Skip to content

Anti-social behaviour

What is anti-social behaviour?

The term anti-social behaviour covers a wide range of selfish and unacceptable activity that can blight the quality of community life. Terms such as ‘nuisance', ‘disorder' and ‘harassment' are also used to describe some of this behaviour. 

Examples include: 

  • Nuisance neighbours
  • 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 abandoned cars
  • Begging and anti-social drinking
  • The misuse of fireworks
  • Reckless driving of mini-motorbikes. 

A legal definition of anti-social behaviour is found in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. The Act describes anti-social behaviour as 'acting in an anti-social manner as a manner that caused or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household as the perpetrator'.

Why is it important?

Anti-social behaviour ruins lives. It doesn't just make life unpleasant; it prevents the renewal of disadvantaged areas and creates an environment where more serious crime can take hold. 

Our performance

As part of our commitment we constantly monitor our performance so that we can better understand how well we are doing in relation to tackling anti-social behaviour.

It is pleasing to see that the overall number of reported incidents of anti-social behaviour in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland in 2009/10 actually fell by 9% as compared to the previous year. In terms of actual numbers this year on year reduction equates to 4,681 fewer incidents and therefore 4,681 fewer potential victims being affected by anti-social behaviour.

At the same time those who have been unfortunate to suffer from anti-social behaviour have told us that there has been a steady improvement in the way with which we have dealt with them. In 2008/09 70.6% of victims felt satisfied with our overall response whereas in the year to date this increased to 77.1%. We are therefore making steady progress towards our 2010/11 target of 80% of victims of anti-social behaviour being satisfied with our overall response.

Further details of anti-social behaviour levels both nationally and in your local area can be found on the Crime Mapper.

Our commitment

Anti-social behaviour is unacceptable and is one of our key priorities. These standards (see below) are our commitment to you and set out what you can expect from us, your local authority and other partner organisations who are jointly responsible for dealing with anti-social behaviour in your community.

What we will do:

  • Provide regular updates to your community on what is being done to deal with anti-social behaviour in your neighbourhood.
  • Take your reports of anti-social behaviour seriously and:
    • prioritise our response based upon an assessment of risk, taking into account repeat incidents and vulnerability, and tell you what we will do next.
    • respond to every message directed to your neighbourhood policing team within 24 hours or in an emergency getting to you within 15 minutes in urban areas and within 20 minutes in rural areas. For more detail on the Policing Pledge commitments see www.leics.police.uk/pledge
    • keep you informed of progress on actions at least monthly.
    • provide you with a named contact to ensure you can remain in touch about any concerns you may have.
  • Work with victims of anti-social behaviour to identify and provide the support they need.
  • Maintain strong links between the local authority, neighbourhood policing teams and other local partners to ensure that anti-social behaviour is dealt with effectively.

We want to do our best for you but if we fail to meet our standards we will always explain why it has not been possible on that occasion to deliver the high standards to which we aspire and you deserve.

If you feel agencies have not taken effective action to resolve anti-social behaviour in your community and the matter cannot be resolved through their normal complaints procedure you can complain through the Community Safety Partnership.

For help and advice in relation to anti-social behaviour contact us or your local council:

Bookmark and Share