Not a week goes by without some police related headline story in the press.

This time it's Sir Dennis O'Connor and his report on Anti Social Behaviour (ASB), published today - 'Stop the Rot'.

The press have jumped on to his phrase about us having retreated from the streets. I would rather describe it as us having been 'pulled away' from the streets by a vast array of competing demands and raised expectations in all sorts of other police activity. However, I think we all recognise what he is talking about and his warning about the risk of more reductions in policing due to public spending cuts is very timely.

He also recognises that there has been improvement but, as he says, there needs to be more. In Hampshire we already take ASB seriously. So much so that we have just run a 3 month long campaign which in Southampton produced some good results.

Personal experience and feelings of safety count most but for the record here's the numbers:

Criminal Damage

2009 – 1596
2010 – 1386 (a reduction of 13%)

Incidents of rowdy and inconsiderate behaviour

2009 – 4262
2010 – 3731 (a reduction of 12%)

Vehicle nuisance

2009 – 615
2010 – 576 (a reduction of 6%)

Sir Dennis says this is what works:
• Briefings on ASB for all staff likely to deal with the issue (including neighbourhood, response and CID officers)
• Tracking what is happening locally using data and intelligence
• The problem-solving capacity of neighbourhood policing teams.

Well we already do this here through officers and police staff but can we do it better?

What he says doesn’t work is:
• Graded response systems that prioritise calls for attendance (or non-attendance in the case of ASB); and
• Lengthy partnership processes which have distinctive significant negative consequences for victims. Indeed delay can amount to inaction from the victim’s perspective.

Senior police bosses nationally have responded to the report by saying they too recognise the importance of tackling ASB and the reassurance it gives when we do.

They also point out that tackling ASB isn't for police alone. I agree and Sir Dennis also draws attention to our role being about policing and enforcement but there is the need for others to be involved too on other aspects for example on youth services.

I accept that some of our public think we have withdrawn from an important visible and effective community control role.

But let's not ignore the fact that we also get considerable positive feedback about our commitment to neighbourhoods and look at the successes we had over the summer ASB campaign.

Some suggest that people have just stopped telling us about ASB they suffer but is that true? What worked well during the summer campaign we need to keep doing and our next big push on this will be around Halloween and Bonfire Night.

Our Chief Constable continues to commit to maintaining front line policing which includes our presence in every neighbourhood.

I will be working with colleagues to look to the future and what we need to do in Southampton to continue to get better at attending incidents, dealing with crime and anti social behaviour, catching criminals and protecting vulnerable people.

I want to maximise what we can do on having a meaningful presence in all our neighbourhoods and still have a very good emergency response service. I need to see that what we do here also delivers the three things that Sir Dennis' report highlights as being what works and that we don’t waste time and effort doing what doesn’t work.

So, despite all the headlines (even the ones about green-haired criminals) and worries about cuts we wont be put off our stride.

In one way the endless press coverage is just a sign of how important policing is to society and, therefore, how important our work is in Southampton.