A defining moment for anti-social behaviour
The Home Office says today's launch of six-month "trials" in eight police forces in England and Wales will help them decide "what works best" when it comes to logging calls and responding to complaints about anti-social behaviour.
But this afternoon I learned that the official who might normally oversee the methodology of such research, the Home Office's Chief Scientific Advisor Professor Bernard Silverman, was not consulted.
The government claims to believe in the principle of evidence-based policy, but with no money to spend and a philosophy of "not being prescriptive", gathering robust data from local areas becomes difficult.
Today's press release explains that the "new approach to tackling ASB is seeing responsibility and control move from Whitehall to local agencies and neighbourhoods".
"Building on that principle, the trials are bottom-up, with each volunteer area deciding how to implement the five principles (see below). At the end of the trial the Home Office will assess each area's approach and publish details about what worked best across the eight forces and what other areas should be looking to copy."
The five principles are these:
• 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
• 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.
When I asked the respected Cambridge statistician Professor Sheila Bird for her assessment of the trials, she expressed concern that different police forces will define the process in different ways, making accurate comparison impossible. "What constitutes a call? What constitutes an incident? Are there agreed definitions?"
One significant problem is that there is no agreed definition of anti-social behaviour itself. A Home office research paper published last March made the point that "anti-social behaviour (ASB) is a confusing term which has been variously applied to a wide spectrum of activity, from serious criminal violence and persistent ongoing intimidation and harassment at one end of the spectrum, to subjective feelings of unease caused by relatively minor and perhaps occasional environmental disturbances, such as litter, at the other."
"Policy should try to move away from subjective interpretations of what constitutes ASB (as enshrined in the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act) towards a greater prescription and definition."
There's nothing wrong with encouraging innovation and a range of approaches to problems, but statisticians will be wary of how "non-prescriptive" trials without formal evaluation might be used as the evidence-base for policy.
Professor Mike Hough, president of the British Society of Criminology and formerly deputy director of the Home Office's Research and Planning Unit, warns that "if the informal approach to piloting turns out to be a low-cost substitute for formal evaluation, then that's obviously a cause for concern".
For the narrow and technical protocols under consideration in the ASB "trials" it probably doesn't matter hugely whether the evaluation is strictly scientific. Police forces will do their own assessment of how the pilots worked.
But if one of the consequences of localism is a non-prescriptive model for policy pilots, then it signals a move away from the principle of evidence-based government.
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I'm 
© MMXI
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Politicians have never used evidence in a scientific manner.
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It's not a list of new protocols that are required, it's some resolve on the part of the government ,the police and the judiciary to see the perpetrators of these crimes arrested , charged , and removed from the streets to secure accommodation until they are considered fit to live in normal society without posing a risk to the community. Talking to them may sound cool and humane , but in 99% of cases is a total waste of time, and the other 1% do not deserve to be treated differently.
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No. 2 you will need to build more prisons or detention centres and employ more not fewer prison officers which will not happen. This is not an effective solution to the apprenticeship in crime that ASB often represents. Non-prescriptive pilots will produce evidence but how useful will be the question. The one thing all the pilots should do is review the research on ASB that is available already. Call handling and off the shelf IT (always better than bespoke) is relatively incidental classification of ASB is rather more important. Low level street crime will pose a challenge to defining an appropriate application of the scientific method anyway.
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of the shelf software.....
with of the shelf ideas....
will the off the shelf software also come with the usual off the shelf cracks and fixes hacks and exploits. the encryption of astalavista?
will be interesting to see what software they actually implement for cross department communication unlike phones PC's use caching for video and voice carrying not to mention 3rd party apps.
Still it may create a lot of employment diagnosing the myriad of communications devices all trying to run this software.
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Mark, an interesting article. I find one of the most empowering principles to understand lies in one of the 9 principles of Policing.
"The Police are to maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence."
This does not place a duty upon Police alone, but upon every citizen!
For too long the "Police" have been in recent years have been held to be the source of keeping the peace, whereas this was never to be the case in society. However this is just like the promoting of other "state" sponsored depts in recent years that have caused neglect among the public, relying on schools alone for education instead of parents, or the NHS instead of keeping yourself healthy!
For Policing to work it must be the vast majority of the public are the police and the Police are the public. The tiny minority who do wrong should feel the disapproval of the vast majority, not the few in uniform! Questions that are asked of the Police in the Fiona Pilkington case, should be asked of those neighbours who did nothing, those parents who did nothing about their kids, those kids who did nothing about their mates! That is how Policing used to work and needs to work again.
Martin Luther King said, "We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people."
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Why don't you just admit Tory - bad, Labour - good. It is as near as you are going to get to balanced reporting.
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The five principles are these:
• creating an effective call-handling system where each individual has a log of complaints created from the very first call
You mean to say they don't do this already? Why not???? Databases have only been around for 20+ years, and filing cabinets longer than that...
> installing off-the-shelf IT systems to share information on cases between agencies, removing the need for meetings
What "off the shelf" software? Then again, given their choice of companies to "outsource" their software development to, it would save money! I can't get over how incompetent they are when it comes to IT.
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How about fostering a sense of community? How about including the elderly and the younger generation? Waving sticks at people just perpetuates hostility. Locking people up is very expensive, doesn't work, and creates more anger and resentment. You can't intimidate angry young men, they feel invincible. You can't bully people into taking social responsibility they just feel more oppressed. You can't govern from a position of abject hypocrisy (and that includes all 3 major parties.) What have you done for the people in your community lately? Do you even know your neighbours names?
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Fatherlessness is biggest cause of crime and anti-social behaviour. But no one dares raise this one in the media because it goes against cherished feminist ideals.
Moreover, 70% of divorces are initiated by women, NOT by mythically irresponsible husbands running off in a sports car with their 22-year-old secretaries.
Make divorce harder or enforce join custody arrangements in divorce arrangements. Preferably both.
THEN crime and other bad behaviour will eventually come down.
But politicians will not want to upset feminist pressure groups.
And why should politicians care anyway? The win greater popularity by acting tough, even though they know themselves this approach is doomed to failure.
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In terms of the evaluation...
Basically the government sets up a big 'top down' initiative in the same old way.
But when it comes to evaluation it's all localism with attendant inconsistency and lack of rigour. Clearly, as an evaluation it is worthless.
Tends to support the view that 'localism' is nothing to do with underemployed London politicians giving up power.
It's all to do with the tories wanting to pass off any and all responsibility for services that don't work.
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In terms of the actual approach to 'anti-social behaviour' ...
Worrying bit is 'introducing risk assessment tools to quickly identify the most vulnerable victims'
Sounds like more of the same: if you are in some 'special group' then the police will respond, if you are an ordinary citizen they will not.
This is already in place. In Leicestershire if you tell the operator you are Asian and the abuse is racially motivated, you will instantly get a high profile, blue light response. Sounds like this is just adding 'disabled' as another special group.
The police need to stop identifying special groups and provide a service to all citizens.
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Politicians don't want robust evidence. For example just look at how they ignore their experts on the classification of drugs, alcohol and tobacco issue .
What they want is an excuse to do what they have already decided they want to do and will dismiss anyone who disagrees with them.
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Oh how I agree with 'jon112dk' at No. 11 in these comments.
I also am only too familiar with the classification of 'vulnerability' used by Leicestershire Constabulary, what with its overhwelming bias towards ethnicity rather than treating all individuals' concerns with the same level of belief and commitment.
I have endured harassment for years from a neighbouring family. If I make a complaint I am told I do not have witnesses; I do not have evidence; nothing can be done; the family would deny it; the case would not succeed in court; etc, etc.
On the other hand, as a direct result of their ethnic origin, it would appear they do not need evidence or witnesses, even to make a thoroughly malicious allegation against me, but by comparison, are automatically believed and the full force of the law immediately implemented.
I was told by one sergeant, 'Force policy dictates that precidence, and a greater level of belief, must be given to complaints of harassment made by members of an ethnic minority community than to similar claims made by members of the white community'.
How is that for 'equality', and in truth, I do not envisage this aspect of 'force policy' being changed in accordance with this new initiative. Even if disability is added to the list, experience tells me that it will simply be at face value, whilst in practice, over-zealous but career advancing political correctness will ensure that things merely carry on as before.
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This is evidence that politicians are clueless. The answers are obvious:
+ Reduce the number of individual police forces; Scotland, PSNI, NW, NE, Wales, E Mids, W Mids, SE, SW and London. That is all other service like Transport and Nuclear to be disbanded.
+ Introduce a common purchasing team that buys everything and is mandatory. This means 1 type of Car, 1 type of Radio nationally this would save in excess of 20% of all police non manpower expenditure.
+ Each of the above forces would have one call centre per region. Call response would be tiered by Emergency, and Non Emergency numbers.
+ All police policies would be standardised with no exceptions under ACPO guidance.
+ All training would be centralised at 2 national training centres.
+ 80% of Forensic Science expenditure would be done via FSS 3rd party providers would be used to benchmark FSS for efficiency
To be honest government is not even trying. The police are a bloated bureaucracy who fight any reasonable change to their working practices and modus operandi. Truly the last bastion of union and operational neanderthals.
I want to see a dramstic shake up with published performance standard independently audited with chief Constables and Senior Managers payed based on performance and reaching targets.
Elected commissioners are a washful side show that illustrate politicians at their worst.
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I'm hoping that these trials will demonstrate new help for victims of antisocial behaviour.
Trials are supposed to accent a new approach for handling complaints of antisocial behaviour with 8 police areas changing the way they respond to calls and using a new system to log complaints as well as improve the use of IT to share information. It's the sharing of information that I consider critical because differing approaches have seen too many people slip through the cracks. It is hoped that the new approach will help to ID the guilty and protect the vulnerable.
Crime Prevention Minister James Brokenshire: "Antisocial behaviour ruins lives, damages our communities and, at its worst, can have tragic consequences. It is essential that those who raise the alarm and ask for help are listened to and their complaints are acted upon promptly."
Well that sounds good, doesn't it?
Yes, but there is (I think) too much scope for subjective judgements. I mean what exactly qualifies as ASB? It's like the old IT proverb: "Garbage in, garbage out."
Where:
I don't know enough about these areas to assess why they were selected or how representative they are, but here they are anyway:
Avon and Somerset, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, London, South Wales, Sussex and West Mercia.
When?
January to July 2011.
And then what?
At the end of the trial the Home Office will assess each area's approach and will publish details about what worked best, but then there's that subjectivity issue...nagging at the back of my brain...
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Anything, literally anything, would be better than the current policies of 'pretend it doesn't exist' and 'do nothing'.
The litany of serious and non-serious crimes that have been ignored under the old ASB guidelines is insane. Even to the point where a neglected citizen resorted to taking her own life and that of her daughter because no one would deal with her tormentors. Others have been forced to move or at the very least take the law into their own hands to fight the aggression.
In my opinion the old ASB policy gave the police departments an out, an excuse to not act because the events weren't considered a crime but an anti-social behaviour (whatever that means). In our own situation we had students from a neighbouring school trespassing, littering and damaging our property almost daily, certainy weekly. The school denied the problem existed (despite photographic evidence) and the local police department said it was not a police issue. When I said I'd deal with it I was 'threatened' with arrest if I did anything that might infringe on the rights of the student criminals.
Do anything but don't ignore it and don't keep the previous policy.
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Police Forces have been gathering data on ASB for years (a National Standard for Incident Recording was established in 2005 which lists about a dozen types of ASB, such as "Neighbours", "Noise", "Vehicle Nuisance" and the catch-all "Rowdy Behaviour"). It should therefore be not that difficult to start analysing the ASB occurring within each Force. There are some issues around the fact that each Force may interpret the National Standards slightly differently but the main problem is response to the call: 1) accurate details need to be taken so that the caller can be identified if they call again, bearing in mind that an average control room can have over 1000 calls per day with perhaps 10% being ASB; 2) victim and location data need to be easily reviewed and analysed and taken into context with recorded crime at the same address such as criminal damage, theft and burglary; 3) the Police need to attend repeat victims and work with partner agencies to ensure the issues are dealt with - NOT simply driving past and stating that nothing appears to be happening.
Get those three things right and people will have a lot more confidence that ASB is taken seriously. A big problem within the Police is that a burglary is viewed as far more serious than an ASB incident, even if the burglary has affected only 1 person in the street while the ASB incident is part of an ongoing series of events affecting the entire neighbourhood. The Pilkington case has been a big wake up call across the country and Forces are moving quickly to address the issue. Due to the nature of policing in England there will inevitably be subtley different approaches but most will be broadly similar. I'm not sure how much use the six-month trial will be as a piece of in-depth research, but as all Forces are in similar positions it can't hurt to run this kind of dip-test to ensure experiences are shared.
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We won an award for building safer communities in 2008 of the anti social behaviour team and other agencies.
None of the above works unless you are prepared to stand on mass on your doorsteps and look after each other.
but that is impossible unless you know how your area works and what drives the problem in your area .
drugs and no were to go with little to do will bring about an immediate rise in anti social behaviour.
legalise drugs take control out communities and things will improve.
cut the amount of retail space dedicated to alcohol currently about 60% were we live and things will get better.
Its thanks to our inability to see that moderate sensible behaviour drives the antisocial behaviour further down the rungs.
James BrokenBritain is just hiding behind short term smoke screens that in turn will undermine the communities we live in. there is nothing wrong with our communities, the problems lie with the guardians of the communities failing to recognise the obvious.
but what do i know im not a government minister....
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When and why did the police in the UK become so unpopular and so unsupported from their community? I get the sense it happened in the cuts and unemployment of the 80s, so I hope it doesn't start up again.
For example, in Japan the police are widely respected and so the people support them. Actually, the police have a lot of flaws in their methodology here, but you'd be very hard pressed to find japanese people who would criticise them.
Yet the police in the UK can never seem to do anything right, at least as far as the press and people are concerned.
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