Blair bids to wipe out neighbourhood yobs

Tony Blair today unveiled plans to stop yobs terrorising neighbourhoods and promised "enforcement, enforcement, enforcement".

The wide-ranging drive against anti-social behaviour will include a hotline to report graffiti, rapid removal of burnt-out cars, and special prosecutors dedicated to dealing with louts.

Mr Blair claimed anti-social behaviour was the number one problem people reported to him as he toured the country.

A survey last month revealed 60,000 reports of nuisance and loutish behaviour a day, the Prime Minister said. He urged councils and police to use all the powers already at their disposal, including tough anti-social behaviour orders which can ban a person from an area, and jail them for up to five years if the ban is broken. There are 1,337 such orders now in force.

"We owe it to the victims of anti-social behaviour - often the poorest in society - to get our act together. Enforcement, enforcement,

enforcement is what we need," he said at a conference in London.

"It's not acceptable for these powers to be used in some part of the country and not others. Loutish behaviour is loutish behaviour wherever it happens."

Under the plans, people who commit vandalism, threaten neighbours, dump stolen cars, drink in the street or kerb-crawl will face court proceedings.

Some of the capital's worstaffected areas will be offered special prosecutors, the first time such officials have been assigned to work on specific problem areas.

There will also be measures to coordinate the efforts of police and local councils to tackle hooliganism, and councils will get advice on how best to use antisocial behaviour orders.

The initiative marks Mr Blair's attempt to seize the domestic agenda by tackling an issue he believes affects millions of voters.

He was joined at the conference by Home Secretary David Blunkett, who will implement the plan and use anti- social behaviour legislation making its way through Parliament.

Mr Blunkett promised victims they would no longer be a low priority in the justice system. "We need a can-do attitude where we do not take no for an answer," he said.

"Our public services must match the determination of victims and witnesses, with an unshakable resolve to help them claim back their communities.

"Local authorities and communities need to use these tools to ensure the tiny minority are not allowed to blight the lives of the law-abiding majority."