Tackling night-time drinking

Another example of anti-social behaviour is the conduct associated with drinking during the night-time economy (drinking in town on the busy nights, Friday and Saturday).
Insp York explains: ‘Whilst a certain amount of low level rowdiness is to be expected and can be tolerated, where such behaviour begins to get out of hand or looks like it may lead to offences being committed, police can exercise their powers under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. This provides officers with a direction to disperse a person from a specified area (outlined on a map provided to them) and they are unable to return within 48 hours. If they do return, they are arrested.
‘This is not a big issue in Goole and officers only disperse very few persons each weekend, and where they do, it rarely results in arrest. However, where we do have occasion to disperse an individual due to their behaviour associated with drinking, we always follow this up by visiting them within a few days and explaining the consequences of their behaviour. Whilst these visits are very few for the Goole area, they have been well received by the perpetrators, who were unaware of the consequences of their behaviour at the time.’