Written question asked by David Davis (Conservative) on Monday, 14 November 2005, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 16 November 2005. It was answered by Charles Clarke (Labour) on Monday, 5 December 2005 on behalf of the Home Office.

Police

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) groups have been dispersed and (b) under-16s have been removed to their place of residence by (i) community support officers and (ii) police officers under paragraph 4A of Schedule 4 to the Police Reform Act 2002 in each of the last four years, broken down by police authority.

Answer: Section 30 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 provides the police with a power to disperse groups and remove under 16s to their place of residence, within designated areas. The Act also inserted paragraph 4A into Schedule four to the Police Reform Act 2002 to allow designated community support officers to use these powers.These powers came into force on 20 January 2004. From a Home Office data collection exercise, we estimate that 809 areas were designated between January 2004 and June 2005. Police officers and community support officer dispersed 14,375 people from the 293 areas where data was available. They also removed 520 young people under 16 to their place of residence from 236 areas where data was available. We do not hold the information on whether these powers were exercised by police officers or community support officers.

Secondary information