POLICE in Southampton are carrying out operations to cut down on anti-social behaviour on Friday and Saturday nights.
In order to cut down on the number of nuisance calls and free up police for emergency calls in the city, officers have been patrolling the Lordshill Centre.
As part of Operation Eaton, local officers have joined with a team of police community support officers to create a visual impact and deter young people from causing trouble.
So far the operation, which has been running for two weeks as part of an end summer clampdown on yobbish behaviour, is already seeing results in Lordshill where trouble is often reported near the Sainsbury supermarket and library.PC Paul Martin said: "It has been clearly effective. On Friday night we only had three calls of nuisance behaviour and our average is at least nine or ten."
PC Martin explained that nuisance behaviour reported to police can range from vandalism to youngsters disturbing people by skateboarding in inappropriate places.
The scheme is also targeting people who buy alcohol for under-age drinkers outside the supermarket.
"Quite often people will be asked to buy alcohol for gangs of teenagers and some will do it, often because they are scared they will be beaten up.
Visual presence "With a high visual presence, the shoppers can see we are here and it also stops the groups of youths from hanging around for too long."
PC Martin said that in the first week of the operation, police handed around 40 behaviour notices to teenagers and on the second weekend this number had gone down to 13. He added: "We are being noticed and it is giving us a good opportunity to get out there and see what is going on."
http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/latest/display.var.1678463.0.police_aim_to_curb_antisocial_behaviour_at_weekends.php
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