by Crime and Policing Minister Sarah Jones
Antisocial behaviour has been downgraded for too long. Treated as an afterthought, an inconvenience to be managed rather than a wrong to be righted. For the families kept awake by noise and intimidation, the shopkeepers facing daily abuse, the residents too frightened to use their own local park, this is their reality.
Week after week, misery caused by the same faces who know the system will not catch up with them. For too long, the powers available to police and councils have not matched the scale of the problem. Respect Orders change that, and from 26 October they will be available to every police force and council across England and Wales.
Officers will be able to ban repeat offenders from the town centres and neighbourhoods they blight. Breaching a Respect Order will be a criminal offence, with arrest, prosecution and imprisonment on the table.
And crucially, offenders can be compelled to address the root causes of their behaviour. Drug and alcohol treatment, anger management, interventions that break the cycle rather than simply move the problem on.
We have already acted on vehicle-related anti-social behaviour. Police can now seize nuisance vehicles without a warning and destroy them in seven days rather than fourteen. Disruptive car meets and hooligans tearing through town centres will find the law moves faster than they do.
This is all part of our wider mission to rebuild policing from the ground up. That is why we are boosting visible policing in the community, supported by our Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee and our commitment to deliver 13,000 additional neighbourhood officers.
Together we will restore the vital link between neighbourhood policing and the communities they serve.