Social media blamed for perception of higher crime levels across Horsham district

During a meeting on Monday (September 26), Rob Jarvis, head of housing & community services, presented an update on crime and disorder in the district for 2021.

Speaking about the perception of crime when compared to actual crime, he said social media gave the impression that crime in the area was ‘significantly higher than it is’.

Using Southwater as an example, he said: “If you were to just listen to social media, you would think Southwater had become a no-go location after the hours of daylight.

“But actually that’s not the case and actually there’s so much good stuff that goes on in that area – but how much do people push that out against the negativity that comes out.”

In the summer of 2021, police responded to continued concerns about anti-social behaviour in the village by issuing a 48-hour dispersal order requiring people to leave the area when told to or face arrest.

They also published a number of posts on social media assuring residents that patrols would be in the area.

While Mr Jarvis stressed the need to ‘dispel the myths that come out from social media’, the fact was that people were clearly concerned.

Ian Stannard (Con, Southwater South & Shipley) pointed out that there was no ‘easy fix’ to the problem.

He said: “You really don’t want to criminalise children.

“It’s easy for people to say ‘lock ’em up, flog ’em’ but these are often children and the last thing you need to do is bang them up because that will teach them how to be better criminals.

“It’s not an easy fix. What we don’t want to do is encourage vigilantism.

“It’s not easy to solve. Anyone who thinks it’s easy to solve is living in a dream.”

Mr Jarvis’s report showed that 2,751 incidents of anti-social behaviour were reported in the district in 2021 – up 64 per cent compared to 2019.

A large percentage were disputes between neighbours.

David Skipp (Lib Dem, Forest) called the increase ‘staggering’, adding that it was ‘quite apparent that we need more police on the ground’.

And Ruth Fletcher (Ldem, Denne) wondered what the figures would be like if all such incidents were actually reported to police.

This was a point Mr Jarvis was keen to highlight – the need for people to report crime and anti-social behaviour.

He told the meeting that police would only place officers and resources in areas where the intelligence gathered showed that they were needed.

Looking at the rest of the report, more than half of the crime recorded in the district was violent crime – 3,411 incidents.

This is an increase of 1.7 per cent since 2020 and an increase of 3 per cent since 2019.

But Mr Jarvis said the key message was that ‘the Horsham district remains one of the safest areas in West Sussex’.

Adur had the lowest level of violent crime with 1,959 recorded incidents, while Crawley had the highest with 6,110.