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Determinants of complainant satisfaction with agency responses to anti-social behaviour

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Crime Prevention and Community Safety Aims and scope

Abstract

This article examines the satisfaction expressed by individuals complaining about anti-social behaviour to either the police, a local authority or a social housing provider in one English county in 2009/10. Based on a postal survey of 2251 anti-social behaviour (ASB) complainants, the study shows that just over half were satisfied with the outcome of their case. Logistic regression modelling using outcome satisfaction as the dependent variable found that reporting ASB to the police or local authority had no significant impact on outcome satisfaction, whereas reporting to a housing provider was associated with an increase in outcome satisfaction. The helpfulness of agency staff and keeping complainants informed of the progress of their case were found to be important in generating outcome satisfaction.

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Notes

  1. It should be noted that most of these have not been specifically about the police response to ASB.

  2. Ives (2007) has noted that those responding to postal surveys tend to report higher rates of ASB than those participating in a personal interview. This is not considered problematic in the current study as the sampling frame consisted only of those known to have reported ASB.

  3. A goodness-of-fit test for weighted data of the full model for all reported incidents of ASB with all predictors against a constant-only model used an approach developed by Archer and Lemeshow (2006). This is interpreted like the Hosmer–Lemeshow test in that a statistically significant result indicates the model does not adequately fit the data. In this case, the model was not statistically significant and therefore did adequately fit the data. F-adjusted test statistic=F(9, 1957), P=0.655.

  4. Goodness-of-fit F-adjusted test statistic=F(9, 602), P=0.507.

  5. Goodness-of-fit F-adjusted test statistic=F(9, 520), P=0.908.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Australian Institute of Criminology, 74 Leichhardt Street, Griffith, ACT 2603, Australia

    Rick Brown

  2. Business School, University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road, Nottingham, NG8 1BB

    Emily Evans

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  1. Rick Brown
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  2. Emily Evans
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Correspondence to Rick Brown.

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Brown, R., Evans, E. Determinants of complainant satisfaction with agency responses to anti-social behaviour. Crime Prev Community Saf 16, 105–127 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/cpcs.2014.1

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