No more dispersal orders on Mill Road!

On the 18th June 2020, Cambridge Police published news that a dispersal order has been issued for the Mill Road area, “in a bid to reduce anti-social behaviour’.

This is apparently in response to ’persistent and aggressive begging’, people ‘sleeping in the middle of pavements’, and ‘disrupting local businesses while under the influence of alcohol’, as well as fights in the area and an increase in littering. PC Adam Price said, “the behaviour is having a detrimental effect on the quality of life of residents, visitors and business owners in the area. The dispersal order gives us the power to make those causing the anti-social behaviour leave the area with immediate effect and not to return within a specified period.”

We appreciate that Cambridge Police are attempting to keep the residents of the Mill Road Area safe. However, many of those accused of “anti-social behaviour” are residents, including those without a fixed address. While they are residing in the area, they are residents too and deserve to be protected. If this dispersal order has been made in the name of “residents’ quality of life”, surely the local residents in most urgent need of support to maintain a decent quality of life are those experiencing homelessness? We fail to see how compelling them to leave the area under threat of arrest offers any solution to the problems which have led to their having to sleep on the pavements of Mill Road.

The dispersal order also cited public alcohol abuse and drunkenness. Again, we fail to see how criminalising those experiencing addiction offers any kind of solution to the structural social problems which may have resulted in individuals behaving in this way.

We are aware that the dispersal order was made under Section 35 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which has come under widespread criticism for stigmatising vulnerable members of society. Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that dispersal orders brought in under ABCPA’s predecessor act, the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003, was as much about providing an “important symbolic response that something concrete is being done to address local concerns about anti-social behaviour and perceptions of incivility [...] as such, the power is potentially less concerned with the agency of individuals than the assumptions that are made about what they might do.”

Section 35 powers allow police officers to order people to leave an area under threat of arrest in order to prevent members of the public feeling “harassed, alarmed or distressed”. As residents of the Mill Road area, we would like to state publicly that we are not alarmed or distressed by individuals experiencing homelessness; we are, on the contrary, alarmed and distressed by this dispersal order’s criminalisation of homelessness, which stigmatises and displaces our area’s most vulnerable residents, further perpetuating the problems they face.

The current pandemic has exacerbated the issues faced by people experiencing homelessness - both by impacting services available to them, and by increasing feelings of anxiety and isolation. At the same time, it has shown all of us the importance of community, and supporting the most vulnerable in our society. This dispersal order therefore feels like particularly bad timing, and in contradiction to what is most needed at this time. A commitment to address the underlying needs instead of relying on dispersal orders will benefit the Mill Road community, not only now but in the future.

We are aware that the order expires on the morning of Saturday 20th June. We demand that no such order is ever issued again in our area by Cambridge police. Instead, we call on Cambridge City Council to hold an urgent consultation with people rough sleeping on Mill Road, as well as any relevant support workers, to identify what support is needed to address these issues in a compassionate, sustainable and long-term way. We call for a budget to provide any support needs which are identified in the course of the consultation. The consultation must be run in a way that is accessible for all stakeholders. It must not rely on people having access to the internet, coming into inaccessible premises, or making themselves vulnerable to arrest by coming into contact with police. The needs and “quality of life” of everyone in the Mill Road community must be supported in a way which prioritises the most vulnerable and does not make being homeless a crime.