Procedural justice and process-based models: understanding how practitioners utilise Community Protection Notices to regulate anti-social behaviour.

Community Protection Notices (CPNs) were created and introduced in England and Wales through the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act (2014). They are used to prevent and/or require specific actions by an individual or organisation, where existing behaviour has ‘a detrimental effect on the quality of life of those in the locality’. A wide range of criminal justice actors can issue Community Protection Notices, and they require a low/no standard of evidence to do so. Breach of a Community Protection Notice results in a Fixed Penalty Notice of £100 or a possible criminal conviction. Using procedural justice theory as an analytical framework, our research is the first to investigate how Community Protection Notices are constructed, evidenced and monitored by the authorising bodies. The findings highlight divergent local practices, which sometimes lack procedural safeguards and adherence to Home Office statutory guidance. We propose 10 empirically based recommendations for policy and legislative changes to Community Protection Notice issuing practices.

Understanding Community Protection Notices for Anti-Social Behaviour Regulation

The study explores the use of Community Protection Notices (CPNs) in England and Wales to regulate anti-social behavior (ASB). The study found that ASB practitioners utilize CPNs in divergent ways, with some practices compromising procedural safeguards and statutory guidance. The study provides recommendations for policy and legislative changes to improve procedural justice and legitimacy in the use of CPNs. The study highlights the need for consistent frontline practice and urges the Home Office to intervene to improve the quality and consistency of frontline ASB work.

This research is important because it is the first qualitative study into the practice of issuing Community Protection Notices (CPNs) in England and Wales, which explores how the powers are being utilized to regulate anti-social behavior (ASB) on the frontline. The research highlights the inconsistencies and challenges faced by practitioners in the issuing practice of CPNs, which affects the legitimacy and compliance of the process. The study provides a foundation for evidence-based recommendations for policy and legislative change to build procedural justice into process-based models of procedural justice into ASB practice, which can improve legitimacy and compliance.

Key Takeaways:

1. The study found that ASB practitioners utilize CPNs in divergent ways, with some practices shown to compromise procedural safeguards and to disregard statutory Home Office guidance.

2. The research proposes 10 evidence-based recommendations for policy and legislative change to improve the quality and consistency of frontline ASB work, which includes building procedural justice into the process-based model of ASB.

3. The study highlights the need for urgent intervention by the Home Office to improve the quality and consistency of frontline ASB work, as the statutory guidance remains unchanged, there is a real risk that CPNs could encounter a crisis of legitimacy similar to ASBOs.