DRUNKS who urinate in the street are to be targeted in a major police crackdown amid growing public disgust at the anti-social behaviour.
Scotland's largest force aims to increase the number of fines given out for the offence by a fifth with senior force officials yesterday said the move was in direct response to growing public disgust with the sheer numbers of men – and occasionally w
omen – who go to the toilet in the street, especially after closing time.
"People are really fed up of this," said one insider.
The number of public urination offences recorded in the Strathclyde area alone has nearly doubled in the last five years, from 2,595 to 4,566. The vast majority of offenders were slapped with new fixed penalty fines of £40 introduced last year.
Grampian Police has caught and fined more than 1,200 people, mostly men with their zips down, since the end of June 2007.
Lothian and Borders Police declined to give figures. However, Edinburgh's problems with public urination were summed up last week when Channel Five broadcast CCTV pictures of a drunk emptying his bladder on one of the force's patrol cars.
Strathclyde has come up with what one observer called the "curiously specific" target of a 19.5% for detections of public urination as part of a new accountability and transparency drive championed by its chief constable, Steve House, and its joint police board. The force has haggled with its political overseers on the board to come up with a whole series of aspirations, many with concrete figures attached, on issues as diverse as vandalism and terrorism.
New objectives include a 41.4% rise in detections of illegal street drinking.
The force already comes across more than 23,000 such cases a year – a two-fifths rise could see another 10,000 incidents recorded. But force chiefs yesterday insisted they are not playing a numbers game.
Chief Superintendent Ewen MacLellan explained. "This process is not about quotas," he said. "It is about focusing operational activity on areas of concern and 'quality of life' issues such as street drinking and urinating that have rightly been identified by the public."
Council leaders in Glasgow have been pressing for action on public urination, especially in parks that have become no-go areas for families.
Tory MSP Bill Aitken was a Glasgow councillor and magistrate for years. He backed the crackdown on people drinking in the street – "the cause of many a rammy," he said – but sounded a note of caution on urinators.
He said: "I really don't think we can have people making a public display in the street, particularly at closing time.
"But they maybe shouldn't target someone caught short going home, who goes up a lane or some discreet spot."
Christopher Mason, a Glasgow Liberal Democrat councillor and member of Strathclyde's board, knows how much public consultation has gone into police targets. He said:
"It is all very well to say that these are meant to focus the attention, but as you get to the year's end there is a very natural tendency to try to achieve your targets and then policing becomes driven by the target and not the strategic goal."
The full article contains 540 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
