Putting victims first

Book excerpt: The aim of this White Paper is to set out proposals to deal with anti-social behaviour. Anti-social behaviour is a broad term used to describe the day-to-day incidents of crime, nuisance and disorder that make many people's lives a misery - from litter and vandalism, to public drunkenness or aggressive dogs, to noisy or abusive neighbours. Such a wide range of behaviours means that responsibility is shared between a number of agencies, particularly the police, councils and social landlords. The Government is committed to significant reform in dealing with crime and anti-social behaviour by putting victims at the heart of the response, including: (1) Agencies identifying vulnerable and repeat victims earlier, and responding at the first sign of trouble, through better logging of calls and managing of cases; (2) A simpler toolkit, with 19 powers reduced to just six, including an injunction which can be secured in a matter of hours not months, to nip behaviour in the bud; (3) Tough orders which can deal with anti-social behaviour if it escalates into criminality, which are flexible enough to deal with a range of yobbish behaviour including out of control dogs, public drunkenness, minimotos and others; (4) The community getting involved in tackling anti-social behaviour, for example through inputting into a Community Harm Statement to highlight to the court the impact of the behaviour on their daily lives; (5) Agencies held to account locally by directly elected Police and Crime Commissioners, and by victims through the Government's new Community Trigger.