Tackling anti-social behaviour becomes priority in Shoreham and Worthing

THE police crime mapping system has revealed anti-social behaviour remains one of Shoreham and Worthing’s biggest issues.

After being introduced in December, the scheme – at www.police.uk – has revealed more than a third of incidents reported to date relate to anti-social crimes.

In response, the force has made the issue one of its top five priorities and has introduced a new pilot system to support victims who may be preparing for court cases or may require counselling.

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Taking central Worthing as an example, there were 523 crimes reported for the latest map (for February), with 213 of these involving anti-social behaviour, 90 violent crimes and five robberies.

Based on these figures, the most crime-affected street so far this year is Montague Place. There were 17 incidents of crime there in January and the same figure the following month. These statistics fell largely within the “other” category, including criminal damage, drug abuse and shoplifting.

Meanwhile, Shoreham’s figures reflected its smaller size.

There were a total of 100 reported incidents in February.

Nearly half of these (46) were anti-social behaviour issues, with the bulk of the remainder being categorised as “other”. It was a similar picture for January (80 crimes) and, in December, there were 103 incidents.

The most affected street was High Street, with nine incidents in February which were not broken down by category.

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Worthing and Adur police’s Chief Inspector Ian Pollard welcomed the crime mapping.

He said: “The aim of these maps is to raise awareness of what the police are doing to tackle crime and disorder and how people can support their local police.

“It should be taken as a positive thing, as it puts crime in context.

“We can use our resources to look at those areas and come up with different approaches to dealing with some of those problems.”