Prevention

Actions can be taken to empower local people to resist anti social behaviour (ASB), thus protecting the victim. Intergenerational work, for example, can be undertaken to allow bridges to be built between young and older people in a community, so that older people learn not to feel threatened by groups of young people and younger people learn about the consequences of their actions.

Physical measures such as street lighting, vandal resisitant materials or youth shelters may make an area less susceptible to use for anti social behaviour, and the planning of public space has improved in recent years to take Secured by Design and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) into considersation, improving this aspect of prevention. However, the nebulous nature of ASB means that it will never be possible to secure all environments against it entirely.

Prevention comes into particular effect when dealing with people who are behaving anti-socially, or who are at risk of doing so. Many preventative measures are aimed specifically at young people, but the problem is not related just to them.

Examples of work to prevent ASB includes:

Improving the physical environment

Auditing the currrent nature and scale of the problem so that suitable actions can be taken.

Coordinating services aimed to combat ASB and to support people experiencing it

Involving schools and youth services to identify and target vulnerable young people and to provide coordinated services

Using local media to publicise acceptable standards of behaviour, public reassurance messages and good news stories

Working to ensure that tenancy agreements incorporate a clause about acceptable behaviour

Improvinng housing allocation so that incompatible groups, for example sheltered housing allocation

Improving housing allocation so that incompatible groups, for example sheltered housing for older people and a young people's hostel are not jutaposed.