Mecanismos de producción del campo Tapi de la arena U Inferior

professionalism and risk or how officers construct these matters?

Officers’ decision-making described so far is explained by the moral filter and the models, risk and housing professionalism and the relationship between these: Foremost in officers’ construction of their role is the need to stop or minimize ASB and its risks. As case-management contemplates litigation as a means of controlling the risks, this drives their need for evidence. Officers’ operate the medical lens and moral filter in their constructions of perpetrators and their impairments to explain their ASB whether evidence is present or not. However, this has consequences in terms of how these cases were managed.

While officers’ choice of interventions in the control of ASB is an outcome-focused management decision, primarily what will stop the ASB, analysis of the findings revealed how officers’ constructions of perpetrators also affect these decisions. The choice of interventions included adjustments as alternatives to litigation. The most widely used adjustment was support which was routinely offered to perpetrators who officers knew or suspected to have mental impairments, whether they passed the moral filter or not. However, officers used this intervention in a risk-averse way. Thus, while in some cases, officers may deem attempts at support to be a failure, socially inclusive strategies were also persisted with. Where other more socially inclusive adjustments were possible, for example alternative accommodation, they were often only offered with a medical understanding of disability i.e. a focus on the impairment or overridden by considerations of welfare conditionality.

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Perpetrators making swift passage through lens and filter (e.g. Eileen) tended not to be considered antisocial and received extraordinary treatment and a social model approach was taken, involving them in negotiation of the interventions. It cannot be said that all those who made swift passage through lens and filter were necessarily free from sanctions but in gaining the sympathy of officers, they received better treatment than those who make slower passage through or were stuck in the filter who tended to receive minimal compliance with equality law. For all perpetrators however, the extensive process of case-management led to continued interventions giving perpetrators greater opportunities to engage with them. This allowed officers to reconstruct perpetrators via the medical lens and moral filter. Thus, even those stuck in the filter have opportunities to receive support or at worst face injunction proceedings and therefore remaining socially included by the retention of their homes. However, while officers may still ultimately have resorted to litigation, this delayed response in facilitating adjustments may have been disproportionate or unreasonable particularly when considering the impact of the behaviour on neighbours as they may prolong risks inherent in ASB case-management.8

The potential for using support to aid investigations was considered as this may lead to disclosure of evidence of mental impairments or where support failed, make a decision to litigate seem “proportionate”, therefore minimising the risk of a successful defence under the EA 2010, section 15. This approach may minimally comply with disability equality law and therefore not maintain the spirit of the social model in listening to and working with disabled people as to their choice of support and interventions.

It was argued that the lack of understanding or misunderstandings of legal terminology including proportionality and capacity could be attributed to organisational responses to training and the pervasive influence of medically-based discourse and therefore the medical model of disability. As morality clearly affected constructions of disability, officers may be seen to discriminate in moral terms because of the way they apply the filter and the difference in their approaches and outcomes between those who pass or

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fail it. However, in relation to the EA 2010, section 15, and given the number of offers of support made even to those who fail the moral filter, when organisations pursue ASB control proceedings, their actions may be argued to be proportionate9 _and

therefore not discriminatory.10 _{Organisations may have a further argument that their}

attempts to discover perpetrators’ impairments mean they could not know and could not reasonably be expected to know of the disability11 _{and therefore could not}

discriminate.12 _{However, their investigations may prove indirectly discriminatory}

contrary to the EA 2010, section 19 or invade privacy rights.

Misunderstandings of the law combined with fears relating to accountability that demands a response meant officers largely approached case-management in general and litigation in particular, defensively. Here their minds were on the biggest risk - not achieving the desired outcome or there being no outcome to a case (i.e. the ASB will not stop) because it seemed that the landlord would not get their order where evidence in the case was weak (clashes of lifestyle) or because a challenge would succeed. Thus, should the nuclear option of litigation be resorted to, the social landlord will not obtain their order and this seemed to influence the ongoing reflective nature of case- management in particular the search for evidence, promoting the use of the medical lens.

Knowledge of the law per se was weak. Thus, while officers and managers alike may

be aware of legal terminology including reasonableness and proportionality their knowledge does not extend to technicalities in the meanings of disability, capacity or discrimination (especially causation). Housing professionals were instead informed by folk law, organisational customs and beliefs founded in misconceived notions of capacity and proportionality, which exaggerate the risk that they will not get their order. Folk law combines with accountability and adds further street-level bureaucratic pressures on officers in addition to their responsibility to control ASB. Officers and managers were fearful of the wrong outcome i.e. of there being no court order to exclude those who deserved to be excluded. This had the backwash effect of driving the search for evidence in the lengthy circuitous process of case—management.

9 _{EA 2010, s15 (1)(b)} 10 _{EA 2010, s 15 (1)(a)} 11 _{EA 2010, s 15(2)} 12 _{EA 2010, s 15 (1)(a)}

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A defensive mindset is unsurprising given the expense involved in a fully contested possession case.13 _{This is understandable: officers do not want the courts letting}

perpetrators off the hook if they expend such effort and money in litigating. Social landlords seem to use the moral filter to rationalise necessary claims on resources whether that is in funding litigation to exclude the unworthy or on adjustments to include the worthy.

Yet it was not clear that costs of litigation were foremost in the minds of officers; only HO1 mentioned this. Organisational reputation seemed to affect the managers’ thinking on litigation. Only the provision of the physical adjustment of sound attenuation was consciously costed. This was only offered to two perpetrators in the sample: one being provided with carpets, the other, who most successfully passed the moral filter, had full sound insulation installed to her property. an economic focus was less explicit in relation to other adjustments including support and the technical complexities of the law seemed no barrier to them being offered as a routine step. Perhaps support was perceived as cheaper, yet attempts over the duration of long- running cases had not been costed and were therefore unknown. Paradoxically, such genuine cases that pass through lens and filter and would legitimately be entitled to rely on disability challenge wouldn’t have proceedings taken against them anyway and would be supported because they are constructed as deserving.