Anti-social Behaviour

Anti-Social Behaviour includes a range of problems – noisy neighbours, abandoned cars, vandalism, graffiti, litter and youth nuisance. It can hold back the regeneration of the most disadvantaged areas, creating an environment in which crime can take hold. More information on the national picture

Each Community Safety Partnership in the region now has an Anti-Social Behaviour co-ordinator. Many areas such as Leeds, Bradford, Doncaster, Kirklees and Hull also have Anti Social Behaviour teams, units that work with different agencies including the Police, neighbourhood wardens and both public and private sector housing.

Government Office also encourages the partnerships to undertake consultation and collect information on Anti-Social Behaviour in their area in order to develop initiatives and problem solving groups to address specific problems.

The Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) in Yorkshire and The Humber, are comprised of representatives from the police, probation service, health services and housing officers.  These teams work to prevent children and young people becoming offenders or where young people have already offender, reduce the likelihood of further offending behaviour by working closely with partnerships to prevent and reduce youth crime through;

• early intervention programmes
• diversionary activities
• ABC’s (acceptable behaviour contracts)
• ASBO’s (anti-social behaviour orders). These are considered a final resort when all other options have been exhausted.

All Partnerships are required to develop and implement a strategy on how they intend to tackle Anti-Social Behaviour within their local area.  GOYH are supporting partnerships in including Anti-Social Behaviour as a key priority in their 2008-2011 Community Safety Plans.

Building on the successes of from this approach is the development of the Respect agenda with the motto, ‘Give Respect, Get Respect’ and the Respect Action Plan which brings with it a range of powers aimed at tackling certain aspects of Anti-Social Behaviour such as providing:

• Community Support Officers the power to take truants back to school
• Trading Standards Officers the power to issue Penalty Notices for Disorder to clamp down on licensed premises selling alcohol to under-18s
• Communities the power to hold police and local authorities accountable if they're not tackling anti-social behaviour effectively

Much Anti-Social Behaviour results in damage to personal property, bus shelters, telephone boxes, etc and Criminal Damage has been recognised as a key physical indicator of Anti-Social Behaviour within communities, activities such as graffiti, arson and other damage, impacts on the quality of life for those who live in the area, and as such is a key area of work for all the regions’ partnerships.

In recognising that such activities impact on people’s perceptions of crime and their fear of crime, the Home Office have produced a number of guides aimed at assisting partnerships to tackle criminal damage.

In addition to this, the Governments drive to deliver services at a local level means that several partnerships are supporting the development and implementation of local multi-agency neighbourhood teams to deliver joined-up services and tackle local issues of Anti-Social Behaviour and criminal damage to improve the quality of life for local people.

Recognising that there are a wide range of activities that are considered to be ‘Anti-Social’ a wider range of powers are being introduced to penalise behaviour such as littering, fly-posting, graffiti etc and the environmental group EnCams are working in partnership with GOYH and the Community Safety Partnerships to develop sustainable approaches to tackling these areas of Anti-Social Behaviour