Anti-social behaviour (FOI)

​Request

A
How much States of Jersey Police time has been spent dealing with anti-social behaviour from people aged under 18 so far this year?
B
Can you break this information down per month?
C
Can you provide information on how much States of Jersey Police time was spent dealing with anti-social behaviour in 2017, 2018 and 2019?
D
What type of anti-social behaviour reports do you receive?
E
What locations are considered as 'hot spots' for anti-social behaviour by people aged under 18?
F
How many arrests have been made, and how many have led to convictions this year?
G
How much of the anti-social behaviour offences are committed by repeat offenders?

Response

A-C
This information is not held.

The States of Jersey Police do not hold this information and are not required to calculate it under the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011. The broad definition of antisocial behaviour makes it unrealistic to check each possible offense covered under the term ASB and then calculate the time spent by each officer attending, dealing with and investigating any offences identified.

D
Anti-social behaviour covers many types of actions, from low-level persistent nuisance to serious public disturbance.

• It is behaviour that can cause nuisance and annoyance
• It is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress
• It creates significant and persistent problems in neighbourhoods
• It leaves communities feeling intimidated and afraid.

Anti-social behaviour is defined as "acting in a manner that caused or is likely to cause alarm, distress or harassment to one or more persons not of the same household".

Examples of anti-social behaviour could include –

Noise nuisance, Criminal damage, vandalism, graffiti, Intimidation/harassment, Litter/rubbish, fouling of public areas, fly tipping, Drug or alcohol misuse and drug dealing, Nuisance motorcycles and Misuse of fireworks.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. The key issue is the impact that these actions have on victims, witnesses and the community we live in.

E
Top 5 ‘hot spots’ for 2020 where culprits are under 18

• The area encompassing Hilgrove St, Halkett St and Queen St, St Helier
• Havre Des Pas, St Helier
• Millennium Park, St Helier
• Parade Park, St Helier
• Winston Churchill Memorial Park, St Brelade.

F
There is no specific offence of ‘Antisocial Behaviour’ (ASB) but offences including disorderly conduct, breach of the peace, public nuisance and offences under policing of roads, parks and beaches are grouped into the ASB category.

ASB incidents can instead be measured by incident logs, whereby an incident of ASB is recorded by the police control room after a member of the public has reported. The below table shows these incidents from 2017 to 2020 where the individual involved was under 18.

It is not possible to ascertain the conviction rates within these incidents in the time allowed to complete Freedom of Information requests.

G
In 2020 to date (1 January 2020 to 29 September 2020) as a percentage, 67% of all antisocial behaviour police incident logs were linked to offenders who were under 18 and committed at least two offences in 2020 (defining them as repeat offenders).

Article applied

Article 16 A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.