Anti Social Behavior

I have been looking at various websites that are dedicated to anti social behavior. It has been interesting finding out what people’s definition of anti social behaviour is.

The Home Office website describes anti social behaviour as a “whole complex of selfish and unacceptable activities that can blight the quality of community life.”

The crime reduction websites describes anti social behavior as “behaviour that causes or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more people who are not in the same household as the perpetrator”. Listed below are websites that have proved useful:

Home Office

Together Campaign

Anti social behaviour Scotland

Crime Reduction

Types of anti social behaviour

Anti social behaviour covers a huge number of offences. Here are some listed below:

Harassment of residents or passers-by
Verbal abuse
Criminal damage
Noise nuisance
Writing graphitti
Engaging in threatening behaviour
Racial abuse
Smoking or drinking
Substance misuse
Joyriding
Begging
Kerb crawling
Assault
Vehicle crime
Waste dumping
Fly posting

These are just some of the behaviours that are classed as being anti social. From reading a variety of site it seems that anti social behaviour is split into three defining categories.  These are environmental issues, which would include things such as vandalism and rubbish dumping.  Street issues which would include begging and harassments of residents or passers-by, and finally neighbours, which would include noise nuisance etc.

According to the Home Office website anti social behaviour happens for a number of reasons. It could be due to:

Family environment -poor parental discipline, family conflict    

School & Educational -lack of commitment, aggressive behaviour

Community Life -community disorganization, availability of drubs                      

Personal Factors -alienation & lack of social commitment, early involvement in problem behaviour

Throughout the research process I have realized that anti social behaviour is a large topic that involves and effects a huge variety of people. I have tried to focus my research on personal opinions rather than relying on books or websites.