May slashes powers to tackle anti-social behavour in bid to speed up system

The number of powers available to tackle persistent anti-social behaviour is to be reduced from 19 to just six in a bid to create a faster, more effective system, Home Secretary Theresa May has announced.

In its White Paper, Putting victims first - more effective responses to antisocial behaviour, the Government said the new powers would replace the “bloated and confusing” toolkit that professionals tasked with dealing with ASB have now.

One of the six powers will be a Crime Prevention Injunction intended to protect victims and communities before an individual causes serious harm.

This purely civil injunction could be secured “in a matter of hours not months”, the White Paper said. This is because the civil standard of proof ‘on the balance of probabilities’ will apply rather than ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.

Police officers and other professionals will be able to give evidence on behalf of the community, which the Government said would protect vulnerable witnesses.

There will also be a new court order – the Criminal Behaviour Order – for the most anti-social individuals, available on conviction for any criminal offence, that will allow the courts “to stop their behaviour and address its underlying causes”.

The Government meanwhile promised simpler powers to deal with ‘quality of life’ crime and anti-social behaviour, and to close premises “that are a magnet for trouble”. This will be achieved through a so-called Community Protection Notice.

The police will in addition be given a more effective power to stop anti-social behaviour in public places, ministers said.

More details on the six powers are set out at the bottom of this article.

The White Paper claimed that powers introduced by the previous government had “proved over time to be slow and ineffective” and were now used less and less.

The number of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders had fallen from 4,122 in 2005 to 1,664 in 2010, it reported. The Government also said that more than half of ASBOs are breached at least once, and 42% of these are breached more than once.

It added that there were 3.2m incidents of anti-social behaviour reported to the police in 2010/11.

Other reforms proposed in the White Paper include the so-called ‘Community Trigger’, where victims will have a right to require action to be taken where a persistent problem has not been addressed.

This will be trialled in Manchester, West Lindsey and Brighton & Hove later this year.

The Government said it also wanted to make it easier to demonstrate the harm caused to victims and communities, for example through the new Community Harm Statements that will “ensure that terrorised communities’ voices are heard in the court room and will inform agencies’ decisions on what action to take”.

The White Paper confirmed that ministers plan to introduce a faster route to eviction of tenants for the most serious criminal or anti-social behaviour.

“The threat of eviction from rented housing is a very powerful incentive to stop ‘nightmare neighbours’ making the lives of those around them a misery,” it said. “However, that threat is undermined by a process that can take many months or even years.”

The Government also said in the White Paper that:

  • Results of the pilots in eight areas looking at how cases of anti-social behaviour are handled after receipt of the first call were “encouraging, with forces showing an improved service to the victim and the start of a shift in culture”;
  • Frontline professionals would be given greater freedom. They would not be told how to do their jobs but instead supported to “use their discretion and common sense, using informal measures for example using restorative or reparative approaches, or Acceptable Behaviour Contracts where appropriate”. Agencies will be encouraged to make greater use of these measures;
  • Its understanding of the experiences of victims would be improved, for example by improving the way anti-social behaviour is measured in the Crime Survey for England & Wales. “This will provide a more accurate picture of what is happening across the country, and a better understanding of the impact that anti-social behaviour has on victims’ quality of life”;
  • There would be a focus on long term solutions to anti-social behaviour “by addressing the issues that drive much of it in the first place – binge drinking, drug use, mental health issues, troubled family backgrounds and irresponsible dog ownership”.

The White Paper claimed that the mistake of the past was to think that the Government could meet demands in relation to anti-social behaviour with a ‘one size fits all’ model.

It added that “a single, central model is not appropriate for tackling this most local of problems, although a strong message that it has to be taken seriously can come from the centre”.

The Government said the new breed of Police and Crime Commissioners, who will come into being this November, would have a key role.

In a written ministerial statement, the Home Secretary acknowledged that many police forces, local authorities and social landlords were working hard to deal with the problems associated with anti-social behaviour.

“However, too often, the harm that antisocial behaviour causes, particularly when it is persistently targeted at the most vulnerable people in our society, is overlooked,” she said.

“At the heart of our new approach is a fundamental shift towards focussing on the needs of victims, rather than the type of behaviour.”

May said the Government would publish a draft bill for pre-legislative scrutiny before introducing legislation.

Responding to the launch of the White Paper, the Local Government Association warned that passing more responsibility on to the police must not mean that councils’ role in tackling the root causes of anti-social behaviour and low-level crime was marginalised.

Cllr Mehboob Khan, Chair of the LGA’s Safer and Stronger Communities Board, called for more joint working between councils and the police, not less.

The LGA said it would also urge police commissioners not to cast aside the expertise within local government.

Cllr Khan added that the LGA was not convinced that the Community Trigger being proposed would help “with the real challenge of reaching out to those who suffer in silence”.

The White Paper can be downloaded here. 

Philip Hoult

THE SIX POWERS

Criminal Behaviour Order

  • This will be available on conviction for any criminal offence, and include both prohibitions and support;
  • The new order will contain support to change behaviour and help prevent re-offending, “rather than simply prohibitions to stop the person from doing something (e.g. going to a particular place)”. The ASBO only included prohibitions on behaviour.

Crime Prevention Injunction

  • This will be a purely civil order with a civil burden of proof. The injunction will also have prohibitions and support attached and a range of civil sanctions for breach;
  • Police officers and other professionals will be able to give evidence on behalf of the community;
  • The injunction will contain support to change behaviour rather than just stopping the person from doing something;
  • Sanctions for breach are civil not criminal, “which prevents people getting a criminal record unnecessarily”.

Community Protection Notice

  • This notice is designed to deal with particular problems that negatively affect the community’s quality of life which could direct the person responsible to stop causing the nuisance and/or require them to ‘make good’;
  • The notice can be used in a variety of situations not addressed by the powers it is directly replacing, “allowing areas to respond flexibly to local issues as they arise”;
  • The notice will extend the powers the police have to deal with noise nuisance. “This is currently the preserve of local authorities, many of whom do not have out of hours services”.

Community Protection Order (public space)

  • This order will deal with anti-social behaviour in a public place, “to apply restrictions on how that public space can be used”;
  • It can be used in a variety of situations not addressed by the powers it is replacing;
  • The order will allow local areas “to make decisions without the burden of having to go through central government, with oversight provided by communities and the Police and Crime Commissioner”.

Directions Power

  • This will be a power to direct any individual causing or likely to cause crime or disorder away from a particular place and to confiscate related items;
  • The power will not require the police to designate a zone as a ‘dispersal zone’. “This will reduce bureaucracy for the police and mean they can act more quickly to address problems in an area”.

Community Protection Order (closure)

  • This order could be used to close a premises temporarily, or for up to six months;
  • Bringing the premises closure powers together “simplifies the system while keeping the benefits of the existing system in providing respite to communities”.

Source: Putting victims first - more effective responses to antisocial behaviour White Paper.