BRITAIN: Tony Blair vowed to reclaim Britain's streets "for the law-abiding majority" yesterday, as ministers launched their co-ordinated action plan to secure the prime minister's "respect agenda".
Signalling another "legacy" issue for his third and final term in power, Mr Blair said for too long the criminal justice system had put protecting the rights of those accused of crime ahead of the rights of law-abiding citizens.
"My view is very clear. Their freedom to be safe from fear comes first", he told social workers in 10 Downing Street.
And the scale of the government's ambition was underlined by home secretary Charles Clarke, who said their purpose was to "change the culture of disrespect amongst a minority" and enable people "to rebuild the bonds of community for a modern age".
The proposed means to do so could include new powers allowing the last-resort eviction of nuisance neighbours from their homes, the docking of housing benefits and a new national parenting academy, as well as the extended use of on-the-spot fines for disorder offences and anti-social behaviour such as spitting at people in the street.
Mr Blair insisted he was not "restarting the search for the golden age" in contrasting life in modern Britain with that experienced by his father growing up in Glasgow in the 1930s.
However, Conservative leader David Cameron accused him of "one-dimensional knee-jerk populism", while the chief executive of the Children's Society said Mr Blair's plan offered little beyond a cocktail of policies previously launched together with "shock tactics, such as 'shutting and sealing' families out of their own homes".
Liberal Democrat leadership contender Mark Oaten said making communities safer and helping problem families could not be achieved "with this government's usual mish-mash of gimmicks and spin".
The range of proposals outlined yesterday included 50 schemes across Britain to help problem families, the use of residential "sin bins", fines or deductions from housing benefits for persistent offenders, new mentoring schemes and a National Parenting Academy to train staff.
Home Office minister Hazel Blears confirmed that private owners as well as council tenants could find themselves thrown out of their homes for up to three months if they refused to stop anti-social behaviour.
And she warned unruly council tenants who refused to participate in education programmes they would not be offered an alternative conventional council tenancy. "We want to ensure there is no escape out of this system," Ms Blears said.
She stressed that only a minority of problem families were likely to face eviction if they refused to attend the residential "sin bins".
"I see them as a kind of last-chance opportunity for people to change their lives . . . and to prevent the next generation of people ruining their lives and getting dragged into crime and anti-social behaviour," she said.