The Real Victims of Anti Social Behaviour

One of the most common issues that the people I talk to in North Durham are concerned about is anti social behaviour. Different people in different parts of the constituency all have their own different horror stories to tell about the problems that anti social behaviour has caused them.

The elderly people afraid to leave their homes at night. The local people unprepared to go into Chester-le-Street or Stanley town centre after dark on a weekend. The angling club in Chester-le-Street who have had their lives made a misery by anti social behaviour. All of these people have been badly let down by a system that isn't doing enough to make sure that they can go about their lives without the worry or harassment of anti social behaviour.

Something is clearly going wrong when the Durham Police area has one of the highest rates of anti social behaviour in the country (63,412 incidences in 2006/07) and one of the highest ASBO breach rates in the country of 73%.

Frankly, this just isn't good enough. We need to do much more to protect the hard working people and ordinary families who are having their lives made a misery by anti social behaviour.