Anti-social behaviour has decreased across the coastal command area compared to last year, although officials acknowledge that high policing demand and public perception remain significant challenges.
Anti-social behaviour incidents have fallen by just over five per cent across the coastal command area over the last year.
Official figures show a decrease in reports, even as local police officers face a period of extremely high demand. The shifting nature of neighbourhood crime means that nuisance behaviour often ebbs and flows throughout the calendar year.
Seasonal spikes in difficult behaviour are traditionally seen during the busy summer months, as well as around autumn events such as Halloween and Bonfire Night.
Jo Coles, the Deputy Mayor for North Yorkshire, acknowledged the recent drop in coastal incidents but conceded that official statistics do not always reflect the daily reality faced by local residents:
"We're currently in a period of extremely high demand across the police, but the coastal command area um had a 5.1% decrease in antisocial behaviour compared to the same period the previous year. That's not enormous, but it is still nevertheless, I completely understand that that will not necessarily be what the community experiences or um believes to be the case. There is always an issue with reporting. I was at a public meeting which was um convened in response to some anti-social behaviour, big concerns from the community. Actually, some of it wasn't anti-social behaviour, some of it was um some serious crime, and actually I think sometimes we are calling things anti-social behaviour that actually I would class differently."
Wait times for the non-emergency police phone line have also seen a reduction.
The deputy mayor said callers using the 101 service are now waiting for less time to be connected to an operator:
"Under four minutes, but is the average waiting time now for a 101 call. Of course, you want it to be um even faster than that, but equally there is a gain, a resourcing to impact uh equation to balance out how much policing resources, but it really would urge people if they are experiencing anti-social behaviour to ensure that they're reporting it via 101 or via the online reporting mechanism, or they can email into or contact their neighbourhood policing team directly and make sure that things are reported that way as well, because I know how important this is to communities, particularly when there are spikes in difficult behaviour and that tends to be in the summer months, but also around Halloween and Bonfire night."
Ensuring that residents can easily contact the authorities remains a priority for the force. The recent improvements to the 101 service are part of a wider effort to balance policing resources against the real-world impact of community crime.
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