P5 Crime and disorder

Below I am going to analyse 2 acts of parliament, they are going to be the crime and disorder act 1998 and the clean neighbourhoods and environment act 2005. I shall analyse the key content and the purpose of both acts and how they can be implemented into modern everyday life.

Crime and Disorder act 1998

This order was published on December 2nd 1997 and then received royal accent in July 1998, this act is one of the main barriers in the governments main aim of re ducing crime in all local areas. The main aim of this act is to prevent both crime and disorder in local communities and to abolish the presumption that a child older than 10 is incapable of crime, this means that a child may be sentenced for committing a crime e.g. the James Bugler killers Robert Thompson and Jon venables were both aged 10. To make the childs provision to give evidence in his/hers trial, another aim of this act is to abolish the death penalty for both treason and piracy, also the aim of this act is to make further amendments to the criminal justice system e.g. to change how offenders will be remanded. An outcome of this act is the ASBO (Anti social behaviour Order) this is designed to keep offenders out of certain areas e.g. Public parks where they may have committed the crime in. An ASBO may be permitted if the offender has been declared likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress. As it states within the description of the crime and disorder act ASBOS are given to peop le if they are likely stress to people and they are given to serious but not criminal activity. In South Yorkshire there was about 13 ASBOs issued in the whole of 2009 so the questions is, are we being tough enough in handing them out or are people not wanting them? The crime and disorder act can be used in many situations e.g. when the victim which can be an elderly couple or just an elderly person has been terrorised by youths constantly making noise or damaging their property. The way this act can be implemented in this situation would be that the

youths if court may get an ASBO which will mean that they cannot go within so many metres of the victims house or in some major cases the offender may be under house arrest which means they cannot leave their house either at certain times or all together. This act has many good points but also has some flaws, this can be that if an offender only has an ASBO then he/she may just ignore the ASBO altogether. Another flaw is that some local youth groups will see an ASBO as a mark of respect which mean more young people will want to get an ASBO because it is seen as a trendy thing in some parts of the UK e.g. Certain London Boroughs where gangs operate.

Clean Neighbourhoods and environment act 2005

This order was first brought in, in 2005 and received royal accent on 7 th April 2005, the main reason why this act was published was because in 2002 the government did a review of the framework for providing and maintaining a clean and safe local environment for all people in local areas. The review of the old system found that the powers, duties and guidance for dealing with problems associated with the quality of local environment areas were not working as effectively as they should have been. This act is an instant way of deterring people from committing a similar offence in the near future e.g. fines given to cars being parked illegally. The following offences will be listed under this new legislation 1. Vehicles Nuisance parking, this can either be when local businesses leave their cars outside on the street somewhere either outside a residents house or if they park outside local school which means local residents cannot pick up their children. This section of the act means that it becomes an offence if someone parks a motor vehicle on purpose if the owners intention is to sell the car. 2. Litter and Refuse since this act came into power it has now become an offence to drop litter in local areas e.g. pavements or parks, this offence stretches to litter being dropped in water areas e.g. lakes or rivers. The government can impose a fine if someone is caught dropping litter, the fixed penalty in the UK is 75 3. Graffiti and other defacement This part of the act means that if people are caught graphitizing a building and fly posting on buildings without authorisation, then they will have either a fixed penalty issued or ordered to remove the defacement. 4. Waste This means that if anyone is caught illegally dumping rubbish (Fly-tipping) then they will be fixed with a penalty of 300. This act also means that it is now the local authoritys problem to deal with the rubbish. 5. Dogs This section of the act relates to the control of dogs in local areas such as parks or on the streets, if an offender is caught then they may get a fine of up to 500 in court. 6. Noise This section of the act relates to noisy neighbours e.g. having their music on loud at night in the early hours of the morning which affect other people. If an offender is reported

more than once then they will get a fixed penalty of 75 which has to be paid within 14 days of issue. Both of the acts mentioned above passed the responsibility to the local authorities particularly dealing with local issues rather than national issues e.g. traffic wardens are operated by local councils rather than the governments police force. Because this lets the police deal with more serious offences e.g. murders. Overall the governments pass on the responsibility to the local authorities so that they can identify local issues that arise this is because it will speed up the overall system for dealing with criminals. They both will also identify and prioritize what issues they are going to deal with e.g. drug raids or graffiti. With the local authorities given the most power they can set themselves targets for what they want to achieve e.g. reduce the overall crime by a certain percentage. Between 2008 and 2009 Rotherham reduced their overall crime statistics by 15% that was one of their main targets. Another bonus of this act is that it has forced agencies to work together, this is called a multiagency, this could be seen when police officers do a drug raid and there is a child involved then there would be many agencies working together e.g. the NHS will support the drug user to help get them off the drug, social services will get involved from the start involving a child and also the police because if the drug is a class B or A then they may prosecute him/her. Overall because of the intervention of these acts less crime has been committed but the crime is still around, the biggest success is in the dog fouling area because it isnt as bad as it was before the 2005 act got passed. However there is confusion between the offender and the victim e.g. if someone drops litter out of a car window who do you report it to the police or the local council because it is littering?