topic: police

Anti-Social Behaviour

Anti-social behavior can blight neighbourhood life. Whilst the police, council, housing associations, courts, Fire & Rescue service and others can take action, wider community action can be the key to resolving things in the long-term, including through community planning.

Anti-social behavior can blight neighbourhood life. Whilst the police, council, housing associations, courts, Fire & Rescue service and others can take action, wider community action can be the key to resolving things in the long-term, including through community planning.

In more detail

Anti-social behaviour (ASB) is the day-to-day incidents of crime, nuisance and disorder that can make neighbourhood life a misery.   ASB has been defined in law as:

  • behaviour by a person which causes or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household as the person.
  • conduct that has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to any person; and conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to a person in relation to that person’s occupation of residential premises; and conduct capable of causing housing-related nuisance or annoyance to any person.

The video above is of Ron Hogg, the Police and Crime Commissioner for County Durham, speaking about Antisocial Behaviour and the 'Community Trigger' introduced by the Antisocial Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 (see below).

Types of ASB

The police classify ASB under three broad headings related to its effect :

  • personal ASB is behavior targeted at an individual or group rather than the community at large. An example might be name calling and abuse aimed at a particular family.
  • nuisance ASB is where the behavior affects the community at large rather than an individual or group. An example, might be loud parties held late at night.
  • environmental ASB is where the incident is not aimed at an individual or group but affects the shared environment. An example, might be tagging graffiti.

Examples of the type of activities referred to as ASB include things which communities might imagine could be dealt with through the local planning system, including:

  • abandoned vehicles
  • the inappropriate use of vehicles resulting nuisance
  • rowdy or inconsiderate behaviour
  • rowdy or nuisance neighbours
  • littering and particular with needles and other drugs paraphernalia
  • animals kept or managed inappropriately
  • trespass
  • nuisance phone calls
  • street drinking
  • prostitution-related activity
  • noise
  • street-begging in a menacing way
  • letting off fireworks.

In fact, these issues and ones similar to them can be addressed through legislation dealing with ASB and less formal approaches led by the police, council, social landlords and community organisations.

 Antisocial Behavior, Crime and Policing Act 2014

This law reformed the way agencies deal with anti-social behaviour.  It simplified the range of actions that agencies can take.  The law reduced a confusing array of different powers involved to these six (the first two of which effectively replace the Antisocial Behaviour Order or ASBO which is now obsolete).  The six tools for dealing with ASB are:

  • injunction – the court forbids someone from doing something. In an residential setting, an injunction can be issued in response to behavior which causes ‘nuisance and annoyance’.  In non-residential areas (eg the high street) an injunction can be issued if behavior causes ‘harassment, alarm or distress’.
  • Criminal Behaviour Order – if the court believes someone who has already been convicted of a crime will continue to cause anti-social behavior, it can make a Criminal Behaviour Order to stop them doing this anti-social behaviour.
  • Dispersal Powers – these allow the police to direct people to leave a public place and not return for a specified time.
  • Community Protection Notices and Orders – designed to stop ongoing environmental anti-social behaviour. They can be used against individuals or organisations.
  • Public Spaces Protection Order – aims to tackle nuisance or a problem in a public area. The order applies to everyone using that public area.
  • Closure of Premises – prevents entry to a building because the use of that place has resulted in anti-social behaviour. This could be a house, a pub or club or a council office etc.

All the agencies involved in tackling ASB are committed to trying to prevent problems occurring and/or intervening early where they can.  To do this, the police, council and other bodies use things like:

  • verbal and written warnings
  • mediation
  • Acceptable Behaviour Contract – written agreement between a young person under 18 who has been involved in ASB and the police and the council which is witnessed by theparents. By signing the agreement, the young person commits not to be involved with anti-social acts in future.

The police and the council use these techniques before they can take a case to court.  Dealing with ASB formally through the legal system is likely to be a lengthy process, but is likely to be much quicker than produing a neighbourhood plan which, in any case, will not be able to target ASB in the way the lcoal community wants.

Community Trigger and Community Remedy

What is, and isn’t, ASB is a subjective judgement.  The same behavior can affect people in different ways.  What is acceptable in one community is not necessarily in another.  The best way of dealing with ASB effectively also varies.  The Antisocial Behavior, Crime and Policing Act 2014 put the focus on the effect of ASB (rather than the behaviour which caused it), which makes the matter even more subjective.   The law is clear that frontline professionals, police and council officers, are expected to use their judgement rather than following a ‘one size fits all’ approach.  Resolving ASB in an area in the long term depends on the local community.  The expectation is now that agencies will work with communities and victims. There are two measures designed to give victims and communities a say in the way anti-social behaviour is dealt with:

  • Community Trigger- which gives victims the ability to demand action, starting with a review of their case, where the locally defined threshold is met.
  • Community Remedy – which gives victims a say in the out-of-court punishment of perpetrators for low-level crime and anti-social behaviour.

Crime and Disorder Legislation is a presentation made by Leanne Burrows which covers the way the law for dealing with ASB has developed in England over the past 20 years:

Key Facts:

Antisocial Behaviour covers a range of things which communities might think they could be addressed through a neighbourhood plan.  The Antisocial Behavior, Crime and Policing Act 2014 set out a new framework for policing and dealing formally with ASB which should make it easier for communities to deal formally with problems.  There are also less formal approaches led by communities, social landlords and councils which may deal with problems more quickly.  The new law includes community based measures designed to give victims more influence.

Page Links from here

ASB Help is a charity set up to help the victims of antisocial behaviour.

The Home Office has published a  Guide to the Antisocial Behaviour, Crime and Police Act which is available as a PDF

Citizens Advice has a guide for dealing with ASB

Problem Neighbours is a website giving advice on dealing with difficuklt neighbours, set up by John Rowlinson who is a property investor and software developer

Neighbour Nuisance and Antisocial Behaviour is a factsheet from the Local Government Ombudsman aimed at people who are having difficulty in gettingtheir council to take action

In this toolkit:

Noise and Nuisance

Police and Policing Plans

Neighbourhood Management

Local Public Services

 


OR you can use the navigation menu above right to look at other parts of the toolkit.

BIRMINGHAM COMMUNITY PLANNING TOOLKIT DEFINITION SHEET This sheet may be reproduced in paper or electromic or any other form but please mention it was made by Chamberlain Forum Limited for Birmingham City Council supported by Department for Communities and Local Government.

created: 2016-06-27 09:35:57 by: admin status: f published

Policing and Police Plans

Local planning plays a part in community safety – but working with, and influencing the plans of your neighbourhood police and local police force are probably more effective and direct ways of making a safer neighbourhood…

Local planning plays a part in community safety - but working with, and influencing the plans of your neighbourhood police and local police force are probably more effective and direct ways of making a safer neighbourhood...

In more detail

Community safety is an important factor in local quality of life.  How well the police do their job – and how well they work with communities and the other agencies  – plays a big part in this.  Working better with the police and other local agencies might be a more effective way of improving your neighbourhood than starting out on a neighbourhood spatial plan.

Policing in England is provided by 39 local police forces.  Six of which - covering London and the metropolitan county areas of West Midlands, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and Merseyside – serve a total population of more than 19 million people in the largest conurbations in the country.  Police forces outside London are headed by a Chief Constable who is accountable to an elected Police and Crime Commissioner. The Metropolitan Police is headed by a Commissioner who is accountable to the elected Mayor of London.

Police forces divide their areas up into Basic Command Units (BCUS, but also called Divisions, Local Policing Units, Operational Command Units or Districts depending on your local force).  The boundaries of Police BCUs tend to follow the same boundaries as the local councils.  A BCU in an urban area might cover  about 300,000 people (the size of a borough council), but it varies from place to place.  Typically, a BCU is headed by an officer with the rank of Chief Superintendent.

Neighbourhood Police

Neighbourhood policing has its roots in the Scarman Report on the riots in Brixton in 1981; and the development of community policing in the United States from the 1970s onwards.  (Although the idea that the police exist to work with the consent of community can be traced back to the principles set down by Sir Robert Peel in founding modern policing in the 1820s).

In response to Scarman, a Reassurance Policing Programme was piloted in eight force areas in the1990s.  It aimed to reduce crime and the fear of crime and improve public confidence by engaging with communities, targeting their main concerns and priorities and providing a visible and accessible presence in eight forces.  This led to the rollout of A Neighbourhood Policing Programme across England in 2005 with dedicated neighbourhood policing teams and including the (then, newly  introduced) Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) .

Neighbourhood police teams in large cities like Birmingham and Manchester typically consist of a sergeant, between two, and a dozen, police constables and two, and a dozen, PCSOs.  In London, Safer Neighbourhoods Teams cover smaller areas and are more often made up by a sergeant, a PC and a PCSO.  Each police neighbourhood area  may produce a list of neighbourhood priorities and a plan for achieving them in consultation with local residents and people who use the area, councillors and businesses.  Neighbourhood policing may also support groups of residents acting as neighbourhood watches and organize regular public Neighbourhood Tasking meetings or walkabouts.

Getting to know your neighbourhood policing team and taking part in meetings and consultations that help to set their priorities are ways of influencing how your area is policed.

Police and Crime Commissioners

Police and Crime Commissioners are representatives of the residents, elected every four years, who are: responsible for holding the police to account on behalf of the public; and specifically for holding the chief constable to account for the performance of officers and staff.  There is a PCC for every local police force except the Metropolitan Police (which covers the area represented by the elected Mayor of London).    The PCC holds the funding for policing in a force area and, after consulting the chief constable, is accountable for how it is spent.  The video below is by the PCC in Norfolk - it explains what Police and Crime Commissioners can do:

The PCC sets the strategic aims and direction for the police force in a Police and Crime Plan.  The PCC must produce this plan in the first financial year after they are elected.  The Police and Crime Plan for your area must include:

  • The PCC's police and crime objectives
  • The policing the Chief Constable is to provide
  • The financial and other resources the PCC will make available to the Chief Constable to provide policing
  • How the Chief Constable will report to the PCC about policing
  • How the Chief Constable's performance will be measured
  • Information about any crime and disorder reduction grants to be made by the PCC, any conditions made.

A Police and Crime Plan can last for a PCC's whole term in office or they may update it during their term.  In any case, the PCC is required to produce an annual report to the public on progress in policing against the plan aims and objectives.  The PCC can sack the chief constable if circumstances require it.  The PCC is responsible for appointing a new chief constable.

The work of PCCs is scrutinised by Police and Crime Panels which are made up of a representative from each of the local government districts covered by them and two independent co-opted members.  You can influence police plans by taking part in the consultations organized around the PCC plans for your area and by making contact with the PCC and/or their deputy and the member of the Police Panel representing your area.

Key Facts:

You can work with and influence the police at three main levels: the neighbourhood police team which is led by a sergeant; the Basic Command Unit which probably covers the same area as the borough you live in and is run by a Chief Superintendent; and at the level of the Police and Crime Commissioner who oversees the work of the whole of your local police force.  For neighbourhood and resident groups, the first link to make is with your neighbourhood team.  They may organise local tasking meetings or you can invite a member of the neighbourhood policing team to a local meeting you organise.

Page Links from here

The Police UK site provided by the government gives you information about policing and links to your local neighbourhood policing team, the force covering your area and your local PCC.  You can also see the Crime Map for your neighbourhood.

The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners has a map of PCC areas and more information about PCCs

The Police Foundation, a thinktank which focuses on policing, published a review of Neighbourhood Policing: Past, Present and Future in 2015 as a PDF

On this site, see:

Antisocial behaviour

Noise and nuisance

Local public services


OR you can use the navigation menu above right to look at other parts of the toolkit.

BIRMINGHAM COMMUNITY PLANNING TOOLKIT DEFINITION SHEET This sheet may be reproduced in paper or electromic or any other form but please mention it was made by Chamberlain Forum Limited for Birmingham City Council supported by Department for Communities and Local Government.

created: 2016-06-13 11:45:04 by: admin status: f published