Kent's Police and Crime Commissioner to launch new Anti Social Behaviour programme
He will announce it later in the year
Last updated 17th Sep 2024
Kent' Police and Crime Commissioner will launch a new programme later in the year, targeting anti social behaviour.
In January, it was announced Kent would be given £932,000 by the home office to enhance neighbourhood patrols in 'hotspots' across the county, with half being spent on an 'immediate justice' programme.
This would have seen perpetrators of ASB repairing the damage they caused - 48 hours after the crime was committed.
However, in July, it was announced the government would be trailing this in 10 counties, with Kent not being one of them.
This left Matthew Scott 'bitter' but 'not deterred', finding funding for his own similar scheme. He says while some details need to be figured out, he is hoping to announce it later in the year.
He told us: "I was very bitter when it was cut because i think we need to be use community payback in such a way that people who commit ASB payback to the communities they have harmed.
"I'm not going to be deterred by this. I have identified funding for a version of an immediate justice system in Kent, but it will take us a little bit longer to get it off the ground as the funding hasn't been made immediately available.
"With ASB, it does have a really challenging affect on your neighbours, particular when it's persistent, it affects people's quality of life and we need to make people understand that and payback to the communities they are harming
The Home Office said: ““The previous government’s immediate justice pilots demonstrated that it takes significant time to get projects up and running, and only six months of funding was available to other police forces new to the scheme.
“This would not have been an effective nation-wide programme for tackling anti-social behaviour, nor would it offer value for taxpayer money - even more so in the light of the state of public finances which this Government has inherited.”