But while the mood among Home Office officials may have softened following their move to Marsham Street in Westminster, London, the department's tough stance on antisocial behaviour is, if anything, stronger than ever.
Fostering respect and tackling yobs is Labour's mantra for its third term in government and it is the Home Office's job to deliver it. Much of the media response to the Government's respect campaign has focused on antisocial young people and led many youth professionals, including Youth Justice Board chair Rod Morgan, to claim that young people are being demonised.
But it's a claim that Baroness Patricia Scotland, the Home Office minister in charge of criminal justice, rejects.
"I absolutely don't agree," she states. "It is not a demonisation of young people to ask them to respect one another. Respect for others is one of the fundamental precepts that I hope we all adhere to. It's not demonising young people to acknowledge that some young people behave very badly."
She is also keen to stress that the Home Office doesn't believe that antisocial behaviour is just limited to young people. "People have tended to talk about antisocial behaviour as a youth-exclusive issue," she says.
"Regrettably, it isn't and there are a great deal of antisocial adults. If you talk to young people, you find they care about exactly the same issues as adults. They worry about their safety, about antisocial behaviour and their futures. All things that adults think are of critical importance, young people care about too."
A large number of the victims of antisocial behaviour are young people, she adds. "The majority of young people are actually responsible," says Baroness Scotland. "If you look at the work young people do in their communities, supporting others, giving to others and helping to make the world a better place, we find that they can quite often be the exemplar for adults."
She sees the youth justice system as a central part of the Government's respect campaign. She highlights the sector's work in identifying young people who might commit crime and diverting them into "positive activities" as an important part of preventing antisocial behaviour.
"The majority of those young people who are subject to antisocial behaviour orders are not new people being dragged into the youth justice system," she says. "One of the tragedies is that many of those who are subject to these orders are already known to a youth offending team."
This suggests that the youth justice system is failing to help these young people, something Baroness Scotland denies.
"It doesn't say failure," she says. "What it says is that the young people who fall within that category have a complex series of problems. But it does mean that we have to work even harder to join up the work on antisocial behaviour with the work on youth justice."
She adds that joined-up working will be crucial if the respect campaign is to succeed, something the youth justice system has already been doing.
"We believe that joined-up working is what really delivers huge benefits," she says. "This commitment to operational partnership is present now in a way that was not apparent when you look back eight or nine years. It's going to have a huge impact in enabling us to make a quantum shift in the life chances for young people."
FYI
- Baroness Scotland is the minister in charge of the criminal justice system. Her remit includes the youth justice system, National Offender Management Service and the Home Office's input into the youth green paper
- She was made a peer in 1997 and has held a series of ministerial positions since 1999
- Before entering politics, she was a barrister who specialised in family and public law.
