As the UK’s hard-pressed councils and beleaguered business leaders try to bring their Covid-crunched towns and cities back to some sort of normality and the pre-pandemic spends of 2019, worrying spikes in anti-social behaviour and violence are now threatening to derail the recovery or any of the progress that’s been made. And sadly nowhere is that disturbing rise more acutely felt than here in Scotland.
From Angus to Dumfries and Galloway, almost every council in Scotland has, since the beginning of the pandemic, reported huge year-on-year rises in anti-social behaviour.
In Angus, there have been calls for the area’s anti-social behaviour strategy to be reinforced and for more community wardens - troops on the ground. Covid rule-breaking saw a 120% increase in public nuisance complaints and a 30% hike in complaints as frustrated locked-down locals and neighbours and friends turned on each other.
It is a depressing and pernicious trend repeated in council areas, villages, towns, and cities right across Scotland. West Dunbartonshire, East Lothian, Moray, Highlands and Islands, and Perth and Kinross, to name but a few have all reported dramatic spikes in vandalism, crime and anti-social behaviour. Concerns have also been raised by residents that their complaints are not being treated seriously enough by Police Scotland’s call centre.
But more troubling and underpinning these dramatic rises in anti-social behaviour, has been the rapid increases in intimidation, violence or threats of violence, fire raising, graffiti, vandalism, racial harassment, and youth crime, particularly within our inner cities.
Aberdeen’s North East Polices Public Protection Committee recently released a report that revealed there was an unprecedented surge in crime and anti-social behaviour in the Granite City last year.
A shocking 1,570 assaults were recorded, vandalism cases rose to 1,059, while fire-raising incidents increased by nearly a quarter (24.6%). Racially aggravated harassment or conduct increased by 21% against the five-year average.
The report suggested that these numbers had been impacted by the easing of pandemic restrictions as well as large groups of cooped-up youths letting off steam appearing in the city centre during the summer months.
Edinburgh, Dundee, Perth have all recently reported disturbing rises in anti-social behaviour. But it’s in the great sprawling metropolis region of Glasgow, with around 1.84 million people, one third of the nation’s jobs and business base, where the problems are most acute and hampering the city’s recovery.
And despite the best efforts of the increasingly frustrated members of the City Centre Task Force, Resilience Group, Police Scotland, and Glasgow’s determined council officers and employees, all unenviably charged with regenerating the city, and making it cleaner and safer for everyone, it is now buckling under increasing incidents of anti-social behaviour and worrying levels of crime.
So much so that in a response to heightened concerns of anti-social behaviour, particularly from numbers of young people gathering in the city centre, the Greater Glasgow Divisional Violence Reduction unit has increased police patrols across the city to “robustly deal” with rising criminal activity.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar is scathing of the council leadership, saying “Glasgow is one of the greatest cities in the world, but our city centre is being failed. There is a worrying surge in anti-social behaviour and crime, streets are going uncleansed, and graffiti and litter is everywhere. Glasgow deserves so much better than this and the SNP council is not showing our great city and those who live in it the respect they deserve.”
Moves are afoot though to rectify and improve the situation. The Scottish Government’s Scottish City Centre Recovery Task Force recently approved a £6 million funding package for embattled Scottish cities, a large proportion of which will be spent on marketing and promotional activity for the city. It’s welcome funding which should help drive up footfall and boost dwindling visitor numbers. But a lot more funding is going to be required to reduce rising crime, clean up and regenerate the city.
And as the cost of living, inflation and energy prices continue to soar, sadly so will incidents of crime and anti-social behaviour. The Scottish Government must prioritise the problem, give it their undivided attention, be resource-intensive and endeavour to find a palatable solution for all, especially our disenfranchised youth, if the current rot is to be halted and our national recovery started in earnest.
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