A Virtual Environment to Test Police and Public Awareness of Anti-Social Behaviour Indicators
| DOI | 10.1350/ijps.2010.12.4.196 |
| Author | Tim Carter,Shamus P. Smith |
| Date | 01 December 2010 |
| Published date | 01 December 2010 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
A virtual environment to test police and
public awareness of anti-social behaviour
indicators
Shamus P. Smith‡and Tim Carter†
‡(Corresponding author) School of Engineering and Computing Sciences, Durham
University, Durham DH1 3LE. Tel: +44 (0)191 3344284; Email: shamus.smith@durham.ac.uk
†School of Engineering and Computing Sciences, Durham University, Durham, DH1 3LE.
Email: Tim.Carter@detica.com
Submitted 9 February 2010; revision submitted 28 June 2010; accepted
2 July 2010
Keywords: virtual environment, police training, anti-social behaviour,
public perception, evaluation, UK, public attitudes to police/policing,
police use of technology
Shamus P. Smith
is a lecturer in Computer
Science in the School of Engineering and Com-
puting Sciences at Durham University. He has
expertise in virtual reality technologies and
human–computer interaction. Over the past 12
years he has been designing, implementing and
evaluating virtual environment systems. His
recent work has focused on the use of virtual
environments for training in hazardous environ-
ments including simulations for medical pro-
cedures and fire evacuation.
Tim Carter
read computer science at Durham
University and graduated with a BSc (Hons) First
Class in Software Engineering in 2008. He is
currently a consultant at the business and tech-
nology consultancy firm Detica (UK).
A
BSTRACT
Anti-social behaviour is a problem in many
modern-day communities. However, the ability of
the police and other associated agencies to tackle
this problem is limited due to the difficulties of
gaining experience through training in the field,
which is time-consuming and often dangerous.
Virtual environment technology can provide a
safe and controlled environment to assist police
officer training in simulated urban environments.
Public perceptions of anti-social behaviour are
also important and virtual environments can be
used to allow police practitioners to gain insight
into how the public experience anti-social behavi-
our. A virtual environment system has been
constructed to support police officers becoming
more observant and confident at spotting indic-
ators of anti-social behaviour. An evaluation
study was conducted with practitioners and mem-
bers of the public to compare the virtual environ-
ment with a paper-based alternative. Performance
metrics were collected during the study and post-
session questionnaires were used to evaluate the
perceptions of 36 participants in regard to their
experiences with the system. Performance in the
virtual environment was comparable with a
paper-based method. In addition, both practi-
tioner and public participants positively received
the virtual environment, with the majority indic-
ating a preference for virtual environment simula-
tions over conventional paper-based activities.
This has implications for the further use of virtual
environments as such systems can provide
dynamic experiences over a wide variety of
scenario-based environments.
Page 548
International Journal of Police Science & Management Volume 12 Number 4
International Journal of Police
Science and Management,
Vol. 12 No. 4, 2010, pp. 548–566.
DOI: 10.1350/ijps.2010.12.4.196
INTRODUCTION
Anti-social behaviour (ASB) is a high-
profile issue for both governmental policy
and policing in the United Kingdom, yet
policing such behaviour can be difficult.
Contributing factors include lack of exper i-
ence, mismatches of perceived ASB
between police officers and members of the
public, and the risks involved in training
inexperienced officers in the field.
Furthermore, it is common for policing
resources to be focused on issues that affect
the majority of the population on an infre-
quent basis, such as terrorist threats, whilst
issues increasingly prevalent amongst wider
society are receiving less attention. Indic-
atively, the British Crime Survey (Wood,
2004) has shown that the public perceive
ASB to be a major issue within UK com-
munities. Therefore increasing police officer
and community practitioner awareness of
the communities where they live and work
will be of fundamental importance to
addressing the ASB problem successfully.
Any associated training needs to support
police practitioners in identifying quality of
life issues and provide officers with the skills
to influence them (Peace, 2006).
As described by the Crime and Disorder
Act 1998 (Home Office, 2004), anti-social
behaviour is ‘Acting in a manner that caused
or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or
distress to one or more persons not of the
same household as [the defendant]’. The
RESPECT campaign1discriminates be-
tween regular crime and ASB suggesting that
ASB is a continuous process whereby ‘vic-
tims are repeatedly subjected to abusive
behaviour from individuals who typically
are known to them. It includes behaviour
such as noise nuisance, and other environ-
mental crime, and verbal abuse and intim-
idation’. It is also important to acknowledge
that these differences affect the way in
which practitioners must be trained in order
to deal with these various activities.
To d e fine ASB further, the Home Office
Research Development and Statistics Dir-
ectorate (RDS) has compiled a concise list-
ing of ASB types in its typology of
anti-social behaviour (Home Office, 2004).
This typology groups the various behavi-
ours associated with ASB into four distinct
categories (see Table 1).
ASB has led to the UK Government
placing a much greater emphasis on this
problem over recent years; notably the cre-
ation of the Anti-Social Behaviour Unit
(ASBU), the launch of the Anti-Social
Behaviour Together Action Plan, and the
introduction of the Anti-Social Behaviour
Act in 2003 (Home Office, 2004). In 2003,
the ASBU counted over 66,000 instances of
ASB being reported to local authorities and
agencies over the course of a single day
(Home Office). This statistic is not uncom-
mon, and is frequently highlighted within
the annual publication of results from the
British Crime Sur vey. In particular,
Table 1: Examples of ASB defined by the Home Office
Misuse of public space Disregard for community/
personal well-being
Acts directed at people Environmental damage
Begging Loud music Verbal abuse Graffiti
Cards in phone boxes Drunken behaviour Voyeurism Damage to bus shelters
Kerb crawling Climbing on buildings Following people Damage to buildings
Indecent exposure Hoax calls Obscene phone calls Litter and rubbish
Abandoned cars Uncontrolled animals Menacing gestures Fly-tipping
Page 549
Smith and Carter
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