willing to go through the criminal justice system, conviction rates are improving and justice is possible. But her report also highlights the fundamental problem of the high level of attrition of cases, and that is why we should be extremely cautious about doing anything that could make the process even harder. It also makes the case for looking again at how rape is handled by the criminal justice system.

The test for this proposal must be whether the intended benefits it could offer outweigh the risks that it poses to the detection and prosecution of rape. The benefits of the proposal could be strong only if we could prove that the false reporting of rape is systematic and widespread above and beyond that of any other crime in our criminal justice system. As Baroness Stern herself argues, we simply do not know that, and we do not have enough evidence about the false reporting of rape to make such a judgment. She rightly argues—and many hon. Members have agreed—that we need more research on that issue. Crucially, she also asks for more research into the false reporting of all offences instead of singling out rape. I hope that Ministers will address that point in the research that they are conducting, so that we have a greater understanding of the incidence of false reporting across the criminal justice system.

The lack of evidence is partly due to the difficulty of defining a false accusation, as many hon. Members have pointed out, and whether such accusations are malicious. Another issue is how incidents are marked as “not crimed” in the system and the danger of using that as a proxy for evidence of false allegations of rape.

If we do not have the evidence, and the Government claim that this proposal is not about dealing with false allegations, where has it come from? We are all aware of the media coverage that this topic has generated—much heat but not much light. The coverage is selective. I have recently made representations on behalf of a constituent who was tried for making a false allegation only to be acquitted, and now finally charges are being brought against the attacker. That case raises many serious concerns about the ability of our justice system to deal with rape, and the role of the Independent Police Complaints Commission in addressing complaints about how such crimes are investigated. I am continuing to pursue those complaints, but to have struggled for justice for so long in such a context must have been extremely difficult. To ask victims to come forward and report rape in an environment in which the law enshrines the notion that some victims will lie would be even harder.

No one suggests that being accused of rape is not a serious matter, but to presume that—unlike in any other crime—an allegation could be based on lies, the Government are on dangerous ground if they do not have the evidence to support the policy. It also stands in contrast to the evidence that publicising the report of a rape can be vital in the prosecution of cases. Several hon. Members have already highlighted the shocking statistics on the reporting of rape and the concerns that that will be adversely affected by giving those accused of the crime anonymity. Whether in the cases already mentioned of Worboys and Reid, or those involving individuals who knew their attackers, there is strong evidence that public accusations can give other victims the confidence to come forward and report their experiences.

The question of how cases are put together is not incidental but integral to the debate and the danger of these proposals. As investigations in the difficult area of proving a lack of consent can often involve very vulnerable people, we must be sensitive to what can be done to support them.

An interesting study by the Metropolitan police from 2005 found that 87% of those reporting rape had at least one of four vulnerabilities—being under 18, having mental health problems, having ingested alcohol before being raped and of having been or being in a relationship with their attacker. As the report points out, those add to the considerable complexities of prosecution and increase the chances of the withdrawal of a case early in the process. As I have said, I am concerned about the way in which cases are handled by our criminal justice system, something that the police have also put on the record in their conversations with the Eaves Partnership in London. The police acknowledge that

“the majority of cases are lost during the investigation process for a number of reasons including victims’ loss of faith in the process, the length of time the investigation takes, lack of communication between police and victims.”

To add into that mix a presumption of dishonesty could only make it harder for all concerned to take the journey towards justice. Indeed, if research is to be done, it should, in order to flesh out fully the challenges we are talking about, take into account not simply the concept of rape, but the outcomes and causes behind the complaint, whether the police felt that the victim would not be able to go to trial, whether evidence was gathered well enough to stand up in court, whether the victim withdrew their complaint, and whether the individual was tried. I suspect that, if we are able to gather such data, the picture would be very different from that being painted in the reporting of rape allegations and in the language used by some when talking about the subject.

Given that this proposal could deter victims from coming forward, we should work harder to explore other options that do not make a presumption about the likelihood that a complainant has lied about such a crime. Yesterday, Baroness Stern called for more work to be done to establish whether the existing guidance on anonymity in rape cases from the Association of Chief Police Officers has been followed, and if not, why not. I hope the Minister will also take up that point. Above all, I urge the House to search its soul in this debate. The question is not whether it is feasible to give some rape defendants anonymity and not others; we must ask why we are still struggling to bring those who commit such offences to justice and how we can address this problem. If we do that, we will see that proposals for anonymity are not part of the solution.

The problems are complex, but there are several indications of where action could be taken. I come to this debate as a London MP faced with extremely troubling statistics on the prosecution of rape in the capital which show that our conviction rate is well below the success rate in other metropolitan areas. That is why I welcome the move to Sapphire units and co-ordination across London. The reality is that staffing such units is especially hard in outer London, in areas such as mine, where officers receive little recognition for taking on such work, in contrast with other roles within our police force.

We should also learn from the Payne review and George Alberti’s research, and offer more support for victims. I would favour the extension of the role of independent sexual violence advisers as distinct from police or other criminal justice officers. We must also be mindful of the funding for rape crisis centres, which face a struggle for existence under the new Administration. Indeed, I fear, under the new Government’s public services spending freeze, that it will be harder, not easier, for specialised units for rape and sexual assault victims to improve conviction rates and bring rapists to justice, given that they are already under-staffed, under-resourced and lacking specialised rape lawyers. I hope that Ministers will today make a commitment, given their interest in this subject, to ensure that those services are properly funded and protected.

In conclusion, I urge the Government to turn their attention from the tabloid headlines, and instead focus on addressing these challenges. The Government’s proposal would give credence, without any evidentiary foundation, to the idea that lying is an aspect of this crime and not any other. I can see that others across the House agree with me, and I appeal to them to work with us to raise these concerns. As legislators, we must not send out the message, however unintended, that we think that those who come forward to report rape are more likely to mislead than any other alleged victim of crime. As members of society, we must work together to protect the vulnerable and hear the voices of victims with an open mind. A public consultation would guarantee and encourage that. I urge the Minister to change his mind and ensure that we hear those voices in this debate.