Cuts and a police “retreat from the streets” means law enforcement officers are failing to address the problem of anti-social behaviour, says Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary.
There are 26 incidents of anti-social behaviour (ASB) per minute, but tackling ASB is often not seen as “real police work”, according to the chief inspector of constabulary.
But Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Denis O’Connor, said tackling ASB is often not seen as “real police work” and did not have the same status as “crime” for the police.
The public do not distinguish between anti-social behaviour and crime. For them it’s just a sliding scale of grief. Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Denis O’Connor
Launching a new report, Anti-social Behaviour: Stop the rot, Sir Denis said that the police “retreating from the streets” since the 1970s had undermined their connection with the public “and allowed some of these things to gather momentum”.
Speaking at a briefing ahead of the report’s publication, he stressed that “the public do not distinguish between anti-social behaviour and crime. For them it’s just a sliding scale of grief.”
The report included the largest opinion poll ever conducted of ASB victims, highlighting their views of ASB, how it affects their lives and how the police have dealt with it.
One ASB victim is Desiree Haulain who suffered abuse from local youths: “The behaviour from the kids was very bad. They threw mudballs, snowballs.”
She said she was pleased with the way the police responded to the problems she faced: “For me, the police did a lot. Every time something happened, they came.”
As well as evidence from ASB victims, there were also reports for each of the 43 police forces in England and Wales, highlighting good and poor practice.
Professor Martin Innes, of Cardiff University, whose work detailing the comparative impact of ASB and crime is also featured in the report, said cuts to police forces would have to be “smaller, sharper and smarter” in the future.
The publication contains a joint study by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), Ipsos Mori and Cardiff University, which reveals that 45 per cent of all calls to police in 2009-10 are about anti-social behaviour, with 2.1 million of these related to disorderly behaviour.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Lynne Owens said the 3,600 safer neighbourhood teams across England and Wales were proof that the police had invested in tackling the problem but admitted: “not all anti social behaviour is solely a police responsibility and we absolutely rely on our partners, our crime disorder reduction partnerships and parents to play their part in solving it.”
On a daily basis police have to make judgements about what they respond to and what they don’t respond to but our priority is ensuring that communities feel safe and feel confident in our ability to reposnd when they call us. Lynne Owens, Metropolitan Police
She said the report offered the forces many areas on which to imporve but said 80 per cent of people were satisfied with the police’s response to incidents of ASB.
She told Channel 4 News: “Policing is a complex environment across a spectrum of activity, at one end we have issues in local communities… and at the other end of the spectrum you have counter-terrorism. On a daily basis police have to make judgements about what they respond to and what they don’t respond to but our priority is ensuring that communities feel safe and feel confident in our ability to reposnd when they call us.”
Ms Owens refused to be drawn on how budget cuts would affect the police saying only that everything would be done to protect frontline services.
In July the Home Secretary signalled an end to anti-social behaviour orders (Asbos) in England and Wales, suggesting that community action was needed instead to bring back a sense of personal and social responsibility.
Earlier this year, responding to an HMIC survey on the prevalence of ASB, Sir Denis O’Connor warned of the need to make tackling anti-social behaviour a priority. “It must be a higher priority than some crimes,” he said.