Whenever polls are conducted into the main concerns of the public about their local areas, ‘crime and grime' always features in the top five.

And consistently what bothers the public about ‘crime' is not armed robbberies but low-level infringement, invariably graffiti, vandalism, begging, drunkenness, drug-dealing or youths hanging about on street corners, all of which is loosely classified as anti-social behaviour and most of it committed by young males under the age of 21.