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Putting our communities first: A Strategy for tackling Anti-social Behaviour

section one

Protecting and Empowering Communities: The active engagement of communities in the decisions that affect their lives underpins all Executive priorities. This is critically important in the fight against anti-social behaviour. Local people are the ones that experience the effects of anti-social behaviour and need to be closely involved in developing the solutions.

Anti-social Behaviour Strategies

Community planning provides the framework in Scotland for bringing agencies and people together to improve local services, to tackle local priorities and to hold agencies accountable to local people. We expect this to be the overarching framework for tackling anti-social behaviour. The Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 places a duty on each local authority to prepare and publish, jointly with the relevant Chief Constable, a strategy for dealing with anti-social behaviour in the authority's area. The strategy should include how the authority and the police are to co-ordinate the exercise of their functions and how they will exchange information. Although not made explicit, the assumption is that other agencies and local people will be actively involved in the development - and implementation - of these strategies. However, there is a case for extending the formal duty to others, for example RSLs, particularly in cases where stock transfer has taken place. A date has not yet been set for the introduction of this duty. We would like to take the opportunity of this consultation to consult further on how to make the duty as effective as possible before the provision is brought into effect.

One of the main purposes of the duty to prepare strategies is to promote effective information exchange between police and local authorities. This will also be a significant issue for RSLs once the power to apply for ASBOs is extended on 27 June 2003.

Authorities tackling anti-social behaviour and dealing with applications for ASBOs can face difficulties in obtaining evidence to ensure a case proceeds quickly. One of the main obstacles to gathering evidence and presenting a strong case is constraints on information exchange. In particular, a balance has to be struck between different articles in the European Convention on Human Rights and the Data Protection Act 1998. Essentially the balance is between privacy rights and the need to take legitimate steps to protect the community from crime and disorder.

The Scottish Executive fully supports efforts to promote good practice in information exchange to tackle anti-social behaviour. The duty on police and local authorities to prepare joint strategies makes clear the strategies should include the commitment to exchange of information between the authority and the police relating to anti-social behaviour. We are interested in your views on steps to promote effective exchange of information on anti-social behaviour and the granting of ASBOs. These issues are relevant in terms of ASBO applications and housing applications, where authorities may not know whether an applicant for housing has been the subject of an ASBO in another local authority area.

In the Partnership Agreement, we said that we would encourage local authorities to set up proactive anti-social behaviour units. These are specialised teams that have responsibility for tackling anti-social behaviour at the local authority and community level, involving a range of agencies such as police, housing managers and community wardens. They can also act as professional witnesses. Local action of this type should lead to early intervention, more speedy responses to complaints about anti-social behaviour and more use of the available remedies. A number of local authorities in Scotland are already piloting these local-level units and, on the basis of this, we want to extend their use.

Your views:

Should the formal duty to participate in the preparation of anti-social behaviour strategies be extended to RSLs, particularly where major stock transfer has taken place? Should there be a formal duty on other community planning partners to be involved? Or is it sufficient that involvement of other community planning partners be referred to in guidance only?

What more should be done to promote effective information exchange to prevent anti-social behaviour?

Community-Based Anti-social Behaviour Initiatives

In addition to community wardens, the consultation paper Building Strong, Safe and Attractive Communities: Wardens and other Community-Based Initiatives to Tackle Anti-Social Behaviour included a number a proposals for complementary community-based measures:

• Dedicated community-based teams with a clear focus on tackling anti-social behaviour
• Intensive intervention and supervision of anti-social families at the neighbourhood level
• Mediation and arbitration to resolve neighbourhood disputes
• Support for witnesses and victims and "hot lines" that allow witnesses/complainants to report incidents quickly and safely
• Acceptable behaviour contracts.

We have received a wide range of helpful responses to the issues raised in the earlier consultation paper and these have been taken into account in developing the proposals contained in this document.

Community Reparation Orders in the Criminal Justice System

A central tenet of the criminal justice system is that offenders must be held to account for their actions. Reparation presents one way of doing this. It can involve direct reparation by the offender to the victim or some form of more general reparation to the community as a whole.
It is critical that offenders are made aware of the consequences of offending behaviour, both on individuals and on the community more generally, and the cost and distress it causes.

Community Service Orders (CSOs), which were introduced to Scotland in the late 1970s, can be regarded as the flagship of the restorative justice approach. They appear to be well understood and well received by the public at large. They allow courts to require the offender to undertake a specified number of hours of unpaid work to the benefit of the community. However, CSOs are at the high end of the tariff scale and are specifically referred to in statute as being an alternative to custody. They are not, therefore, an appropriate response to much of the behaviour commonly regarded as being anti-social.

We believe there is scope within the sentencing options currently available to courts for an extension of the principles underpinning CSOs to provide for reparation to communities where anti-social behaviour is occurring. Existing legislation (which is not yet implemented) provides for Supervised Attendance Orders (SAOs) to be used as a disposal of first instance for
16-17 year olds although, as a result of amendments made in the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003, the upper age limit has been removed so that this provision will be available to courts for those aged 16 and over.

SAOs impose a fine on the offender's time for a specified number of hours (between 10 and 100 hours). They are currently used as a community alternative for fine defaulters and provide for the offender to undertake a range of constructive activities, which fall under three main headings:

• Those of an educational nature
• Those designed to stimulate interest and encourage constructive use of time
• Those involving unpaid work.

The latter element tends to dominate. We propose to adapt the SAO model as the basis for a new reparative disposal.

We will therefore provide our courts with a further measure, which focuses specifically on making reparation in response to anti-social behaviour. We will introduce legislation to make provision for this new disposal, to be called a Community Reparation Order (CRO). The name will send a clear message to the courts and to the communities they serve about the purpose of the Order.

The legislation will:

• Provide for a CRO to be used as a disposal of first instance for offences which come under the banner of anti-social behaviour
• Prescribe that the principal activity to be undertaken as part of a CRO will be visible reparation to the community
• Introduce a statutory requirement (subject to certain safeguards) on local authorities to consult with appropriate agencies and bodies, such as local victims' organisations, community councils and the police, about what form the reparation might take
• Give District Courts, which are likely to deal with a high percentage of this group of offenders, the power to impose CROs.

Your views:

• Should there be programmes for individuals as well as groups? Does this raise particular issues for victims?
• Should we impose an upper age limit so that CROs are targeted at young people, i.e. those up to 21 years of age?
• Which organisations/agencies should be consulted formally about the nature of reparative work to be undertaken?

Protection for Victims and Witnesses of Anti-social Behaviour

People who suffer anti-social behaviour can feel vulnerable from the moment they report an incident. Often these fears are genuine and justifiable. We must create a climate in which people feel confident about reporting and giving evidence about anti-social behaviour. This requires efforts to protect and support people from the reporting stage, at court and afterwards. The Executive is already doing a substantial amount to support victims and witnesses:

• Victim Support services: The Executive provides funding for local victim support services, which cover each local authority area and are overseen by Victim Support Scotland (VSS). Victims of crime may be referred by the police to the local victim support service, which carries out an initial assessment of need based on the nature of the crime and the vulnerability of the victim. This helps to decide the level of support required and whether the victim needs to be referred on to other sources of support.

• The Witness Service: Individuals required to give evidence in a criminal case have access to the Witness Service. The Service, funded by the Executive and managed by VSS, provides pre-trial visits to the courtroom, information about court procedures, practical advice and emotional support, arrangements for discrete waiting accommodation where there are concerns regarding security, and assessment of need post-trial, including onward referral. The Service is available in all Sheriff Courts and will be extended to High Courts in July 2003, where the Service will work in partnership with Victim Information and Advice and Criminal Justice Social Work, which currently provide support to witnesses identified as being vulnerable. From this summer, all witnesses of anti-social behaviour who give evidence in Sheriff and High Court cases will have access to the Witness Service.

• Vulnerable Witnesses Bill: The recently published Bill on vulnerable witnesses is about assisting vulnerable witnesses in court so that they can give their best evidence. It will apply in both criminal and civil cases and the provisions for adult witnesses are essentially the same for both types of proceedings. A list of factors will be taken into account by the court in determining whether an adult witness is vulnerable. These factors may apply to witnesses in anti-social behaviour cases. Whether a witness is vulnerable or not will be decided on an individual basis.

We want to build on the measures outlined above, so that people have the confidence to stand up against anti-social behaviour in their communities. Witnesses in anti-social behaviour cases being dealt with through the civil courts also need a range of practical support, advice and aftercare. The Executive has already committed further funding for 2 years from 2004/5 to support victims, witnesses and complainants, so that local residents have the confidence and ability to make their concerns known.

Professional Witnesses

In addition to supporting local witnesses of anti-social behaviour, we want to promote the greater use of professional witnesses. The Civil Evidence (Scotland) Act 1989 makes hearsay evidence admissible but in practice this is given less weight than first-hand or direct evidence. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 defines anti-social behaviour as "acting in a manner likely to cause alarm and distress". The "likely to" allows for someone who has not directly experienced anti-social behaviour to appear in court as a witness. In the past, some Scottish local authorities used private investigators to observe anti-social behaviour and gather evidence, with variable results. The trend is now to use police evidence and to employ dedicated, specialist staff to gather evidence, support witnesses and give evidence in court. Just over
one-third of Scottish local authorities have introduced such teams and we want more local authorities to adopt this practice. There is also the potential for community wardens to act as professional witnesses, but care will need to be taken to ensure that this role does not undermine their credibility within the community.

Your views:

• What more could be done to support victims and witnesses of anti-social behaviour?
• What are your views on the greater use of professional witnesses?

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