Responding to the BBC, Policing Minister Sarah Jones said “for too long, people have not seen police patrolling their streets”. She said “this government has increased police patrols in high-crime areas across the country through our Safer Streets Summer Initiative”.
Pledging 3,000 more neighbourhood police on the beat by March 2026, she said “we are sending a clear message: crime will be punished”.
And on Thursday the prime minister is due to announce measures to give communities more power to “seize boarded shops” and “block gambling and vape shops on their High Street”.
Hampshire Police told us it had “endeavoured to respond to as many reports as possible” of antisocial behaviour on Shirley High Street but “had to ensure this was balanced against the increase in emergency calls” over the summer months.
Away from the mayhem, we did find some more positive news.
As the summer draws to a close and kids return to school, Jaiden, 15, recalls the hours he spent in a police cell after being arrested. From the sofa of his home in Shirley, he tells us he was causing trouble at shops “nearly every day”.
“It was fun getting people mad but then I realised after a while it wasn’t.”
His mum Kylie says she pleaded with the police to act, having felt she’d lost her son to peer pressure. “Two or three times I asked them ‘just arrest him’. They said we can’t due to his age, we’re going to just have to bring him home. There’s not much we can do.”
He reads the list of rules he and his mum have since signed in a voluntary “acceptable behaviour contract”. They include him not stealing, making threats, or using foul or abusive language and leaving shops when ordered. If he complies, he can avoid court.
Jaiden vows to never go back to that way of life. “I regret all of it,” he says.