The ASBO was brought in as the Government’s flagship measure to tackle antisocial behaviour. Eight years on, is it working?

Lawyers and penal experts alike are united in the answer: no. Paul Cavadino, chief executive of Nacro, the crime reduction agency, said: “The breach rate is high, with more than half of ASBO recipients breaching them and one third doing so five or more times.” And the naming and shaming that accompanies ASBOs can be counter-productive, he added. “It makes it harder to rehabilitate offenders and ensures that some regard it as a ‘badge of honour’, giving them a tough image in front of their friends.”

ASBOs were introduced in 1999. At first they were hardly used – 7,356 between 1999-2005. Now, more than 4,000 are issued a year. Councils apply for a civil order to restrain behaviour and courts can set conditions that, if breached, can lead to prosecution and jail.

Matt Foot, a solicitor with Birnbergs and co-ordinator of ASBO Concern, a coalition of organisations urging a review of the order, said: “There’s absolutely no evidence that they’ve been a success – we know at least half are breached and the figure may end up far higher because some last a lifetime.” And the figures were misleading: if an offender was ordered to keep out of an area, he or she might simply go elsewhere. “It’s just shifting the problem.”

Nor, he and others argue, can ASBOs address the causes of much antisocial behaviour. “You can’t ban someone from being an alcoholic. You have to deal with the root causes in a more sophisticated way.” Cavadino agrees. “Many of the most troublesome young people have a range of problems – inadequate parental supervision, family conflict, abuse or neglect, educational failure and substance abuse. It is impossible to resolve them simply by imposing restrictions and telling young people not to behave in certain ways. Although courts can make individual support orders providing positive help alongside ASBOs, these have regrettably been little used.”

Greg Powell, president of the London Criminal Courts’ Solicitors’ Association, also questions the inconsistency of approach. “It is a complete lottery. Some councils are good in regarding the seeking of an ASBOs as a failure – a last resort when nothing else has worked. Others seem to see them as some kind of virility test: how many can they get?”

A recent report by the Public Accounts Committee noted that some antisocial behaviour measures do work: 93 per cent of its sample stopped misbehaving after three contacts with the authorities, such as a warning letter. But a hardcore were intractable: one person had 271 criminal convictions and had breached his ASBO 25 times. It called for research on which of the “barrage” of measures did work; for the hardcore, consistent and rigorous enforcement.

Pending any review, the Sentencing Advisory Panel is consulting on sentencing for breaching an ASBO. It may stimulate a wider debate on tackling yobbish behaviour while not sweeping drunks and drug addicts into jail along the way.

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