The Police and Crime Commissioner for Nottinghamshire (PCC) is funding two new anti-social behaviour officers in the Ashfield district to help tackle fly-tipping, littering, noise nuisance and other types of antisocial behaviour.
In addition to the two new officers for Ashfield, the PCC is also funding a new officer in each of Nottingham City, Mansfield and Newark and Sherwood council areas; and a sixth officer will work across the boroughs of Broxtowe, Gedling and Rushcliffe.
The six new officers are part of a new Immediate Justice Scheme being led by the PCC. The officers will be able to refer alleged offenders into the Immediate Justice scheme as an out-of-court disposal for their offence. The office of the PCC said that this county is believed to be the only Immediate Justice area that is providing funding to local councils for Immediate Justice antisocial behaviour officers.
Nottinghamshire is one of ten “trailblazer” areas across the country to receive funding from the Home Office to implement an Immediate Justice scheme. The county’s project was launched in January and provides a mechanism for people who commit antisocial behaviour or low-level offences to be required to clean up public spaces or take part in other positive community activities within days of their offence.
“The aim is to show communities in a very visible way that antisocial behaviour is being treated seriously and with urgency, whilst also acting as a deterrent to others”, the office of the PCC said in a statement. “It is only available to eligible first-time or low-level offenders and gives them an alternative to going to court or paying fines – by spending a set amount of time repairing the harm they have caused to communities.”
The scheme will also offer support to those involved, such as referrals for drug or alcohol treatment, to help prevent reoffending. Persistent offenders will continue to be dealt with through the formal criminal justice system.
“Antisocial behaviour can have a serious impact on communities”, Nottinghamshire’s PCC, Caroline Henry, said. “Whether it is late-night noise nuisance that disrupts working families’ sleep or criminal damage that leaves people inconvenienced and out of pocket, it is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
“Police and local councils work together all the time to tackle antisocial behaviour and last year we created an Antisocial Behaviour Taskforce to bring our collaboration closer – sharing information and best practice to better target our resources.
“By making this new funding available to councils, we are able to enhance their ability to respond to antisocial behaviour and refer more people into the Immediate Justice scheme – which will provide the community with really visible reassurance that offenders are being made to pay back the communities they have harmed and are also offered help to break the cycle of offending.”
Cllr John Willmott, Ashfield District Council’s executive leader member for community safety and crime reduction, said: “Our commitment is to a safer and stronger Ashfield, so being able to devote dedicated resource to tackling, and hopefully reversing, antisocial behaviour in our communities will help enormously. “Over the last two years antisocial behaviour has fallen by more than third but we know the negative impact it can have, especially when persistent behaviour; this directly affects the quality of people’s lives. Our new antisocial behaviour officers will be working to prevent antisocial behaviour using a range of intervention measures, alongside being equipped with the tools to take robust action where necessary.”