Homepage
Act now – Who to report to

Act Now - Who To Report To

What can you do?

With anti-social behaviour, it is a good idea to first consider tackling the problem yourself or with others before resorting to formal reporting assuming that it is a relatively small incident of anti-social behaviour.

Ask yourself if you are being reasonable
Go to the person calmly and explain the problems you are experiencing (or if applicable ask your Neighbourhood Watch contact to do this on your behalf)
Do not shout or be verbally abusive as they may shout and retaliate and be abusive to you
If you do not feel confident enough to approach the person face to face, try writing a polite note explaining what the problems are and post this through their door. This could also be done anonymously or as a group, e.g. writing "a few of us are a bit concerned..."

ACT NOW GUIDE - Reporting Anti-social behaviour

There are a number of different agencies involved in tackling anti-social behaviour. The main three are the police, your local authority and housing associations. Our ‘Act Now!’ Interactive Guide will help you report anti-social behaviour to the right agency in the right way. Who to report to will depend on various factors such as:

To see a list of other agencies that are involved, please see our Who’s who of agencies. Don’t just assume if it is out of office hours that you need to call the Police. You do not. Local Authorities and Housing Associations have out-of-hour numbers you can call too. Our Act Now! Guide will take you to the right page of your Local Authority website for many of the common problems like noise and graffiti.

Gathering Evidence

Upon reporting matters to the relevant authorities, you will want to have some detailed notes and evidence of the anti-social behaviour you have encountered. Evidence can be captured on diary sheets, CCTV, photographs for example. Each of these topics are covered on the ‘gathering evidence’ page of this website However, if you feel that no one is listening despite you making several reports to the authorities, then you may want to see if you meet the threshold to raise the community trigger, which is your statutory right to request a review of your ASB case if you feel that no effective action has been taken after you have reported it three times to either the Local Authority, Police or housing association.

When you call to report anti-social behaviour: Be Prepared.

You will probably be asked the following questions so have your answers ready:

The police, local authority, or other agency have a range of tools available to them to tackle anti-social behaviour. Early intervention techniques are very effective in a number of situations – these include measures such as verbal and written warnings, mediation and Acceptable Behaviour Contracts (also called ABCs, or Acceptable Behaviour Agreements) which are voluntary written agreements between a perpetrator who is under 18 and the local authority and police, agreeing not to be involved with certain anti-social acts (witnessed also by their parents).

There are a number of legal tools and powers available to various agencies and which if any apply depends on your individual case. See What the Law Says for information on these tools. The majority of these actions require an application to be made to the court and therefore the decision will ultimately lie with a Judge. In order to make an application, agencies will therefore need to gather together solid evidence to support their case. You can help by providing as much evidence as possible with as much detail as you can. They will usually also need to convince the judge that they have tried early intervention techniques such as mediation and or ABCs which have subsequently failed and the reason why legal action is now being taken.

Act Now - Who To Report To

What can you do?

ACT NOW GUIDE - Reporting Anti-social behaviour

Gathering Evidence

When you call to report anti-social behaviour: Be Prepared.

Contact us

Effective support for anti-social behaviour victims