ACPO comment on anti-social behaviour pilots

ACPO lead on anti-social behaviour Assistant Chief Constable Simon Edens said:

"The police service recognises that all individuals and communities have a right to live their lives free from intimidation, harassment and any other disorder that may damage their quality of life. One of the core purposes of policing is to keep people safe and this includes dealing effectively with anti-social behaviour.

"ACPO has been working with our partners to ensure that there is greater consistency in our approach to dealing with anti-social behaviour.

“The pilot in eight force areas will focus on improving handling and logging of complaints as well as looking at improvements to IT systems to ensure information from partners is shared more easily. This is particularly important to ensure that those at the greatest risk of harm are quickly identified and an effective response is provided. The results of the pilot will help us shape a more consistent approach to dealing with the policing response to local concerns.

“Anti-social behaviour is not something that the police can tackle in isolation. We need to ensure that we are working with all local agencies and sharing information where necessary, and are fully in support of the Government’s approach to encourage greater personal and community involvement in neighbourhoods.”

ENDS

The trials, announced by Crime Reduction Minister James Brokenshire, will be held in eight force areas: Avon and Somerset, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, London, South Wales, Sussex and West Mercia. The pilots will run from January to July 2011.

The volunteer areas will trial a new approach based on five key principles, which will be tailored to each area:

- creating an effective call handling system where each individual has a log of complaints created from the very first call;

- introducing risk assessment tools to quickly identify the most vulnerable victims;

- installing off-the-shelf IT systems to share information on cases between agencies, removing the need for meetings;

- agreeing a protocol across all local agencies setting out how they will manage cases; and

- engaging with the community to clearly set out the issues which are causing the most harm to individuals and neighbourhoods, and setting out how the police, other local agencies and the public can work together to address them.

For more information please contact:

ACPO Press Office
Association of Chief Police Officers
e: press.office@acpo.pnn.police.uk