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UK Home Secretary wants young thugs openly filmed and hounded at home
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said on Thursday young thugs who terrorise neighbourhoods should be given "a taste of their own medicine" with police filming and harassing them at home.
- Reuters
- Published: 14:00 May 8, 2008
London: Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said on Thursday young thugs who terrorise neighbourhoods should be given "a taste of their own medicine" with police filming and
harassing them at home.
She wants officers to target those who continually engage in anti-social behaviour, with extra checks to see if dues like their road tax and TV licences had been paid.
"I want stronger action to deal with persistent offenders," Smith is due say in a speech in London.
"I want police and local agencies to focus on them by giving them a taste of their own medicine: daily visits, repeated warnings and relentless filming of offenders to create an
environment where there is nowhere to hide."
The Guardian newspaper said the initiative is an attempt by the government, battered into third place in last week's local council elections, to win back voters.
Tackling anti-social behaviour, which is estimated to cost the country more than 3 billion pounds a year, has been a major issue for the government since Labour won power in 1997.
But former Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted last year that he had been wrong to believe the issue could be resolved simply by investing in run-down neighbourhoods.
Media reports said Smith would announce that fewer ASBOs, which the government put forward as major weapon against yobs, are being issued, with a shift to other "early intervention" methods such as parenting orders.
A recent National Audit Office report found that more than half of offenders given the Anti-Social Behaviour Orders break the terms of them and that there has been no analysis of what
measures are the most effective in dealing with louts.
In the latest crackdown, Smith wants police forces to copy an idea developed by Essex Police to target known offenders.
Under "Operation Leopard", officers knocked on the doors of known troublemakers and warned them that future bad behaviour would not be tolerated.
Police then followed the group around an estate for the next four days, photographing and searching them and their associates.
The force said the result was dramatic.
"Burglaries, criminal damage and car crime stopped completely during the course of the operation at the end of January. And there have been few incidents since," a police
spokesman said last month.
Officers said the aim was not to target kids hanging around on street corners but those responsible for vandalism, vehicle crime and burglary.
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