Changed for good: success for immediate justice

From crime to community work – how immediate justice inspired a change for good, as we see the lowest levels in our hotspot areas since July 2023.

Our immediate justice scheme gives those who have committed crime such as anti-social behaviour an opportunity to complete work within their community to make amends.

In this case, a teenager was giving litter picking as his community work, alongside an educational course.

He completed both, and decided to continue volunteering in the community, litter picking past his required hours and working with a charity too. He’s also since joined a police cadet programme and become more involved in his community.

Becky Clough, our Immediate Justice and Hotspot Policing manager said: “This is a really positive outcome for this scheme, as it gave this teenager an opportunity to turn their life around and do some good.

“This is just one example of the impact this scheme can have, as we reached more than 1,000 referrals last month, with 72% of those who complete the scheme not reoffending.

“Immediate justice has been an invaluable tool in tackling and preventing anti-social behaviour, working alongside the hard work from our police teams as well as our targeted hotspot patrols.”

Our hotspot patrols began alongside immediate justice as two trailblazer schemes designed to tackle the behaviour that disrupts or disturbs our communities – such as being loud or intimidating, damaging property and more.

More than 12,000 extra targeted hotspot patrols have taken place since the scheme was introduced in July 2023 and last month saw incidents of anti-social behaviour at their lowest in that time.