---

Antisocial Behaviour

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was seeking to make the point, which the community in Sandy was making to me, that the involvement of adults with youngsters in a series of societies and groups gives those youngsters the opportunity to be mentored, to do something and to become engaged in community activity. The youngsters who need direction most are often those who will be most disadvantaged if adults feel that they can no longer take part in such activities and feel squeezed out of the role that they play as leaders in society. The damage being done, and the separation being created between adults who wish to be involved and those whom they can look after, is becoming too great and is threatening to create more antisocial behaviour as an indirect consequence. Reference was made earlier to Louise Casey. What she said earlier this year was highlighted by a number of speakers. She says that the justice system appears to most people to be a""criminal's justice system"," and that instead, they want a""public justice system"." Her own research, she says, has shown that two thirds of the public think the system respects the rights of the offender more than those of the victim:""The public need to know that people who break the rules face consequences, otherwise they give up hope"." In her contribution, the right hon. Member for Salford (Hazel Blears) said that the debate was sometimes polarised between those who spoke about intervention and those who spoke about justice. She is correct to say that it is a mixture of the two, but I do not think that anyone in the debate or anyone who has spoken seriously on the subject has tried to polarise it. We need early intervention, and we need the engagement of adults when children are young and as they get older. Of course, as in the case referred to by my local parish council in Little Staughton, we need to know that justice works and is effective. One of the failures of the Government over the past 12 years is that the public are not convinced of that, or Louise Casey would not have said what she said.