Crime Report: ASBOs

ASBOs: A Decade in the Headlines, Now Time to Go?

For the past year the government have been in talks about scrapping Antisocial Behaviour Orders in favour of more effective means of tackling minor crimes. We’ve all heard the stories about kids in gangs using them as a badge of honour, and repeat offenders racking up more ASBOs than you can fit in a stolen shopping trolley, so why is it only now they are being scrapped?

The Antisocial Behaviour Order was introduced in 2002 as part of labours plan to tackle behaviour that wouldn’t normally warrant a criminal prosecution. However it wasn’t long before they were being dished out left right and centre to anyone from mobility scooter speedsters to hooded teens who seemed to be collecting them like they where the new Pokémon cards. You can try scouring old news articles for an ASBO success story, but you’re far more likely to find one about a middle age woman getting done for attacking her brother with rhubarb, or the infamous Mr. ASBO the Antisocial Swan of Leicester. 

But surely the papers are just playing this for laughs, reporting on every ASBO handed out for spray painting phallic symbols on the walls of the local council building would be a waste of paper. The fact is that although around two thirds of ASBO recipients stick to the terms like good citizens, however the ones who do breach the terms of their order will do so on average four or five times before they even receive any kind of custodial sentence. So effectively there are more ASBO breaches to enforce than there are ASBOs. 

The majority of antisocial behaviour orders are given to people below the age of twenty-five and are often related to drunken behaviour or petty theft.  A recent survey carried out among teenagers in Nottingham shows that they too believe ASBOs to be a waste of time. “They may deter some people, but the kind of people to breach an ASBO will just keep going until they learn that it doesn’t pay.” Says one student from Arnold.  “I know a guy who racked up eight of them before he got a sentence.”

When asked about a more appropriate way to deal with antisocial behaviour the majority of teenagers asked though community projects would be a good way to go. “Not only would it be helpful for communities, but those responsible would see the disruption they cause.” Others thought that ASBOs had potential to be effective if only they were much tougher on those who breached them. “It’s a lack of fear really, if you thought that breaching an ASBO would mean guaranteed jail time, you’d think twice before trashing the local park again.”

With such a poor reputation, whatever the new government propose to replace Antisocial Behaviour Orders is sure to come under scrutiny from the press and the public alike. Will they have success, or will it be another decade of repeat offenders and ridiculous headlines?