Why is vandalism and other antisocial behaviour so common in the UK?

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you. There are various full or partial solutions to the problem. For general crime, funding could solve the problem. A lot of funding, inefficiently deployed. A cultural change to make the police a lean organisation with a focus on frontline policing would be much cheaper and nearly as effective. My force used to post weekly updates on redeployments and I honestly couldn't tell what a lot of people were even doing. So many senior and middle management roles that do virtually nothing. Fully trained police officers being glorified secretaries to more senior officers. Even when I know what the role is about, there are a lot of roles where they can't possibly eek 40 hours of work out of it. Massive reform of the criminal justice system would help. I don't have time to explain - the TLDR is that our entire legal system was not set up to deal with people accruing hundreds of offences. In the past they would be dead, maimed, imprisoned for decades, and so on. So everything is based on ideas which are perfectly good for Joe Bloggs, who maybe gets on the wrong side of the law every couple of years through drink driving, domestics, the odd fight, but laughably inept again dealing with the people who generate most crime. Should they have a presumption in favour of bail? The benefit of the doubt at all times? A presumption against the admission of bad character or hearsay evidence? A lessened standard of proof when certain defences are raised? Basically, to treat someone with a hundred convictions in substantially the same way as someone with none at all, is insane. With youngsters I think softness is the right way of dealing with them, but the entire process is gentle from start to finish. When they realize that, the deterrent effect is gone. Perhaps a more robust police experience - not being babied throughout the custody and investigative process- would help with older/more mature children involved in the criminal justice system. There are lots of ways we could be better, and I'm always open to debate on how.