Translating Ethical Frameworks Into User-Centred Anti-Social Behaviour Interventions

2026-04-21

AI Summary

This study addresses the limitations of current antisocial behavior interventions, which predominantly rely on punitive measures and lack integration of technology and ethical considerations, thereby failing to foster public responsibility and preventive awareness. Reframing the issue as a human-computer interaction challenge, this work proposes a lightweight digital intervention system that embeds an ethics-informed framework—derived from public opinion in the UK—into its design. The system features a QR code–based reporting interface and an online awareness course. Validation through structured interviews and online surveys demonstrates that the approach effectively enhances public participation, education, and shared responsibility without displacing existing punitive mechanisms. By balancing deterrence with prevention, the proposed solution offers governments a scalable, technology-enabled complement to conventional governance strategies.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Humans and AI: Interaction Techniques and Devices
• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Societal Impact of AI

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Social and technical mechanisms of refusal for web technologies and applications
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Fairness and ethical considerations in crowd work and in human-in-the-loop AI systems
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics for personalization

Abstract

In 2025 one million Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) cases were recorded in England & Wales, impacting community cohesion. Statutory guidance presents punitive interventions that lack technological input and does not often root ethical frameworks within government system design. This work takes a novel approach in framing ASB intervention as a human-computer interaction problem by embedding an ethical framework into two digital designs, aiming to increase public responsibility and prevent ASB. The first design is extracted from UK public opinion research, the ethical themes include punitive proportionality, personalisation, and responsibility. The second are digital interventions that present a set of QR-based public reporting interfaces and a web-based ASB awareness course that precedes punitive escalation. Our methodology involves structured interviews and online surveys. Results positively evaluated the framework and QR interfaces. Such outcomes could inform the expansion of technological intervention utilisation that does not replace existing punitive approaches, but balances them.

Problem

• Anti-Social Behaviour
• Ethical Frameworks
• User-Centred Interventions
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Public Responsibility

Innovation

• ethical framework
• human-computer interaction
• digital intervention
• anti-social behaviour
• QR-based reporting