00:05Last year, Kent police received over 10,000 reports of antisocial behaviour between June
00:12and August, including multiple reports of the same incident. That's around 8 reports
00:18per policing district, per day. And with temperatures already soaring, large crowds are quickly
00:25making their way to the beach. Thousands of people will be flocking to Kent's coast to enjoy this
00:31lovely weather, which is why Kent police say they'll be cracking down on antisocial behaviour
00:36this summer. And they're doing this by using data from last year to target known hotspots across
00:42Kent so that residents, businesses and tourists can all feel safe over the busy period. We know
00:48that particularly in some of the coastal towns, when the weather's nice, we're going to see
00:52perhaps increases in antisocial behaviour. And we've made sure that we've catered for
00:56it with policing response to that. So we've increased our resourcing, we've looked at
01:01changing shifts, we've made sure that officers have the powers to deal with it really, really
01:05robustly should it occur. Antisocial behaviour also spans the neighbouring towns, with Kent
01:11police focusing on preventative measures with young people. So some of the issues we have
01:16in Herne Bay and Whitstable are the social inequalities that we see with unemployment and some of the
01:22issues with health as well. So what we're working on towards is focusing on towards those children
01:28to try and get them away from committing criminality, getting them into different outlets through
01:33our partners, through Sports Connect and other agencies to divert them away from committing
01:38the crime and antisocial behaviour that we see. Where people commit crime, where they do
01:42step out of line and take their behaviour too far, they will be held to account. And that
01:47could be either through the issuing of community protection notices or it will result in arrests.
01:52But what do residents in Margate think?
01:55I don't witness too much of it, I guess. I think most of it is probably drinking related,
02:01if anything. But in all honesty, I don't see too much.
02:06Do you think enough is being done to tackle antisocial?
02:08Not really. When you want the police, they're not there.
02:13If we take, for example, the incidents that happened in Broadstairs over the half-term
02:17week and over the bank holiday weekend, over 90 dispersals were issued as a result of some
02:23of the behaviour of some of the young people.
02:25With summer arriving sooner than expected, will Kent police be able to crack down on antisocial behaviour
02:31after all? Nayla Mahamud for KMTV in Margate.
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