NORTH DOWNS

NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH

April 2004

Neighbourhood Watch Conference

Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour

Saturday 3rd April 2004

 

Following last year’s successful conference on Working Together in The Community, North Downs Division Neighbourhood Watch held another conference this year. This time the subject was “Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour”. As last year, it was chaired by Ted Gibbons , the Vice Chairman of the Sussex Neighbourhood Watch Federation who welcomed the attendees and introduced the speakers. In his opening remarks, Ted stressed the importance of the Police Community Support Officers, who had been introduced since the last conference. The public, including Neighbourhood Watch members and coordinators, have been complaining for years that “We never see a policeman on the street”. These new people will be seen on the streets – they will have a presence.

The Conference was addressed by a selection of distinguished experts on the subject.

Chief Superintendent John Dransfield , Divisional Commander for the North Downs Division of West Sussex Police, emphasised the changes which had been carried out to police organisation in West Sussex since the previous year’s conference which have improved things immensely. The police divisions now coincide with the local authority areas, making it far more practicable to enter into partnerships with the authorities on a whole variety of subjects. Police Station front offices are now open much longer hours than before so that people can visit them whenever they need to. He also spoke about the recent introduction of Police Community Support Officers, who will form the link in all sorts of ways between the police and the public. They will also work alongside local authority wardens. These two innovations will combine to make what is already a safe area in which to live even safer. He was hopeful that, in the coming year, they will be able to provide 29 more PCSOs for this Division.

Chief Superintendent Dransfield also stated that West Sussex Police had started to introduce fixed penalty tickets which can be used for minor offences and which enable the police to deal with minor levels of disorder very much more quickly by fining offenders on the spot.

Mary Hamilton, JP Chairman, Northern Sussex Bench gave the conference a detailed description of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, or ASBOs.

ASBOs were introduced by the Crime and Disorder Act, 1998 and have been available since 1999 but there has been a delay in starting to use them as it was found that they weren’t as workable as Government had hoped.

They have now, however, been strengthened and extended so that they are starting to be used. They are orders that exist to protect the public from behaviour that causes or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household as the perpetrator. The order contains conditions prohibiting the offender from specific anti-social acts or from entering defined areas and is effective for a minimum of two years.

The order is not a criminal penalty and it’s not intended as a punishment for the offender.

The kinds of behaviour that can be included are harassment of parties by a resident, verbal abuse, criminal damage, vandalism, noise, writing graffiti, threatening behaviour in groups, racial abuse, smoking and drinking under age, substance misuse, joy riding, begging, prostitution, kerb crawling, throwing stones, throwing missiles, assault and vehicle crime.

Once an order has been made against a person and that person breaches it, he then becomes liable to criminal prosecution. The Crown Prosecution Service prosecutes the breach and there must be real evidence which has got to pass the normal evidence tests and the public interest test.

Top Table Panel for Question Time

L to R: Martin Wright, Horsham District Council; Chief. Supt. John Dransfield; Jim Redwood, Crawley Borough Council; Mary Hamilton,JP, Chairman, Northern Sussex Bench; Ian Scotland, Sussex Police Authority; Henry Smith, Leader, West Sussex County Council; PC Andy Burfoot, Horsham District Police; Insp. Shane Lambert, Pound Hill & Maidenbower Policing Team

 

The maximum penalty for an adult brought into an adult court is six months imprisonment in the magistrates’ court or a five thousand pound fine or both. But magistrates, if they think this is serious, can as usual send the person to the Crown Court where they can face five years in prison or a fine or both. Alternatively, they can be given community penalties, such as community rehabilitation orders, the old probation orders, community service, which is now called community punishment orders or tagging, the electronic tag.

The maximum penalty in a youth court is what’s called a Detention and Training Order, that’s twenty-four months, twelve months of which is locked up, twelve months is back in the community for twelve to seventeen year olds. Anyone over the age of ten years can be the subject of an ASBO.

PC Andy Burfoot, Horsham District Police and Martin Wright, Horsham District Council gave a joint presentation on how the police and local authorities are working together to combat anti-social behaviour.

They have been working in partnerships, called Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships, since the advent of the Crime and Disorder Acts in 1998 and 99 and the partnerships actually have achieved a lot. Between them, crime has gone down considerably in the area in the past 4 or 5 years. Things like burglary, car crimes and similar things are down but what hasn’t gone down so far is anti-social behaviour and the public reassurance and the fear of crime. But now every Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership is turning its attention to tackling anti-social behaviour next year, partly because it’s increasing, partly because the Government has given authorities a certain amount of funding towards tackling it but partly because it’s what the public are telling authorities is the most important thing as far as it is concerned.

Andy Burfoot dealt with problems related to the misuse of alcohol and the actions the police will be able to take under the new Licensing Act to control anti-social behaviour in public places caused by excessive drinking and enumerated upon action which had already successfully been taken in certain cases.

Martin Wright gave details of a proposal that Horsham Council is about to launch to make use of the town centre CCTV on a Friday and Saturday night. A number of district council officers have volunteered to be trained to operate the CCTV They’ll all have training and they will be manning the CCTV on Friday and Saturday nights from about 7.00 pm through till midnight or beyond. Working with them almost all the time will be a police officer or a CPSO or a special who, of course, will have a police radio and will be in touch with the police resources in the centre of the town. So they will be able to electronically patrol and direct the police resources.

The idea is to look for things in the very early stages and nip them in the bud before they develop. It was tried a couple of years ago and was very effective in reducing the amount of crime and they are looking to do the same again.

The morning ended with a panel of the principle speakers and other experts answering questions from the floor of the conference. The questions covered a variety of topics: Licensing hours under the new Licensing Act, the police Call Handling Centre, the production in Courts of photograph evidence taken by members of the public, Travellers, Noise Nuisance, the Fear of Reprisals from offenders reported to the police, Reporting Terrorism, Community Support Officers and the possible use of Speed Guns by Neighbourhood Watch Members.