Government announces new powers to tackle anti-social behaviour

The government has today (22 November 2024) announced new powers to tackle anti-social behaviour. The powers will be introduced by the Crime and Policing Bill, and will include a new Respect Order and increased policing powers to tackle anti-social driving.

The proposals underpinning the Respect Order appear to closely resemble a return to the ASBO, with potentially non-criminal behaviours being dealt with by the criminal courts. However, more information is needed to establish whether the many barriers accessing the current toolkit is likely to be addressed through the new legislation - namely, the bottleneck of the court system, increased court costs and recipients of court orders accessing legal representation.

While the Respect Order appears to partially replicate the Civil Injunction, what the new powers mean to the current toolkit remains to be seen - with the Respect Order only likely to be made available to police and local authorities at a time when support seemed to be gathering pace for housing providers to be given increased powers to tackle anti-social behaviour.

The governments announcement of the Respect Order comes with a brief explanation of what it is intended to be used for. Recognising the need to address underlying causes to behaviour is somewhat contradicted by the governments intention to use the new power to ban anti-social offenders from entering town centres, without consideration for the matter of displacement and the effect this may have on residential areas where the impact is likely to be far greater. These two approaches are likely to clash with one another, with behaviours being displaced to residential areas of limited surveillance and behaviours more likely to go undetected.

Furthermore, these objectives can already be met by a greater number of applicants through the Civil Injunction. Breaches of the Respect Order will, however, return sentencing to the criminal courts where a wider range of sanctions are available - namely, the use of community orders.

If the government is committed to addressing the root causes of anti-social behaviour, the support on offer through the courts has to be made available - and there has to be consequences for offenders who simply have no intention to rectify their needs.

At a time when the prison system is at breaking point, adding another court order where imprisonment is hardly likely to act as a realistic deterrent, more needs to be done to make sure these new powers does everything it can to protect victims. Protecting town centres from anti-social behaviour is not the answer and should not be the priority, especially when existing legal powers already play this role. Even if the aim of the Respect Order is to prevent and deter, a proposed maximum custodial sentence of 2 years hardly reflects the most persistent and serious nature of anti-social behaviour.

What's more, the mere title of the Respect Order doesn't seem to roll of the tongue and certainly doesn't seem to reflect the behaviours which this Order is capable of capturing. If the Order is to be used for setting out social norms to men who feel it is okay to harass women and girls, then yes, a Respect Order is probably suitably named. However, for the last 10 years, police and ASB practitioners have had to cope with the challenges of a legal toolkit which has had its flaws, and these flaws have done nothing to increase victim trust and confidence in the powers which should be familiar to them. Introducing a Respect Order may not bring as much comfort to victims of anti-social behaviour, and it hardly stands out from the crowd of powers which practitioners have available to them. It already seems the Respect Order is going to play the same role as various other powers - the Civil Injunction, the Criminal Behaviour Order, and in the context of protecting town centres, the PSPO - and already there feels an element of confusion as to which power best fits.

Then there's the cost - and as the sector knows very well, these court powers are not cheap. Legal fees can spiral quickly and the cost of a court application is sometimes enough for a financially drained authority to think twice about whether to use the power or not. Throw in a congested court system, frequent adjournments and lengthy proceedings, the government may wish to consider what more can be done to encourage police and local authorities to make best use of the wider toolkit, where the finances should not be a factor as to whether victims are given the courts protection or not.

The home secretary has also announced increased powers to tackle anti-social driving. While more information is still needed to understand the full extent of these changes, it would appear an amendment to section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2002 is likely, with police officers being given the power to seize vehicles without warning. If implemented, it would almost certainly be a welcomed boost to police forces who spend too much time having to go through a warning system before taking the only action which is likely to prevent further harm caused by anti-social vehicles - that is, to seize from the outset. Greater consequences for offenders who use vehicles to make-off from police officers would also be welcomed, however.

The new powers will soon be tested through a pilot, and hopefully this pilot will see greater uptake than some of the previous trials to allow for the flaws and challenges to be addressed before a national roll-out. And while we welcome changes to the current toolkit, the government might want to listen to the sector a little bit more as to what's truly needed to protect victims. Introducing a new power into a flawed toolkit might not be the quick-fix the sector is craving for.