Anti-social behaviour
What is ASB?
Anti-social behaviour (ASB) includes a variety of behaviour covering a whole complex of selfish and unacceptable activity that can blight the quality of community life.
Examples include:
- nuisance neighbours
- rowdy and nuisance behaviour
- yobbish behaviour and intimidating groups taking over public spaces
- vandalism, graffiti and fly-posting
- people dealing and buying drugs on the street
- people dumping rubbish and abandoning cars
- begging and anti-social drinking
- the misuse of fireworks
Anti-social behaviour doesn't just make life unpleasant. It holds back the regeneration of disadvantaged areas and creates an environment where more serious crime can take hold.
On any measure of polling or survey, anti-social behaviour matters - it has a negative effect on far too many people’s quality of life. We are commited to tackling this problem.
Why does anti-social behaviour happen?
Many factors have been identified that, while they do not cause anti-social behaviour, do increase the risk of it happening. Four main areas have been identified (Source: Home Office, Research Development & Statistics, ASB - A collection of published evidence,2004):
Family environment
Risk factors include:
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poor parental discipline and supervision
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family conflict (between parents or between parents and children)
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family history of problem behaviour
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parental involvement/attitudes condoning problem behaviour
Schooling & educational attainment
Risk factors include:
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aggressive behaviour (e.g. bullying)
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lack of commitment to school
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school disorganisation
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school exclusion and truancy patterns
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low achievement at school
Community life / accommodation / employment
Risk factors include:
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community disorganisation and neglect
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the availability of drugs and alcohol
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lack of neighbourhood attachment
- growing up in a deprived area within low income families, high rates of unemployment and a high turnover of population
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areas where there are high levels of vandalism
Personal and individual factors
Risk factors include:
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alienation and lack of social commitment
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early involvement in problem behaviour
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attitudes that condone problem behaviour
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for young people, a high proportion of unsupervised time spent with peers and friends or peers involved in problem behaviour
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mental illness
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early involvement in the use of illegal drugs and crime
What we’re doing to tackle ASB risk factors
We’re committed to a range of supportive interventions which can engage individuals in changing their own behaviour and help them to tackle some of the underlying problems. Some of these include:
Individual Support Orders (ISOs)
ISOs are court orders for 10-17 year olds which impose positive conditions designed to tackle the underlying causes of a young person’s anti-social behaviour. We have recently increase the amount of funding available in 2005/06 to the Youth Justice Board (YJB) to fund Individual Support Orders (ISOs).
Agreements and contracts
This covers a range of formal non-legal agreements, contracts and warnings. Examples include acceptable behaviour contracts or agreements (ABCs or ABAs), ensuring tenancy agreements cover ASB issues and parenting contracts..They are all aimed at nipping problems in the bud.
Youth specific interventions
For example Youth Inclusion Programmes (YIP) which involve young people aged between 13 - 16 years who have been identified as being engaged in crime or identified as being the most at risk of offending, truancy, or social exclusion.
Visit the Interventions section to learn more about how we're tackling ASB.
