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Antisocial Behaviour

You will excuse me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I cannot comment on an individual case that I know nothing about. I accept what the hon. Gentleman has said, but a punishment based in the community can sometimes be more effective than a short prison sentence. My experience—I know that the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) shares this view—is that short prison sentences can often be much more damaging in the longer term and lead to much more crime in the longer term than a properly targeted, focused community-based sentence. I cannot comment on the individual case, because I do not know it, but, self-evidently, somebody who goes to prison for 12 weeks might lose any job or home that they have, might not get off the drugs or alcohol that are leading them into particular problems and will, ultimately, not benefit from their time in prison. However, a strong community-based sentence that provides support in the community to tackle issues with drugs or alcohol and which gives people the opportunity to work or live locally can be effective in the longer term in reducing levels of crime. As a whole, the Government's approach has been successful. Hon. Members would expect me to say that, but it is not just me saying that—three independent reports have told us that that is the case. The National Audit Office report found that two thirds of perpetrators stopped behaving antisocially after one intervention and that nine out of 10 ceased after three interventions. The British crime survey has shown that the negative perception of these issues is falling. If we look at the broader picture in our communities, we see that people are safer than they were 12 years ago, difficult though some of the challenges are. The chances of being a victim of crime are historically low and crime has fallen by 39 per cent. since May 1997. The recent data also show that, on tackling antisocial behaviour issues, confidence in our police has risen in the past year alone, from 45 per cent. in March 2008 to 50 per cent. The neighbourhood policing role—this goes back to the point mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh)—means that we now have 16,000 community support officers, who were an invention of this Government. They not only support police on the ground, but help, particularly in local communities, to deliver a visible response and an embedded police presence in the neighbourhoods that need it most. Indeed, I have been out with local community support officers and I have looked at these issues in detail to see where we are on improving standards. We have provided some of the tools and powers that people want, but as I have said in the debate, there is more that we need to do. We have funded an action line, a website and help and support to practitioners to deal with the issues that I have mentioned. I want to make a final mention of the youth crime action plan—a particularly important piece of work that is ongoing for the community at large. On enforcement and prevention, the youth crime action plan has been backed by £100 million of additional funding, which has been put into selected areas across the country, where offending rates are highest. That has supported a range of activity across the board to help reduce antisocial behaviour. On Friday night last week—the night before Halloween —I visited the city of Liverpool, which is the city of my birth, to look at a particular operation in the Clubmoor and Norris Green area, which provides real help and support through interventions to provide Friday and Saturday night activities for young people. On Friday, through the youth crime action plan, the police supported the hiring of a cinema where they showed a film free of charge. Individuals were attracted into the cinema, rather than being on the streets causing mischief. We had an extra policing presence on the streets of Liverpool last Friday night. We had social workers and youth workers from across the city working together to look at vulnerable individuals who might have been drunk or involved in drug-related or other activity. Those youth crime action plan activities are funded by Government money that is being invested on behalf of the taxpayer to prevent crime. Such resources need to continue to be provided, and they will form part of the activities in our campaign to show that public investment is often good investment that makes a real difference on the ground in communities, as I saw on Friday night in Liverpool.