• Homepage
• About us
• Our Work
• Capacity Building Your Organisation
• Client Groups
• Community Safety In Your Borough
• Community Safety & Crime Reduction
• Conference
• Consultancy
• CSAS Networks and events
• CSAS Training
• FADIS
• Hot Topics
  • Anti-Social Behaviour
    • Types of Anti-Social Behaviour
    • Common Enforcement Powers
    • Preventative Interventions
    • Risk Factors
  • Community Cohesion
  • Drugs and Crime
  • Environmental Crime
  • Guns, Gangs & Knives
  • Hate Crime
• CSAS Factsheets
• News
• Job Vacancies
• Resources & Links
• Enquiry Form
• Access keys
• Sitemap
• Site search

ASB: Commonly Used Enforcement Powers

A whole raft of legislation exisits to deal with problems relating to anti-social behaviour. Below we have highlighted some of the measures most commonly used.

• Acceptable Behaviour Contract and Agreements
• Anti-Social Behaviour Orders
• Closure Notices
• Designated Public Places Orders (DPPOs)
• Direction to Leave a Locality
• Dispersal of Groups
• Penalty Notices
• Public Order Powers
• Seizure of Property
• Social Landlord Powers
• Warnings
• More from CSAS 

Acceptable Behaviour Contract and Agreements

An acceptable behaviour contract (ABC) or Agreement (ABA) is an intervention designed to engage an individual in acknowledging their anti-social behaviour and its effect on others, with the aim of stopping that behaviour.

An ABC is a written agreement made between a person who has been involved in anti-social behaviour and their:

• local authority
• youth inclusion support panel (YISP)
• landlord
• local police force

Anti-Social Behaviour Orders

Anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) are court orders which prohibit the perpetrator from specific anti-social behaviours. An ASBO can ban an offender from:

• continuing the offending behaviour
• spending time with a particular group of friends
• visiting certain areas

ASBOs are issued for a minimum of two years. Their aim is to protect the public from the behaviour, rather than to punish the perpetrator.

An ASBO is a civil order, not a criminal penalty - this means it won't appear on an individual's criminal record. However, a breach of an ASBO is a criminal offence punishable by a fine or up to five years in prison.

Any one of the following agencies can apply for an order:

• Local authorities
• Police Forces and British Transport Police
• Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) and Housing Action Trusts (HATs)

Closure Notices

Closure notices are designed to be a swift and effective form of enforcement, encouraging residents, licensee landlords and club owners to take responsibility for the effect the activity surrounding the premises is having on the community.

In certain circumstances, premises that are associated with anti-social behaviour such as noise nuisance, drug dealing or disorder can be closed temporarily. These closure orders are backed by criminal penalties if they are breached by the owner, tenant or licensee landlord of the premises.

New and updated powers are provided by recent legislation to the police and local authorities to close down premises which are associated with noise, disorder or drug taking and dealing.

Designated Public Places Orders (DPPOs)

Designated public places orders (DPPOs) are a tool that can be used by local authorities to deal with the problems of anti-social alcohol drinking in public places.

Once a DPPO is in place the police can use their confiscation powers to enforce the restriction. It is not an offence to consume alcohol within a designated area, but failure to comply with an officer's requests to stop drinking and surrender alcohol without reasonable excuse is.

Direction to Leave a Locality

Section 27 of the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 provides a constable in uniform with the power to issue a direction to an individual aged 16 years or more to leave a locality. The constable can apply the direction if they are satisfied that the individual's presence is likely to contribute to the occurrence, repetition or continuance of alcohol-related crime and disorder. The direction can prohibit their return for up to 48 hours.

Dispersal of Groups

The powers enable a senior police officer to designate an area where there is persistent anti-social behaviour and a problem with groups causing intimidation. This area could be as small as a cash point or shopping arcade where groups often gather, or it could be as wide as a whole local authority area, as long as there is evidence of anti-social behaviour. The local authority must also agree to the designation, usually this decision will be made as part of the strategic work of a Crime and Disorder Partnership.

Penalty Notices

A fixed penalty notice (FPN) and a penalty notice for disorder (PND) provide for one-off penalties to be imposed for anti-social behaviour. Both schemes are designed to help police tackle low level nuisance and anti-social behaviour whilst reducing the bureaucracy involved with tackling these problems.

Receiving a penalty notice does not count as getting a conviction and payment of the penalty does not amount to an admission of guilt.

FPNs are mostly given for low-level anti-social behaviour of an environmental nature (with the exception of truancy). PNDs are awarded for more serious offences and disorderly behaviour that threatens other peoples' safety and well-being.

Public Order Powers

Many of the anti-social behaviour concerns of ASB practitioners will come within the ambit of Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986.
Section 5 makes it a criminal offence to use threatening, abusive, insulting words or behaviour or disorderly behaviour within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress by that behaviour. There must be a victim present at the scene for this offence to be made out.

Seizure of Property

In certain circumstances the law allows property that is being used to cause noise, nuisance, alarm or distress to be seized from the user or the owner.

These include:

• Powers to enter residential premises to seize noise-making equipment that are available to environmental health officers under the Noise Act 1996.
• Cars or motor bikes that are being used in a manner that causes alarm and distress, either on or off-road, can be seized by the police or police community safety officers (PCSOs).
• Vehicles that are used to fly-tip can be seized by the Environment Agency under the Control of Pollution (amendment) Act 1989.
• Alcohol can be seized from people who continue to drink on the street or other public areas within a controlled drinking zone, in defiance of an order to stop made by the police or a PCSO.

Social Landlord Powers

Part 2 of the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 introduced a raft of new powers for social landlords to tackle anti-social behaviour. These measures included demoted tenancies, anti-social behaviour injunctions and possession on the grounds of anti-social behaviour.

The Housing Act 2004 built on these measures allowing social landlords to extend introductory tenancies, refuse mutual exchanges or suspend the right to buy for anti-social behaviour.

The Housing Act 2006 introduced powers for local housing authorities to introduce licensing of private rented accommodation in order to address a number of issues including anti-social behaviour.

Warnings

There are different levels of warnings that can be given to people who act in an anti-social manner.

They range from early intervention warnings (written or verbal) that can be given by any agency and have no direct legal consequences, up to formal warnings by the police (cautions for adults, reprimands and final warnings for juveniles) that are recorded and monitored and can lead to a criminal prosecution for persistent offenders.

Such formal warnings will be taken into account by the court when deciding a sentence.

More from CSAS

Download a copy of : ASB Table of Statutory Interventions

 [top}