The Government was forced to defend anti-social behaviour orders, its prime
tool to tackle yobbishness, today after a report showed that half of ASBOs
are breached by teenagers, who regard them as a "badge of honour"
among their friends.
David Cameron, the Conservative leader, said the findings were proof that Tony
Blair had abandoned his mantra of "tough on crime, tough on the causes
of crime", while the Liberal Democrats accused the Government of
demonising young people.
But Tony McNulty, the Home Office minister responsible for ASBOs, said the
report, carried out by the Youth Justice Board, a quango, gave a misleading
impression of the orders, which he said were used sparingly and effectively.
According to the study, many youth workers and some judges and magistrates
have serious reservations about ASBOs. They believe that they are being
overused because they require a lower level of evidence than bringing a full
prosecution in court.
Youth workers also said that ASBOs had little positive impact on the behaviour
of young people. In addition, the study revealed concerns that breaches were
not being dealt with consistently, in particular when continual violations
of behaviour orders were treated as "minor transgressions".
But residents plagued by yobbish behaviour welcome the "quick fix"
that ASBOs provide, according to the study.
However, today’s report also questions whether ASBOs tackle the underlying
cause of bad behaviour or are a "sticking-plaster". Rod Morgan,
chairman of the Youth Justice Board, said: "The board is not against
antisocial behaviour orders. They can — and do — work incredibly well.
"But for ASBOs to reduce the likelihood of future antisocial behaviour,
they need to be used correctly. That means exhausting every preventive
measure in the community first, and ensuring that youth offending teams are
not excluded from issuing the orders."
ASBOs, which allow magistrates to impose conditions on people’s behaviour,
were introduced in 1999, By the end of September last year 7,356 had been
imposed. Breaching an order can lead to a jail term.
Today’s report, which is based on case files and interviews, shows that 49 per
cent of ASBOs given to under-18s had been breached, with the majority
flouting them on more than one occasion.
The latest Home Office figures relate only to orders between June 2000 and
December 2003. They show that 42 per cent of orders in that period had been
breached. In spite of promising in May to issue figures for 2004 within two
months, the Home Office has not published that information.
The board’s report concluded: "High levels of breach had led some
sentencers to question how much impact ASBOs were having on the behaviour of
individual young people.
"A considerable number of respondents alluded to the potential for the
order to become ‘glamorous’ in the eyes of young people at risk of
involvement in antisocial behaviour."
One magistrate told the board: "It’s being used as a badge of honour."
Parents and carers of young people handed the orders said that they were
viewed as a "diploma" and boosted a child’s "street cred"
because "villains are often looked up to". Young people given the
orders ridiculed restrictions imposed on their behaviour, with many openly
flouting the prohibitions, the report said.
A district judge told researchers that young people who breached their orders
were often not being properly punished. "The danger is that you would
increase the (prison) population enormously if we... enforced ASBOs fully,"
the judge said.
Learning of the report before he gave a speech this afternoon on the future of
the criminal justice system, Mr Cameron accused the Government of failing to
properly punish teenagers for breaching their ASBOs and for not doing enough
to improve family life.
"Make sure when you hand out an Asbo it is the right Asbo, on the right
individual, and make sure if they breach it, tough circumstances follow, and
custody, in many cases, will have to follow if they breach an Asbo," he
said.
"At the moment, we are handing very many of these things out but nothing
is happening when they are breached — that’s wrong."
"We’ve got to recognise that it is family breakdown and family failure
that is leading to an ASBO society."
Both the Liberal Democrats and the charity, Save the Children, said that ASBOs
posed a risk of further alienating young people, and pushing them towards a
life of crime, rather than offering them the support they need.
"All the available evidence shows we need to engage, not shut out, young
people who behave badly if we want to prevent them from becoming the
hardened criminals of the future," said Nick Clegg, the Liberal
Democrat home affairs spokesman.
The director of the UK branch of Save The Children, Colette Marshall, said: "If
we want these children to change their behaviour we must work with them to
tackle the causes of their behaviour, not just hand out an ASBO which
criminalises and names and shames."
But Mr McNulty said today's report exaggerated the effects of the orders. "They
are used sparingly, they are used in just the very worst circumstances where
behaviour won’t shift," he told the BBC.
"You would think from some of the language in the YJB report that they
are raining down like confetti. They are not."
Mr McNulty dismissed Mr Cameron's criticisms as "fluffy-bunny language"
and said that the idea of young people looking on ASBOs as a sign of
credibility was largely based on "mythology", but he conceded:
"We want to get to a stage where that approach is countered, totally
ostracised and told 'That is not cool,'" he told the BBC's World at
One programme.
The Youth Justice Board study looked at the background of 137 people given
ASBOs and found that more than 90 per cent were male. The average age of
offender handed the order was 16.
Almost half the young people were living in a single-parent household with the
overwhelming majority headed by the mother. Only 20 per cent were from homes
where they lived with both birth parents. Nineteen per cent were known to
have used cocaine and 11 per cent had used crack.
The research was conducted by the Policy Research Bureau and the National
Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders. It looked at orders
given to young people between January 2004 and January 2005 in ten unnamed
areas of England and Wales.
NEW STREET CRED
"Some of the friends are left out now because they are not on an ASBO. I
think they all want one. It’s like a new street cred"
A mother with three sons on ASBOs
"Terrorising people and running them out of our area. Throwing water
bombs, answering back, swearing, all that kind of thing. It’s harassment"
Joel, 13, on his behaviour
"I don’t mind not carrying lighters but I was bothered about not being
able to go to school because it was in the exclusion zone"
Michael, 12
