Young people in Mansfield choose litter duty over fines
In contrast to the perceived wisdom Mansfield District Council’s Community Wardens are issuing Fixed Penalty Notices to 12 – 17 year olds seen dropping litter.
Of the 157 young people caught between April 2011 and January 2012 only one declined to take up the council’s offer of a hour’s litter picking duty in lieu of the £75 fine.
The offenders meet at a prearranged location on a Saturdy morning. They are given instruction in safe litter picking and then go to work.
Other councils are reluctant to issue FPNs to under 18s because they have a duty to ensure that they are acting in accordance with the Children Act 2004; this requires children’s service authorities, including local authorities, ‘to discharge their functions having regard to the need to safeguard and uphold the welfare of children’.
If a fixed penalty is not paid and the matter goes to court Magistrates are often reluctant to give a young person a criminal record, particularly for the more minor of offences.
The Mansfield approach seems to neatly overcome these concerns and provides an approach which we hope other council’s will consider.
