Summary
The report presents findings from the 2004/05 BCS on perceptions of anti-social behaviour (ASB); the level of experience of ASB; the nature of ASB incidents; the impact of experiencing ASB; and the personal, lifestyle and area characteristics associated with perceiving problems and experiencing ASB. The key findings are as follows: the most widely perceived ASB problems were young people hanging around and rubbish or litter, just under a third of people regarded these a ‘very’ or ‘fairly big’ problem ; The most widely experienced behaviour was young people hanging around; two-thirds of people had seen this in the previous year. However some people who had experienced ASB did not perceive these behaviours to be a problem ; this was most frequent among people who had seen young people hanging around ; A large proportion of people who perceived problems with ASB had personally seen or experienced these behaviours in the previous 12 months, for example 85% of people who perceived problems with drunk and rowdy behaviour had experienced this in their area ; Generally people who held positive views about their community were less likely to have experienced ASB than those who had negative views. However, it is not possible to establish whether experiencing ASB lowers community cohesion or vice versa.