To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
 
To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
people representing different agencies
all of whom have a role to play in
To take part in the survey on anti social behaviour in Dorset go to https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DorsetASBsurvey
tackling anti-social behavior
i want to be useful to start off with
just if we could
mind briefly introducing yourself and
potentially briefly explaining your role
please um shall we come to the
uh to the council representatives first
so from from
bournemouth christchurch and paul
council we've got julia and paul
could we continue please do
introductions
but also the um safety accredited
officers our season officers
good evening my name is paul mooney i
am one of our officers and i have been
here at the boston precinct
for the past two and a half years
fantastic thank you julia paul um should
we go to
um dorset police then so we've got um
shall we start with you darren
yeah thank you my name is darren stanton
i'm a neighborhood police inspector
covering west dorset and i also
manage the rural crime team across
dorset
and we've also got jim from dorset
place
good afternoon everyone my name is jim
michelle i'm a chief inspector and i
have responsibility
for our neighborhood policing teams
across the county part of dorset
and that includes sort of weymouth
bridgeport all the way up to
wimborne and ferndown and as well as
north dawson
thank you jim that's really good and
then we also
pleased to welcome a couple of
colleagues from our larger housing
groups so firstly
claire hello hi i'm claire seymour i'm
the anti-social behaviour manager
for a large housing association in the
south west called the astor group
and i manage a team of asb officers
um covering the region specifically for
for astor housing
thank you claire and andy
hi my name is andy burdes i work for
magna housing
i'm a community safety officer in the
community safety team
we've got nine thousand properties
approximately and
we stretch from shaft spray all the way
to mine head
fantastic that's really great thank you
everybody
i should also mention that graham duggan
who is
dorsett council's head of community and
public protection was also due to join
the conversation
but unfortunately he's been called away
and but we'll cover off hopefully
colleagues from bcp will be able to give
an insight into local authority powers
and responsibilities
as we get into it um so
probably useful to start then with um
kind of why are we here today talking
about antisocial behavior
um kind of what is it why is it
important
i wonder if we could start with a kind
of a policing perspective
um jim would you mind kind of starting
off
on that one please
yeah of course so um antisocial behavior
does represent an area where we do get
significant amounts of calms um it's
something that can often make people
feel uneasy even if it's quite a
difficult thing to actually put their
finger on in terms of what it is
is causing the concern it's quite a
difficult thing to make sort of tangible
um yeah officially the legal definition
of anti-social behavior
is defined as a behavior by a person
which causes or is likely to cause
harassment alarm or distress to persons
not of the same household
as that person and there's been various
bits of legislation that various
governments have introduced to try and
tackle
the idea of anti-social behavior in
terms of policing we view it in terms of
free terms so we have
personal antisocial behavior which is
when a person directs a specific
individual or target specific individual
group then we have nuisance and social
behavior which is when a person
causes trouble annoyance or suffering to
a community
and then the last one is environmental
and social behavior which is when a
person's actions affect a wider
environment such as public spaces or
buildings
and we obviously deal with all of those
different elements but affect people
in very different ways um traditionally
i think anti-social behaviour has often
been seen
as a group of youths gathering on a
street corner
being a bit loud a bit boisterous which
can make some people feel uneasy
and some people describe that as
antisocial behavior
but it covers a wide sort of remit of
different areas it can be from
sort of abandoned vehicles to noisy
vehicles
vehicles being driven irresponsibly
noisy or roundy neighbors littering
street drinking it's quite a wide
encompassing term
and i think that's why antisocial
behavior is such a sort of way such an
important
area for us and why we work with
partners so closely in terms of
it's such a wide remit and this can come
in different forms
thanks jim it's probably also kind of
fair to say as well that
traditionally anti-social behavior is
regarded as
kind of lower level in inverted commas i
appreciate that um
antisocial behavior when it happens to
individuals is obviously
very impactful on them but
sometimes you know we as agencies might
consider it
to be lower level than than other crimes
and i think sometimes one of the things
that we may miss
in that is uh the kind of cumulative
effects that santa social behavior can
have
so if you're experiencing antisocial
behavior on a daily weekly basis
that impacts can build up over time so
whereas
a harmful crime might have quite a large
impact hopefully that will only happen
a very small number of times but
something like antisocial behavior could
be more
repetitious and sometimes it can be even
though it's
a single incident might be low level
overall it builds up to be quite a
difficult and challenging circumstance
um claire and andy do you want to kind
of come into that from a
from a housing association housing group
perspective
yeah i think it's um yeah i think you've
um
summarized that really well there that
in in terms of the uh
the impact um it it can be
um significant um you know because it's
almost like a drip
drip drip effect um and um
and we certainly we ourselves have
acknowledged that by instead of doing
a risk assessment it would be a sort of
older view if it's high risk we would
you know jump to it and if it's
categorized as low risk our approach
would be slightly different but actually
now we
have changed that to an impact
assessment for exactly the reasons that
you've said
that the impact to individuals and
communities can be
significant over such a period of time
that
yeah the relevant interventions need to
be put into place
um quite quite quickly so um yeah i
would
completely agree with that as well so um
absolutely
yeah from my point of view um i think
it takes majority of people quite
uh
quite it takes them a lot long time for
them to
build up and build up and build up and
and a lot of people do
wait quite a long time until they reach
the end of their tele so
normally the first contact that
we have we
the the the customer is
when they have kind of got right of
handing off
um and they've already had
nine months in some cases social
behavior
um to put up with
um and it has seems it's must
don't see the putting on other people
who just want to live a normal quiet
happy life going with the neighbors
um it just anti-social behavior
it it you know that some people just
don't recognize it as being a problem
thanks andy uh i think that's a really
interesting point and it's good
to i think acknowledge that we've got a
a mix
of um professional organizations around
the
kind of virtual table today and it's
important i mean
it's been mentioned already a couple of
times that um antisocial behavior
um cannot be dealt by one agency alone
i think in some circumstances there's
conversations about whether it's a
police or a local authority or someone
else's responsibility and i'm sure we'll
get into that
but i wonder if we could just kind of
build on initially to kind of
talk about um community safety
partnerships as a whole
and recognize that they're made up of a
different a number of different
statutory
or responsible authorities that have
a statutory responsibility for tackling
crime improving community safety
reducing anti-social behavior
so the responsible authorities are as
you would expect
kind of police local authorities fire
rescue services
and local rehabilitation services and
health
but also tied into that there's a large
number of non-statutory organizations
like
monitoring community organizations
charities obviously
um housing uh providers other service
providers
and that can be quite difficult and
we've got a number of people around the
table together
i just wondered whether it was useful
just to um
just kind of set out how how that works
how do all those different agencies work
together
to make sure that they're doing the
right thing and that we're not they were
not addressed there's no gaps
and that we're all kind of working
together wonderfully useful to bring in
the um
the local authority at this stage um
julie are you happy to um to
start us off on that one please
as you said yes we've got the community
safety partnership which gives us our
strategic lead
um and so every year we have a strategic
assessment
which identifies what the priorities are
going to be
for the coming year with anti-social
behavior
being one of those priorities um
from that um we have a number of groups
that sit underneath the community safety
partnership
which are our tactical groups which are
actually looking at those day-to-day
issues and how we respond to those
and as well as that we've got some
thematic groups um which will look at
things like domestic and sexual violence
and criminal exploitation um and i
i think the process is are very similar
in the bcp
area as they are in in the dorsal area
now where we have our partnership
coordinating group meetings which are
those tactical meetings
um that look at um the statistical
information of what's happening
what apologies here and now um on the
ground and so we'll look then
um at what our response needs to be to
those particular issues that are being
raised
so again we we have um all of the
agencies sat around the table
to collectively work together to
understand what those issues are and to
problem solve
um so that we've got a clear
understanding
of what our our options are
thank you that's really useful and and
darren do you want to come in from a
from a policing perspective kind of a
local neighborhood placing perspective
yeah thank you um as we just said the
partnership coordination groups are key
for me so the past pcgs as they're known
um held every four weeks in each
geographic area across dorset
so in dorset county there are groups
that sit in west dorset
north dorset east dorset purbeck and
similar in
connervation in bournemouth and pool
their intelligence-led
meetings and that intelligence is often
community intelligence so calls from the
public
um and those calls from the public
whether they go into
um a housing association or they go into
the dorset council
or dorset police under the right
circumstances and
we could perhaps later talk about what
agencies are responsible for for which
areas
they they then come together as a as a
group to problem solve
and some of those voluntary
organizations are key to that so
um some of the drugs and alcohol
rehabilitation uh schemes that we've got
um some of the domestic violence help
schemes that we've got
they all sit on that group and there's
information
sharing agreements that are in place
with the correct legislation to allow us
to share information
in relation to anti-social behavior and
crime and disorder
thanks darren that's really useful i
think it's it is quite complicated
to understand how this how collective
different organizations can work
together
to tackle the same issues but hopefully
that's given
um people who listen to this that the
kind of feel for
how we collectively work in partnership
so we work together in
in virtual networks where all of the
responsible authorities who have
powers who have responsibility to tackle
these areas come together
very often and they have shared plans
across the area
and those plans are addressed as we go
through
so hopefully that gives some some
assurance to and to remember the public
have asked about how we work
together and i wonder then if it's
useful then to kind of get into
um what our individual agencies can and
can't
do so probably you know it's useful to
start off with from a
um from a policing perspective really i
think
members of the public have a good
understanding about what policing powers
are
the powers of arrest the powers of
detention um but also
local authorities will have a wide range
of powers and housing associations will
also have some powers in relation to
um to their properties that they manage
and so those powers
will be focused around quite different
functions
and so i wonder if we could um start
thinking start talking about what
what our respective agencies can do i
wonder if it's
good to start with the um the housing
associations on this one for a change so
um
andy do you want to um do you want to go
first
yes that's uh that's absolutely fine
agreement when they first move into the
properties
and within that tendency agreement there
are
hundreds of things that you can and
can't do
must not do and what
magda will do in return um
is where the this anti-social behavior
that is what we refer to um as a breach
efficiency
so once we identify the breach of
tendency
we look at what proportion action we can
take
we normally before 19 would have
gone and visited them although they
that may be lifted soon um
depending on what kind of results or
response we get
um we can
um if they are required um we can
go for possession of a property if it is
really serious um
antisocial behavior or criminal behavior
which once again that's where we're
linking with the police
to get enough information and enough
evidence
for if we do have to go to the ultimate
step of going for eviction
we have
well i think we might have just lost
andy there
um apologies for that um hopefully and
you'll be able to
join us back present all of the evidence
to say
that this is why we want
apologies andy i think we just lost
probably the last uh 30 seconds of what
you were saying there
right was i up to if we go for
possession
you have a property yeah this so we
gather
the evidence from the community um
the what the officers with in magna have
done
the uh what police have done
and we put it all together and then we
will go to a court
and say uh in front of a judge and say
this is why we
want the property back this is why
we've found that we've we've tried
everything else
whether it be at least um
will be every country injunctions or
not sick possessions or legal learning
that is all of us
before we get to the end or we get
an eviction um
and those are the main things that we we
use within the
association
thank you andy that that's really useful
um
claire i imagine things are very similar
in terms of powers on your side but do
you want to add anything from
from your perspective yeah um
yes i mean yeah thank you for um for
that and um yeah andy's quite right
giving a good good overview there um
we do rely ourselves on you know strong
partnership
partnership work and the legislation
which we rely on would be the
the same really the asb crime and
policing act of course and
and in addition to that the housing act
um
now ultimately i think it's good to sort
of say that ultimately our purpose as an
ethical landlord is is to
house people um so i would say that
we certainly astor will take the
approach that we will engage with
residents
um from the offset where we get reports
of anti-social behavior
um in order to sustain tenancies that's
fundamentally
why we're there um but in terms of some
of the
the things that we can use is anything
from mediation
um an acceptable behavior contract
uh various warnings and and possibly
leads to a civil injunction
like candy said where it's proportionate
and reasonable to do so
um naturally of course that can lead in
some exceptional circumstances will work
with the local authority and the police
for
partial or closure orders or full club
or closure orders
which then can lead to those possession
uh claims in
in the courts um and again in
exceptional
more exceptional circumstances we can
fast forward
to that um but but fundamentally yes
it's all about that engagement and
early intervention um and i'd say
90 of cases can be resolved um with
those types of interventions
and so but those are some of the fear of
the powers that we have
to give people a bit of a an insight
thank you is it um i i'm interested in
this kind of from a personal perspective
really but um
do you get many complaints um uh
from from members of the public who are
worried about their neighbors who are
having you know so so i know that um
some of the
a large number of concerns that uh come
through to dorset police are around
neighbor disputes
um and uh dorset police will will
obviously undertake that activity but i
just wonder whether or not you're
getting those
same kinds of of complaints and racing
of concern
from uh remember the public who are
housed in
in your um in your facilities
yes yeah i mean it will fundamentally be
be the same
reports they they quite regularly um and
we encourage that of course to report
um through to um where appropriate non
non-emergency obviously 101 um where um
but
they will um come to us um initially to
to utilize our um yeah our interventions
i think neighbor disputes we would
always encourage at the beginning
certainly where it's safe to do so
is speak speak with your neighbor rather
than us wading in and kind of
making things um perhaps more tense um
but but actually that would be the first
point of call but where that's not
appropriate i think mediation is a
really good starting point and that is
offered as shuttle mediation as well
so you don't actually have to be in the
same room obviously can't really now
very much anyway so that fits the bill
um but um yeah that would be that that's
always a starting point
and it depends it's very much case by
case as to how
uh or what is proportionate to how we
respond to those types of
um complaints yeah thank you claire uh
thank you auntie i think that's really
useful to understand the range of powers
that um available to housing
associations
all the way from trying to deal with it
on a one-to-one and
a formal basis all the way through to a
court process to actually go for
eviction if that's
that's needed and the range of of
opportunities
and and uh and abilities in between i
think that's uh
quite assuring to hear really that um
that actually
if you do have some persistently
troublesome
or challenging tenants then you actually
do retain that power to actually move
them on if that's what
um ultimately a court decides is needed
i think that's quite quite showing to
her
yeah yeah perspective yes always so that
last case resort
absolutely but we yeah we work with
partners
initially and then if it gets to that
point it would be a very
you know big case that we would we would
have to go into a court
um absolutely yeah good
i i think like like claire said
evictions are
they're not an everyday kind of
occurrence certainly not within the
market anyway
it's it's a kind of um i think
in seven years i've been to possibly six
the majority but well like i think
claire said
1995 dealt with
before you get anywhere near to eviction
stage well good to hear that um
that uh the range of opportunities
available to you are
um are used appropriately then yes um
julia i wonder if we could come to to
you on the um
on the local authority side and to talk
through the uh the respective powers
that
you have as a as a local authority of
which i are quite
wide and wide-ranging yes
thank you and obviously we've got the
antisocial behavior team
um who are predominantly working um as
the rest of the partners to the asb
act and there are a number of tools and
powers within that act
and that we're able to use um some of
those
um are around supporting victims um
where they're not particularly happy
um with how their ancestral behavior
complaints
have been dealt with so that could be
through the community trigger
um we also have um other tools such as
community protection warnings
or community protection notices and
again those can be used for quite a wide
range
of types of antisocial behavior
as we've touched on um as
jim was explaining about the different
categories um we've got the personal and
social behavior where we have
individuals then some of the wider
more environmental types of anti-social
behavior
we can look at things like community
protection
warnings so those might also be used by
our environmental health teams
um if we're looking at things around
noise um or
accumulation of rubbish um and
situations
um like that um we also take an early
intervention
um you know that's what we want to do
ultimately
is to prevent things from escalating
so we also use things like acceptable
behavior contracts
and if we also work very closely with
the neighborhood policing teams
with the community consequences scheme
um where
is identified as being involved um
with anti-social behavior um then
warning letters
are sent and if they continue to come to
attention then that might lead to
another letter that would be hand
delivered
and then if that still continues with
partners and the neighborhood policing
teams
and then we may need to look at things
like an acceptable behaviour contract
i'd also like to bring paul in because
obviously we do also have our csas
officers
and they're out and about on the streets
in boston bournemouth and paul
and dealing with anti-social behavior
thank you
yeah just to um concur with with what
julia has been saying i am
and my colleagues in in within bcp where
the actual boots on
the ground and we deal with specifically
with the
nuisance asp that nuisance asb can can
be
people coming up to us and um stating
that this person's causing asp by
begging
by being continually drunk or maybe
something that we see
that needs to be um sorted
uh we have i believe what's what's known
as the
professional compassion side of us on
the professional
enforcement side of us the professional
um
compassion side is we as in boston
precinct come across
a lot of people who are uh rough
sleepers
who haven't got any sort of home and
everything else part of my role is to
direct them
to agencies which can actually help may
they could be within the bcp itself the
rough
um sleeping team or it could be teams
like ad
action or bh1 or ad action who deals
with their drinking
people and everything else like that
those are the situations we get involved
in we can
with our professional compassion direct
these people
to these organizations however with
as julia has said with abc contracts and
everything else like
that my colleagues and i are the ones
who gather the evidence
in the first instance but those to be
brought to the attention of the npt
teams
especially here in boston and we can
come up with
but people who are cautionary all the
time
if we can get a name and then through
the asb team
within the council on the npt team
we can we can get either acceptable
behavior contracts
um cpn notices which is the enforcement
side
however on the compassionate side we can
get
for example saint mongo's involved were
the situation was with
the gentleman i had he wanted to go back
to where he lived now i was able to use
my contacts with saint mongo's
to avail himself of a rail fair a rail
ticket
to actually get him home so i am
my colleagues are kind of um hybrids
we enforce in one end to help
and i think essentially that is what
we are we officers do
we are there to take the horse to water
as this
they say but if he doesn't if he or she
doesn't want to
drink then we have to put on another
professional hat
and that professional hat sometimes is
enforcement
thank you julia thank you paul i think
that's that's a really good summation i
think
what i've taken from that is that from
andy clare
from junior and paul what you've all
talked about is an escalation process
you're starting off supportive you're
starting off understanding starting off
well let's try and have a conversation
about this what's causing this issue
and then you go through those range of
powers you go through those ranges of
opportunity
and then if at some point in the future
you need to move into enforcement
then that's when you do so i think
that's
really reassuring to to hear about the
range of powers that you have
all the way through that process and to
initially
support and understand and help try and
control and and
and and and decrease the level of
anti-social behavior
and but if for whatever reason it's
still persistent it's still enduring
then you can slowly ramp up the pressure
i think that'll be
quite assuring to help to her from from
members of the public as well who are
experiencing these types of things
um jim do you want to come in on the on
the police
perspective on on just on powers around
asb
yeah thank you simon um
i mean colleagues partners on the
discussion
just waiting for the so partners on
discussion have raised the number of the
powers that we have
i think just um a couple of additional
ones i can cover off if possible
one is around criminal behavior orders
so
introduced in 2014 as part of the same
act that provides the powers that
colleagues have talked about the
anti-social behavior crime and policing
act of 2014
uh so criminal behaviour orders are sort
of designed along a similar basis to the
much maligned asbos which were obviously
part of our sort of
our culture really in the 1990s and 90s
but have been adapted to try and deal
with some of the criticism of the asbos
so there have been some slight changes
so they can only be issued at a point of
conviction now so
someone's committed an offense they can
then the prosecution can then apply to
the court to issue a criminal behavior
order
now the important thing is that cbo
quinlan doesn't need to be directly
linked to the offense so you might have
someone who's been given a conviction
for a shoplifting offence
but they can be given a cbo which
relates to antisocial behavior so
looking at their onward behavior
so for example if they're drunk a lot in
a public place and that's one of the
reasons why they then go out shoplifting
or get involved in that
then we can issue a cbo record initial
cbo which will have some
conditions around that the important
thing about it is it's not just
around what we call prohibitive
conditions there are also requirements
so a lot of it is trying to aim at
targeting
the actual factor that is causing that
person to commit crime or get involved
in a social behavior so for example if
someone's got an addiction issue
one of the requirements might be to do a
drug and alcohol course that aims to
help them with that particular issue
or for example someone involved in lots
of thefts and
who's currently at work one of the
requirements might be to do
a readiness to work course which is all
aimed about trying to get them into
paid employment which would then help
them to distance themselves from some of
the reasons
why they're committing that offence so
that was a cbo and they're becoming a
bit more common
and you'll normally find when we when a
cbo is issued that the police would
normally put press release out making
the local community aware
of what particular person that's got a
cbo and what those conditions are and it
can be really bespoke
and quite tailored um so just a quick
example i'll give is
a male offender who is involved in lots
of poaching
offenders so going out into our rural
community
um killing sort of local livestock
stealing on various farms and because
the amount of raw
errors we have it's often quite
difficult for us to catch up with that
person
and it's a notoriously difficult offense
to prove however
on the back of convictions the cbo he
has been issued
includes things like he can't have dogs
out in a public space he can't have a
catapult
um and he is banned from certain rural
areas which means if we come across him
in those areas we are much better
equipped to actually
deal with it and so if a person breaches
their criminal behavioral order then it
is
a specific offence as a criminal offence
and ultimately they could
end up with a custodial sentence and so
that's an important power that's come up
in the last of a few years
and another i just want to touch on
really is around our
dispersal notices so if we have a
particular issue in an area
then an officer of at least the rank of
inspector can issue what we call a
section 35 notice
which helps us to disperse people
congregating in a particular area
if we know that we are having an social
behavior and people are being
intimidated or a particular issue
or if it's a real sort of crime hot spot
and they can only last up to 48 hours so
the idea is that being
yeah a real sort of bespoke power to
deal with a particular issue
in that area at that time um in addition
to the issue of behavior
offences we obviously have things like
the public order act and the harassment
act which gives us
other enforcement powers which we can
use
but there is a wealth of anti-social
behavior legislation out there which
us and partners can then use
thank you jim that's uh really good to
hear i think um
i think what i'm taking away from this
is that as i've said there's
there's a huge range of of powers huge
range of responsibilities here
and it's really important that we all
continue to work together
um i think hopefully what members of the
public who are watching this are taking
away is that
we've got uh good strategies in place
good partnerships in place
good powers in place um
and i think that's assuring but
sometimes it brings with it enough
another difficulty because
you might be looking at this and
thinking well okay that's all well and
good i can see that
um that the police have some powers over
here the local authorities have some
powers over here
but who should i call what should i do
when i experience a particular issue
um and that can be quite complicated i
think that kind of brings us on to a
question that we've had in from from
david
and he he asks um who should we call and
for what
you know and specifically when should
the police be called
rather than the council or vice versa um
i wonder julia if you could answer that
for me from a
council perspective initially
yes thank you and
obviously we've got the ancestral team
but we are not a response service
so if there's a particular incident
that's happening and
a member of the public needs a response
to that then they do need to be calling
um the police um obviously on 101 if
it's non-emergency
um but if if there's a threat to life or
property then obviously to use 999
it can be confusing because if it
is for instance more noise related then
it might be more appropriate to actually
contact
the council regarding employees and
sometimes
there can be a crossover between the two
um
so it can be difficult um for members of
the public and you know understand for
them to know who to contact
but primarily if they need a response to
an
incident um then they would need to call
the police they can then record that and
they can contact the antecedent behavior
team
and we would work alongside the police
or other agencies
um to understand what those particular
issues are so that then again we can
problem solve and work together
to identify what joint resources we may
have that we can put in place to try
and resolve what those particular issues
are
thank you that's that's really clear um
darren from from a policing perspective
um i'm hoping you're going to say you
can completely concur with that
uh thank you um yeah from a police
perspective we're obviously here 24 7
so we do often receive um
calls from members of the public um
throughout the out of hours period
um which are council responsibilities
um and you know we are a very very busy
service and we do our best
to try and accommodate with those where
we can um
but often we need to prioritize
where the greatest threat is and the
risks of the public is
i mean a few examples of antisocial
behavior which you should be reporting
to the police
um are vandalism um where it's been
where it's linked to threatening or
offensive behavior
um graffiti um again where it's
linked to threatening offensive behavior
and perhaps involving
racism or other hate crimes
buying of drugs on the street drinking
on the streets
people acting in an social manner when
they're drunk
threatening abusive or drunken behavior
off-road motorbikes tearing around
sort of parklands and beauty spots
and that kind of range of if it's
happening here and now
um and there's something that we can do
to prevent it from happening then yes
give us a call
um but our website lists um what is the
responsibility of the police
um and what is the responsibility of the
council
um things like um i don't want to speak
on behalf of the council with things
like
you know rowdy or noisy neighbors um you
know continue
sort of like loud music and late-night
parties
would be generally a council
responsibility
and stray dogs would be a council
responsibility unless of course they're
being aggressive towards member republic
abandoned vehicles unkempt gardens
rubbish being dumped or fly tipping
um littering general vandalism and
general graffiti that
um you know that is in the area i mean
the councils do have powers to deal with
abandoned vehicles
graffiti and fly posting and damage to
public property such as street lights
and road signs
and fly tipping but we do
work in partnership it's just that we do
have to be quite
strict sometimes around what is a police
responsibility otherwise we do become
the
the service that um takes everything and
struggles to deliver the service where
it really counts
thanks darren i think julie you wanted
to
come back in
yes thank you yeah no yeah it's just to
reiterate that really
and i think it demonstrates um
the how wide the term antisocial
behavior is
and the types of different behaviors
that can be classed as anti-social
behavior and therefore why it can be
quite difficult to know who to contact
because it is such a broad range of
different behaviors
um that are classed as anti-social
behavior
absolutely and i think from a from a
policing
perspective so dorset police has
something called
ask ned on its website um ned
being the um a non-emergency directory
and so if you go to the dorset police
websites you go to contact us
you'll see ask ned and that links
a huge number of different concerns
everything from let's go everything from
abandoned vehicles all the way through
to
wildlife crime um and suggests
who the best point of contact is in
relation to those particular issues
i think that's a good um resource um
and hopefully that helps it it can be
quite difficult i think remembers the
public to
um to understand who they who they
should be contacting though
and and actually i think that kind of
brings me on to we had we had quite a
few
questions in relation to um to noisy
neighbors
i kind of wanted to maybe kind of group
those together really so um
so so miss brooks had quite a a a
a specific question about um the
nighttime disturbances potentially
linked to teenagers
in areas in dorchester there was also
a question around rowdy student
accommodation
and also mindful as well that
potentially we should be bringing in as
well our local author
our housing association providers as
well to that conversation as well not
necessarily students accommodation
obviously
but somebody potentially thought they
might have something to say as well
so just just in relation to to
to to rowdy or noisy neighbors i suppose
it potentially depends on where you live
doesn't it so if you're in a housing
association then potentially that should
be your first point of call
if it's in relation to a student
accommodation block then potentially
you have some roots of redress there if
it's
a local authority housing then
potentially you should be going there or
if it's something else
then you probably should be going to
dorset place and that
in itself is quite complicated but um
is that is that fair do i think or or or
is there is there
is there a kind of one-stop shop what do
we think on that one i'll kind of open
that up
more broadly really
should i make a start of that one please
do jim thank you
um i mean the first thing just cover off
if people are concerned about a
disturbance
happening next door or some sort of
domestic then clearly we would want a
call to the police as soon as possible
about that so we can investigate it i
mean disregarding the um
if i can take the university question
because i have spoken to our
section especially covers the university
area um obviously as you
said simon if it's in halls of residence
then it's quite easy for a member of
public to go to the university and make
a complaint about that block and they
will take it
very seriously if it is in a private
residence there's a private landlord
involved but it's clearly
led to students and i understand they
can come a bit more complex than
who you sort of speak to if it is a
noisy issue
we've already discussed that that tends
to be a council issue and environmental
health
will lead on that if it's you know loud
and continuous rowdy parties etc then
they can take some
enforcement action around it if it's
disturbing instead of spilling it out
into the street so there's any
indication of any drug activity
or you know fight someone going like
that then again it would fall to the
police
so with regards to bomb university we do
have a dedicated neighborhood
team established within the university
so we have pcsos
based there who obviously have really
good links with the university as a
result of that so we've become
aware that a student property within an
area such as charmander winston
is causing issues and that pc server has
the
the sort of the relationships with the
university to go and speak to the
appropriate people
um the university does give inputs to
all their students at the beginning of
the year
around their responsibilities about
living in the communities because they
are
aware that you know students living away
from home for the first
time um tend to perhaps live a certain
lifestyle for the first couple of months
when they're there celebrating
that freedom that they've got but
obviously that can impact on the wider
public around them so
the university does do some work around
trying to educate their students and
they are very keen
and to hear when their students let them
down a little bit in that regard and
there are issues
and they can take action around it um
with regards to deutsche point obviously
darren is the section perspective for
dorchester i know he's had a look at
that issue so i'll let him sort of
answer
that particular point yeah thank you jim
um so uh the dorchester one um
is in relation to mulberry rings there
was a member of the public who's
written in to advise they've called in
in in relation to use um screaming and
shouting
uh and locking about on the banks of
maury rings
uh mummy rings is is a kind of ancient
monument
like an amphitheater if you like grassed
area
and um you know it's used by dog walkers
but this was um 2 a.m on a
um a weekday and they've called this in
so they got a police response
um and when you call the police at that
time in the morning
um throughout you know any sort of time
after around about midnight you're
likely to get a patrol officer
attending and that patrol officer will
deal with what they
what they see um in this case um
children mucking around or you've
smucking around
um and they will either give them advice
or they will disperse them
take them home but they will deal with
it there and then
um the way that dorset police is
structured is that you have a number of
neighborhood teams
um i managed the naval team for west
dorset
and those teams are made up of police
community support officers
often known as pcsos and police officers
overseen by a sergeant in each of the
stations
and then an inspector over the wider
area
and each layer of that that team
get to see what calls are coming in in
relation to
problems in their area in this case it
was an isolated call
but if it's not an isolated call and if
it starts to become
part of a pattern that is reported by
numerous members of the public or the
same member of the public reporting the
same problem
will very quickly get the attention of
the aryan inspector myself
and i can then start putting in
additional resources if i need to
and we also then start to look at
working with our partners
to to problem solve and to deal with the
issue
in dorchester we've currently got a
youth outreach
service that's running from dorchester
youth club because they haven't got
the ability to run the youth club as
they normally would
they've got some funding to
to actually do some youth outreach work
in dorchester and also surrounding
villages
um around dorchester um and uh we're in
contact with them
so i'll make sure that they're aware
that the marbury rings
has been a um a problem i believe it's
probably on their list of areas that
they already visit
um but i will be making them aware of
this one as well
thank you that's really useful and
hopefully
miss brooks and andy have been able to
um to see
um their questions have been answered
there is was there anything else anyone
else wanted to say in regards to um
to to noisy or nuisance neighbours
before we before we moved on
yeah i can um just to just to say really
that um i think it's uh an area which um
we certainly have seen an
increase in the number of complaints uh
around 25 at the moment um and naturally
that's
people have been at home more um and uh
the pods were closed at one point so uh
i think the gardens and the homes became
uh that social space so um yes there
there have been an increase there but
there are
things we can do and um if you're unsure
about perhaps what housing association
or or
what housing provider that is there the
the local authority can advise and they
will refer it into
uh that relevant association or provider
um and yes there are some sometimes just
some gentle words of advice
which can knit those things in the bud
before we yes like you said earlier
start ramping things up so yeah good
thank you i think i think what i
took away there is that there's there's
lots of support available
so whether it be from a housing
association provider whether it be from
local authority whether it be from the
police
um certainly something that um everybody
takes seriously
and everybody has on their radar there's
a lot of supports
um available and clearly um
what i also heard was everybody was
happy to help as well so please do
continue to report those incidents um
as through the through the appropriate
channels um
really really helpful thank you everyone
um just wanted to move on then so we've
got a couple of questions around
um noise pollution more broadly
um i wonder if um so one in particular
was around
um well essentially noisy motorbikes on
residential streets
so amanda in dorchester wrote in about
this and and asked
what what could be done are there any
rules um
uh is who has responsibility here
broadly speaking is it is it police is
it local authority
um jim do you want to lead us on that
one
yep no problem thank you simon um so
this is an issue where we've had
probably more correspondence in the last
few weeks and we have
had quite a while um again i don't know
if it's um like claire said at the end
of the covered where they're more people
are now sort of going out on their bikes
and and young people
are just trying to enjoy that bit of
freedom a bit more but we have had
reports of
noisy mopeds and scooters i know
particularly in east dorset area we've
had quite a few reports
as well as down in weymouth so there are
obviously legislation
around the use of vehicles and the noise
they
emit so getting a bit of traffic geeky
at the moment
there is a level between 82 and 86
decibels
is the current maximum percent permitted
noise level for
a motorcycle um and anything above that
obviously the police can take action
uh we've had a couple of campaigns
recently where our sort of road safety
team
for example last weekend they're down on
the coaster road between weymouth
and bridport um and they were there sort
of targeting a number of um
sort of road issues including speeding
excess speed but also
around noisy exhaust so they stopped a
number of motorbikes and had vehicle
examiners there to actually do some
checks on those exhausts and
found those ones or to be compliant um
the challenge we sometimes face is
locating the motorbikes and they tend to
that noise
echoes and carries a great distance at
night
so where someone might feel that moped
has literally just gone down that road
in reality when we get there you know
they've already moved on all that noise
came from a completely different era
that's just bounced around
a local estate or a local town but we
are keen to take action where possible
so
people do get reports or get
registrations of the vehicles involved
then please
do report it you don't have to report
things by 101 you can report things
online and as darren explained earlier
those sort of issues within the
community would fall
come through to our local neighborhood
policing team or our traffic colleagues
and then we can um
go and visit some people and do some
checks
thanks jim good to hear that there's um
there are some rules in place and um
it's also a place to continue to have a
um a robust
um response to that um
related um i think um there was one
question that came in
from andy who was asking about
uh potentially um sirens themselves so
so maybe police sirens
and whether or not um he was mindful
that he he lives close to the um
to the padera road police station
bournemouth and you're saying that at
night sometimes
vehicles will be leaving uh that
facility with with sirens on
it's they're appreciating that the
sirens are there for a reason
but um is there anything potentially we
could be doing about
about that yeah thank you simon i'm
happy to take that one so
having worked at bournemouth police
station for many years and
it's probably got busier since i was
there and your madeira road
is still a really busy road for
pedestrians so even late at night it
tends to be the sort of gateway to a lot
of our student accommodation which is
around the sort of lounge down
area part of bournemouth so blue lights
and cars revving
quite often aren't don't quite do the
job in terms of making
probably intoxicated pedestrians aware
so it's probably one of the reasons why
you hear sirens quite a lot from that
location
and it's also a road where we got a lot
of taxis at late night coming up so
again
our sirens are often necessary um i can
assure them that you know officers
aren't taught to put them on as a matter
of default they will put them on
for a reason but nevertheless i have
spoken to the section respectively
today just asking him to send a bit of a
reminder to his teams that there are
sort of residents around there
um but safety in terms of you know the
officers driving making
other road users aware of their presence
is always going to take priority around
there
thank you jim i think that's that's
that's good assurance really i think
obviously
uh dusted police is sensitive to the
needs of its neighbors and obviously
the police station is a residential area
but that sensitivity to the needs of its
neighbours
does mean that you need to make them
aware of when police cars are coming out
of
that that particular location and
potentially sometimes
at speed if needed so i think it's it's
a it's a difficult one but
um but thank you for the question it's a
good question and then and hopefully
you've got some assurance there um
the the last one on on noise pollution
is quite an interesting one really so it
came in from
from meadow and she was raising the
issue about
um potential relationships where there
is some domestic degree of domestic
abuse and there are some um
some quite high levels of noise coming
from
um from those from a particular couple
who may be having an issue over a
protractor period
and she was just asking the question to
say well clearly
support is given to that particular
couple but
just asking the question about whether
or not anything's done
to provide some help and support and
some reassurance to their neighbors
you may have been experiencing quite
high levels of noise are often quite
um worrying if they're hearing arguments
uh
you know shouting screaming
smashing of objects those kinds of
things um
i wonder what thoughts are on that one
um darren do you want to
kind of leave us lead us on that one
thank you simon
um yeah whilst i guess whilst we could
look at the
the anti-social aspect of abusive
relationships
and the issues that they cause for
neighbours
dorset police would always prefer to get
to the root cause of problems
which often involve quite complex
situations where victims can be in an
abusive relationship
and a kind of cycle of abusive behavior
which they don't see
as abusive themselves so often neighbors
are a useful benchmark really
and it's often neighbors that will call
police
or passers-by that will call police when
they hear um
a domestic argument um or
or worse where there's domestic violence
occurring um
and and dorset police have committed to
ensuring that such incidents are dealt
with appropriately and robustly
in a way that safeguards victims and
their families
and puts them at the heart of everything
that we do
and dorset police are committed to
protecting people from harm and that's
what we'll always aim to do
um i mean at this juncture i'd probably
want to just reach out to anybody that's
in an abusive relationship
um or feels uncomfortable about certain
aspects of their relationship
and perhaps doesn't know where to turn
if you just search on google for
dorset police domestic abuse it will
take you straight into our website
and there's a wealth of information in
there which defines
what domestic abuse is um which in
effect is
is any incident or pattern of instance
of controlling or coercive or
threatening behavior
or violence between people within a
household who are aged over 16 or
over and that can encompass lots of
different aspects of
abuse such as psychological physical
sexual
financial and emotional abuse and and
often people just think of it as
violence
but it's so much more than that and
we've got new powers now
under coercive and controlling behavior
um which are relatively new to policing
um but are being used to get effects um
so to answer your question um
i would sooner um try and help the
people in the in their situations
than um look at it from an anti-social
perspective
um you'll often find when there's been a
domestic incident that we will
complete house to house inquiries um so
so neighbours are often informed of um
not necessarily what's occurred but
asked if they've heard of any um
disturbance um the previous night and it
gives them a chance
to offload about perhaps the longer term
issues
but ultimately want to try and help
people and stop people
becoming victims of domestic violence
thank you darren um claire did you want
to come in
on that one yeah i think it's a really
really uh good question so to speak
um and um certainly one in which we are
receiving more of as well and i think
we have seen nationally haven't we uh
and globally
in fact the increase of domestic abuse
and um it is a very complex situation to
deal with but i completely understand
the question we have had some distress
calls um who often are impacted by that
that type of uh noise but i think like
it's already
mentioned it's really important that
first and foremost
that we encourage people to continue to
report
certainly where there is um concerns for
welfare within the home um
and that would encompass safeguarding um
possibly any children as well
so so that as well for us is that um
initial response is support and
safeguards
and potentially some extra security
measures to keep somebody safely in
there
in their home um and i think the
question more lose to the
uh fact that actually if that person
remains in that relationship and perhaps
chooses not to engage in
in that that support well actually then
that becomes slightly different
and we do need to um i think it's
important to
see again whether we can still engage
with um
perhaps perpetrators as well um there
are some
services rehabilitation services that
that may be able to be utilized and
there's a couple of
uh good agencies in in dorset that have
that
however again if that's no no engagement
is is taken up
then we have to revert back to our
interventions
um it's not something we like to do but
it's certainly that's much further down
down the road but certainly it's
something that we we must do to
safeguard
all parties and that would include the
residents so again it reverts back to
that type of interventions of perhaps
a you know acceptable behavior contract
between
us around the levels of noise but still
talking about that support and maybe
when that person decides that they
they do want to um leave that that
relationship
um and in exceptional circumstances as
well we have had
um circumstances where the victim then
does suddenly say
actually yes i don't want this person
here and they're not on the tenancy bear
in mind
then we can do in a civil injunction to
exclude a person from
from a property um and we have done that
whilst rare it is a tool available to us
so
um so yes hopefully that gives a bit of
insight there
it does um thank you that's really um
comprehensive um answers there um
it's a really interesting question i
thought um it's quite quite
a challenging one that to try and
obviously wrap
support around individuals who may be at
harm
but also think about the impact that's
having on the the wider community
yeah thank you really interesting
question thank you for those answers
um i wanted to um to move on if i
may to um to a couple of questions that
came in on
road and pavement use so um
debbie was asking about um
increasing problems with regards to
vehicles parking on pavements
particularly in small villages which
obviously forces pedestrians
and other path users into the road
and also mr fisher had one on
whether or not anything could be done to
uh to prevent
inconsiderate cycling on pavements and
shared paths
um jim from from a policing perspective
do you want to
have a talk us through produce pavement
use
their whole thorny subjects yeah thank
you simon
um so yeah the parking one is another
area where you know the policing do get
a lot of calls
and i think this is a classic area of
community policing which is all about us
dealing with some of the risks that the
public might not necessarily be aware of
with tackling some of the issues which
affect them on a
daily basis in their sort of local
community
particularly around schools is is when
we traditionally get a lot of course
obviously we haven't had that issue for
the last few months but particularly
around drop off and pick up time
inconsiderate parking um and we tend to
try and do a lot of work with the
schools and educate the parents through
that getting comments put out through
newsletters and
and um different ways of doing that um
the main area that we get involved in
parking is parking on zigzags
approaching
zebra crossing which is you know a clear
offense where we will take
you know quite sort of robust action
because of the dangers
of it um but the more sort of general
parking issues tend to now fall to local
authorities to deal with enforcement
um those watching may be aware that we
had
quite a lot of publicity recently around
the amount of visitors we've had during
those hot spells and we are anticipating
more numbers this weekend
some of the parking issues particularly
in bournemouth chrysler and pool
um that bcp local forty then brought in
new powers around actually removing
vehicles um recognizing that actually
the cost of a ticket to some people
it was of little consequence um compared
to a day out on the beach
so parking we totally get why it affects
people
you know particularly obstruction can't
get into your own driveway stuff like
that it is maddening and
you know obstruction is one issue that
we can take you know some quite
um some quite powerful enforcement
in terms of parking on a pavement
there's a bit of a strain to the
loophole here in the law that
parking on paper is not really an issue
that policing direct getting
involved with however driving on a
pavement would be something that then
become
under police enforcement but obviously
we need to catch someone doing it
in that regard so it is something that
our sort of no excuse
manager um is very aware of i think his
post bank gets quite filled up with
parking issues
um and he's had lots of different
meetings and working with partners to
try and find the best solution to some
of the issues generated
um i suppose really in response to that
question the parking on the pavements
particularly
would be a local authority dealing with
that matter
um regards to the cycling on the
pavement um i think
the mr fischer talks about sort of
inconsiderate cycling um
obviously that can mean all sorts of
sort of terms obviously
cycling on a pavement is prohibited
under law
um we do see certain circumstances where
particularly people riding with
young children people with
vulnerabilities may be using a payment
and and while it is the law that you
know
the roads should be where they're riding
you know i think we have to be pragmatic
sometimes
actually overall safety payment is
probably the more logical thing to use
if there are not pedestrians around that
they are
inconvenienced in um but i think a
little yes
a space such as that it comes down to
people being considerate and you would
hope that most cyclists are
however where we do have inconsiderate
reports and then
if it's a repeat issue in a particular
location then it is something that we
would we would look at
um you know recognizing that a cycle a
bike going like 20 odd miles an hour can
cause considerable damage
if it hits a pedestrian and occasionally
nationally you do see some examples of
that so it is something we would look at
um but we you know we need to have some
further information around the sort of
timings of it etcetera to then put some
steps in place it's a it's a
always a thorny subject this one as i
alluded to and i think um
potentially there's there's an issue
there about um
what the public thinkers the police can
do
so i think that um that example of
um almost anti-social parking as opposed
to you know almost working on criminal
parking
to say that we you can't do certain
things but actually parking on the
pavement broadly speaking
is something that the police can't
actually do
anything about um as much as
as distress it causes it's uh it's a
difficult one
and i appreciate particularly um as it's
been highlighted
in small villages as well it's um it's a
difficult one
but um there are limited powers
available really
um thank you i think we um i've got a
couple
more then so um it's just worthwhile
saying with with colleagues on the line
that um
we got a good response from members of
the public who wanted a large number of
questions asked and broadly speaking
people were
really happy to provide us with
questions which is good
also um i
just wanted to pass on their thanks to
for run for answering the questions i
think a number of people were saying
thank you for being given the
opportunity to address some of these
questions so i think
thank you really beneficial and then
also as well
a large number of people were also
saying that um
recognize that everybody's doing a
really difficult job in difficult
circumstances
i think also as well that's just
worthwhile just just reflecting on for a
moment as well
um i think ultimately when it comes to
anti-social behavior crime
community safety more broadly the areas
that which we're all working in
and we are talking about increasing
demand we are talking about
um you know more difficult more
challenging
problems on a day by day week by week
like
year by year basis unfortunately um and
then
obviously you know more and more limited
resourcing as well as we go into that
and that does bring with it some
difficulties you know we will continue
to work together
and we'll continue to um to deliver as
best services we can to the public
um but sometimes you know we don't
often are able to deliver the service
that we would want to
because we haven't got the capacity to
do so and i think it's really beneficial
i just wanted to to just
kind of share with you that i think a
number of people members of the public
who wrote in
uh recognized that and so i think it's
just useful to point that out
and the kind of last couple really i
wanted to get on to just before we
we wrap up really um so um i had a
couple of questions in from
another anonymous question and one from
from roy
and both of whom highlighted that well
you're doing some good work
but even when um offenders are
caught and charged they're often
released without punishment
or if they are punished the punishment
is not sufficient
to stop them from reoffending and they
both ask well what's what can be done to
change the situation
and obviously not one for us because
we're not
judge and jury but um but what what can
what can be done
um jim do you want to talk us through
that one from a policing perspective
yeah thank you simon so i'm very
conscious i've had cycling parking and
now sentencing all the um
difficult ones there so as you say
obviously sentencing is a matter for the
course and it's
difficult for us to influence that as it
should be because of the impartiality
but there are some things we can do to
sort of maximize
the chances of getting a sentence which
victims feel is appropriate
and one of the things is making sure
that we present the evidence in the best
way possible to really get across the
impact it has had on victims
and communities and one powerful tool
which we can do that through
is victim personal statements so we have
statements of evidence where people
explain what's happened to them and that
helps us prove the actual offence
but a victim's personal statement allows
us to go into much greater detail around
the sort of personal
impact that crime and that incident has
had
so we started off by talking about what
antisocial behavior is and the sort of
dangers of that trickle effect so
one in incident in isolation may not
seem very significant
but when you get that happening again
and again and particularly in your home
which should be a place where you feel
protected
and safe it can be really isolating and
very intimidating
so a victim personal statement allows us
to try and get that across
to a magistrate or a jury and we've seen
some you know really
having a real impact on sentencing
because it just draws out a different
sort of emotion than an
evidential statement second thing we can
do is around
those sort of cbo's which i talked about
earlier so the criminal behavior orders
so a sentencing for a particular offense
doesn't have to be the end
of how we deal with that person so a cbo
will allow us
or the court to put in certain
restrictions which should stop
and aim preventing that person
committing further offences so for
example
if they keep going to a certain certain
street and hanging around
and being intimidating outside of the
house then that cpo can contain
a condition not to enter that street if
they don't have any valid reason to do
so
and again it means if they breach that
it's a nice clear-cut
offense for us to take action at and so
it makes it a lot simpler for the victim
in terms of their sort of victim journey
through the court process
but sometimes it's not always courts
which is the best way of dealing with
someone
so restorative justice can often be a
much better solution for
tackling the event what's happened with
in that particular incident
and can get a longer term result for the
victim so it could be a restorative
justice conference where actually the
victim has the opportunity
to sit down in front of the offender in
very controlled circumstances and
actually explain to them face to face
the impact that they've had
so they've been numerous academic
studies about the sort of longevity
of that impact on the offender where
actually the studies
show we get much longer term effect by
dealing with someone that then we would
ever would by sentence them
to a court um and there's quite a few
different studies
one involving west midlands police and
one involving durham fairly recently
we'll just show the real benefit of that
and restorative justice takes various
different forms that it might
be you know a much straightforward
simple remedy between the victim
defender which we can instigate
which actually is much better outcome
for the victim
so i think that's a couple of ways that
we can influence the sort of victim
experience
going through the court and the criminal
justice process
thanks jim i think that's really useful
i think the um the importance of a
victim personal statement particularly i
think is something that
shouldn't be underestimated i think um
sometimes there can be with anti-social
behavior this feeling of hopelessness
um and i think when people do take the
time to
to raise issues to write a report to
daughter police to whoever it may be
um i think actually knowing that um that
that report is taken seriously in all
circumstances is absolutely key
and i think everybody here has said that
i think also as well when it does come
to the point of actually
um moving towards a stage whereby we are
looking at sentence and we are looking
at punishment
it that that fixing personal statement
is a really powerful tool
um to actually have the ability to
basically
to to speak directly to um
to members of the public who are going
to be handing down a sentence to this
individual
uh if the magistrate's caught then i
think that's quite a powerful tool thank
you for
for uh in that gym that's
that's really useful um
and then just kind of wanted to draw us
to a close there really so
our final question really was um
was on our next steps so i think
hopefully what what those watching have
have
have seen and heard is that we are all
working really closely together
there's a range of powers available to
us all
um we continue to have challenges of
course we do
and we continue to to try our best to
alleviate members of the public against
those
um but also as well um sometimes that um
you know we we might make mistakes and i
think it's important that we
large that would always want to do more
um but
the the final question really comes in
from from david and he asks well
what can what can we do to make sure
that we continue to improve
um i wonder if i can go to darren first
on a policing side
thank you uh simon um yes it's a it's a
good question
uh what can we do to continue to improve
and also he asks um how can we get
sort of it takes time to get on top of
the issues
so each neighbourhood team has got
neighboured engagement contracts
um if anyone wants to see them they can
go onto the dorset police website
click on the area they live in and they
will see a neighborhood engagement
contract that the inspector has issued
for that area
and they are scrutinized by panels
they're aimed at ensuring that we have
the right
kind of processes in place to engage
properly with our communities
and that can be done through a whole
range of
different ways from face-to-face
engagements which are
just about possible in the current
climate um although we're not doing
those indoors
um and also through social media we've
got quite large social media followings
on the various dorset police accounts
um and each neighborhood area has got
their own social media
accounts um i mean there's sometimes a
danger that the police engagement
um is just putting out of information
um so it's really important that we just
have that multitude of different options
to for people to tell us what's
important to them and i think the
anti-social behavior survey
that pcc has done has given us
quite a lot of information um and some
really good food for fault around
the issues that do concern the public
um but moving forward in terms of
policing um
it's a balance of us doing the right
things to protect the community from
harm
and they might not necessarily be aware
of the things that we're doing and it's
important for us to communicate that at
a local level
whether that be through our website um
pages
um or whether it be through social media
um
or or simply um a phone call to a
concerned resident to sell them
what we've done in relation to their
problem um and
mr michelle listening in hopefully we're
not in an agreement that we do
um an uplift in terms of our policing
resource in neighbourhood policing
um and um and that for me
um is the biggest challenge um the more
police officers
i have then the more i can do and
um and it's a really welcome uplift
that's coming from central government
down to all police forces
um which should really help us um to
invest in our local policing
um and help us to tackle issues um
locally um anti-social behavior being
one of those
examples that you'll probably see as a
priority across every neighborhood area
and dorset
we've got a tasking process that does
allow us to move resources quickly
deal with emerging issues for example
i've got
a current and social behavior issue in
bridport
which was allocated extra resources only
yesterday
for the coming week and we we can bid
for these extra resources
as a neighborhood inspector on a
week-by-week basis um
obviously we have to justify that and um
you know our justification is obvious is
often um the calls from the public
and the information from the public
which helps us justify the
need to bring in some additional
officers to an area to tackle a problem
so come back to a point i made earlier
that that the public are
our eyes and ears and without the public
we can't police um without the police we
don't have the public
um so you know we've got to
um try and have our public on board and
have them engage with us
and help us to know where the problems
are in their
their areas and then finally um
perhaps just worth me mentioning that we
do use seasonal crime calendars
um so we don't just react to what's
happening in the here and now we do also
plan ahead based on experiences over the
last
sort of year and sometimes over a longer
period over the last four years where we
can actually look at
levels of crimes in particular areas
which are perhaps more prevalent at
certain times of the year
and i think those will be very much in
tune with um
what the public would say are crimes
that happen either in the summer
or more in the winter and and we are in
tune with the public on those and we do
use surveys with the public as well to
gather that information
um and make sure that it is in tune with
uh the communities that we're serving
thanks darren that's uh really helpful
um
claire did you want to add anything on
that
oh i think i think community engagement
i think i was going to going to say that
for sure
that's um certainly an error in which
we reviewed uh recently and it's opening
up those channels to allow
that that additional communication
especially especially now and i think
just the other
another point that i was thinking i feel
like since the uh
at the start of the public health crisis
really that um
there have been some improvements and in
terms of the digital advances that we've
had in terms of
um information sharing and and i think
in our partnership work has almost been
strengthened
um and uh and actually having a
round the table virtual round the table
uh can actually happen
much more quickly than it than it used
to um
and and i think that's actually been a a
quite a big change
we're certainly looking to to keep that
in place as i know partners are as well
so
that's a positive
thank you claire i think that's really
really helpful
um i suppose the um the comments on
community engagement
are my cue to um to push
um the police crime commissioner's
current survey on anti-social behavior
i think we've got well over two and a
half thousand respondents so
far um i think um please do
um have a look at that server if you
haven't completed it already
um so you can find that on all of our
social media channels via facebook or by
twitter
it should be the pinned tweets or the
the pinned post of most of those
and please do
complete that should we take you a few
minutes and what we're hoping to do off
the back of that
is to lead into conversations with the
chief constable
about where we're going to focus
attention in the future from a policing
perspective around
tackling anti-social behavior so i think
that would be really useful
those of those views will absolutely be
listened to
uh and so thank you to those members of
the public already completed that
um that kind of brings me to the the end
of our of our questions i just wanted to
really say thank you to everybody
um i think i thought it was a really
interesting and stimulating discussion
and and
obviously thank you to the members of
the public have also taken the time to
write in with those questions i think
they were really helpful
to kind of get us going and to provide
us with some
opportunities to talk about the work
that we're doing and how we work
together
i think really important to to kind of
highlight where we started at this to
say well
it is a complicated issue and
we continue to work together really
closely we continue to
make sure that we are got good plans
and got good strategies got good
resources got good people
and we continue to try and do our best
in this space
um obviously from members the public's
perspective then
please do continue to raise your
concerns
uh obviously through 101 if it's not
emergency or indicator or 999 in the
case of emergencies
if those threats to life if there's
threats to property please do continue
to contact
us we're obviously talking through the
ability for our housing association
providers our local authorities
our police to actually use the powers
that they have
but please do continue to engage with us
all
it's only together we're going to be
able to um to help address some of these
issues
but for the moment i hope that those
watching found
the last hour and a half almost useful
um i think from from our perspective i
think we definitely did as an opcc
so i just wanted to just finally say
thank you to
um to everybody so so it's a german to
down from dorset police to
julian to paul from bcp from claire from
aster housing
and to andy from magma housing really
thank you for giving up your time
and thank you for for joining us in this
bit of an experiment in these in these
strange times
hopefully hopefully the first of many
thanks very much much appreciated
everyone
thank you
