English Police get new powers to evict anti-social residents from their own homes

[dogday]

Police are to get tough new powers to evict anti-social residents and board up their properties, Home Secretary John Reid is to announce.

Officers in England and Wales will be allowed to temporarily throw out nuisance neighbours, whether they are council tenants, private renters or even own the properties.

The dramatic new powers - which the Home Office said would only be used as a last resort - are based on measures already in force to tackle crack houses and other drug dens.

Mr Reid is expected to tell the Police Federation annual conference in Blackpool: "The widening of existing powers to temporarily close premises where anti-social behaviour is rife will help our police crack down on this scourge in our communities.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=455272&in_page_id=1770

[momster]

1. Isn't This Why We Invaded Iraq?

'Nuisance neighbors' and 'new powers used only as last resorts'?

Hmm, sounds mighty familiar somehow.

[dogday]

2. I would like to know their definition of

Anti-Social behaviour... What exactly does that consist of?

[spinbaby]

3. Not really a solution

Your noxious neighbors will just go be someone else's noxious neighbors. I hope a measure of counseling goes along with this.

[Louis C. Phurye]

4. "Crack house" is so 1989.

And what of the residents who would say, "It's not a crack house, It's a crack home."?

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Guardian article (written after the speech, not before)

He said he wanted to extend police powers - rules allowing the temporary closure of crack houses, which have been used more than 500 times since their introduction in 2004 - to "all premises generating yobbish behaviour".

An official regulatory impact assessment said these "last resort" powers would be used no more than 50 times a year.

But Adam Sampson, of the charity Shelter, said evicting "nuisance neighbours" would simply pass the problem on to another neighbourhood; it would be better to tackle the root causes.

Shami Chakrabarti, of Liberty, said: "Making kids homeless because their parents are noisy, and extending punishment for criminals indefinitely, will not only be a future home secretary's headache but yet another shadow on the rule of law.

http://society.guardian.co.uk/crimeandpunishment/story/0,,2081559,00.html

The problem with the 'anti-social behaviour' is that, unlike criminal convictions, it doesn't have to be proved "beyond all reasonable doubt". This will be a bad thing for liberty, if it goes through (which it might not - with Reid resigning at the same time as Blair, the new Home Secretary, who would have to get teh bill through parliament, might be open to compromise, if there's resistance to it).