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The home secretary wants to extend the scope of anti-social behaviour orders but does their existing low level of usage show how inappropriate they are, asks Clare Jerrom.

Home secretary David Blunkett told police chiefs last month that combating anti-social behaviour on housing estates and streets is "key to addressing the fear of crime, and reinforcing the task of communities to build securer and safer neighbourhoods".

At the forefront of his policies in this area are ASBOs - anti-social behaviour orders. Originally part of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, ASBOs came into force in April 1999, and allow police and councils to apply for orders against people who "cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household as himself". Alternatively, applications can be made "to protect persons in the local government area in which harassment, alarm or distress was caused or likely to be caused from further anti-social acts by him".

But Blunkett told the police that he wants to expand the role of ASBOs. Prompted by a soon-to-be published review of the ASBO system during 2001, he has put forward plans to allow registered social landlords and the British Transport Police to apply for them.

Under the proposals, local authorities would be able to apply for an interim ASBO at the first court appearance, pending a full hearing. This would ensure communities are protected from anti-social behaviour immediately.

In addition, once taken out, the ASBO would travel with the person on whom it is placed, irrespective of any change of address, so as to prevent them moving house and resuming anti-social behaviour elsewhere.

But behind Blunkett’s proposals is a scheme that has not quite lived up to expectations. When the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 was being debated, financial costings in the bill referred to the use of 5,000 ASBOs.

Figures last year found that to September 2001 just 466 have been taken out.¹ The Home Office defends the low take-up, saying that the 5,000 figure was never a target and insisting that 39 out of 43 police force areas have taken out at least one order.

The forthcoming review will show that practitioners find the system time-consuming, and that communities do not see any immediate improvement where an order has been imposed. It will also show that councils in Essex have not used any ASBOs.

But recently, Thurrock council, in Essex, has placed the country’s first open-ended ASBO on a 15-year-old boy who had engaged in trespass, verbal abuse, arson, criminal damage, vehicle theft, shop-lifting, robbery and assault.

Linda Daysh, Thurrock’s community safety co-ordinator, says moral and social concerns were behind the council’s original reasons for not taking out ASBOs. The council was very reluctant to apply for ASBOs against some young people who had health problems, mental illness and substance-abuse problems, Daysh says, preferring alternative ways of supporting the individual through mediation services, and using orders as the last resort.

"Thurrock is heavily committed to looking at other, less punitive, ways of overcoming conflict," she says. "ASBOs can be immensely time-consuming and complicated."

The average cost of £4,800 per order has also been blamed. Spokesperson for crime reduction agency Nacro, Richard Garside, says: "At some £4,000 per order, anti-social behaviour orders are a costly, bureaucratic way of resolving a genuine problem. This has been reflected in the low take-up of ASBOs."

But a case study to be shown in a BBC documentary programme in March shows cost and time do not have to be problematic factors, but neither can they guarantee the order will work. Panorama: Tackling the Tearaways focuses on David Young from Cheltenham, who notched up 40 arrests by his 16th birthday.2

Cheltenham council’s housing solicitor Stephen Emery says Young "terrorised the local neighbourhood". Having been involved in car crime, violence and racial abuse, he was placed on a 10-year ASBO excluding him from the area where his family and friends live.

But Emery says the teenager had no intention of complying with the order: "From day one he went into the exclusion zone."

When caught on video, Young was put on a six-month supervision order, but the ASBO was broken on another two separate occasions. He is now in a young offenders’ institution serving 12 months after being found guilty of affray, stealing a car, joyriding and breaching the ASBO.

The penalty may seem harsh, but Emery defends the scheme: "These young people have had difficult lives and you can see why they behave the way they do. But victims of youths have suffered terribly, with mental health problems, stress and anxiety. Communities have to be protected in the most effective way."

Though Young’s ASBO - the second of three the council has taken out - was not a success story, Emery points to Cheltenham’s first ASBO which was "successful against all predictions". The youth complied from day one.

And as to the third, Emery claims it cost nothing, as it was dealt with in-house and no barrister was used, scuppering the argument that ASBOs have to be expensive. He adds that in Young’s case, an application was lodged in court eight days before the hearing. Cheltenham will use ASBOs again.

Although Emery may be a convert, can Blunkett reassure the scheme’s other critics?

A spokesperson for the Youth Justice Board says that, used appropriately, ASBOs can be a way of dealing with young offenders, and welcomes proposals to reduce the amount of time that it takes to obtain an order.

But director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, Frances Crook, says the organisation opposes ASBOs in principle and further reforms will not change its stance. She describes them as a "blunt instrument that can exacerbate a problem rather than solve it".

Crook says it is extremely worrying that transport police and registered social landlords could be given powers to apply for orders without the training police have. "To give people access to criminal law is outrageous," she says.

The National Housing Federation’s members have a range of views, says policy officer Helen Williams, adding: "We need a balance to safeguard communities at risk and work with people who may be vulnerable with mental health or substance abuse problems.

"To do that, yes we need enforcement action, but also prevention, care and support to look at what’s appropriate in each case."

Nacro’s Garside says: "Nacro, itself a housing association and a registered social landlord housing more than 3,000 sometimes difficult tenants per year, is sceptical about the extension of this power to housing associations."

The organisation claims "acceptable behaviour contracts" - or ABCs - offer a more flexible response that can be used before the anti-social behaviour develops.

These ABCs look at stopping the behaviour rather than punishing the offender. They were introduced in Islington, north London, in February 2000, and 100 contracts have been signed with only two serious breaches. Seven other boroughs have since adopted ABCs, all citing success rates of more than 60 per cent.

The new ASBO figures to be released shortly will show whether the uptake has improved since September 2001, and only future statistics will reveal whether Blunkett’s reforms will have any effect. But one thing is for sure, there will be more David Youngs. And if ASBOs prove not to be the magic wand in tackling anti-social behaviour, the government needs to look not just at reforms of the orders, but at a major overhaul of tackling anti-social behaviour that will both help young people and protect communities.

^1. Action Against Crime and Disorder Unit, Anti-Social Behaviour Orders: Guidance on drawing up local ASBO protocols, Home Office, November 2001, At www.crimereduction.gov.uk/asbos4.htm

^2. Panorama: Tackling The Tearaways, will be shown on BBC1, Sunday 3 March at 10.15pm.

The law and ASBOs

- Magistrates’ courts have had powers to make anti-social behaviour orders since 1 April 1999.

- Proceedings to apply for an ASBO are civil, not criminal, and the case needs to be proved according to the rules of civil evidence. The ASBO itself will not give the defendant a criminal record.

However, a breach of an order is a criminal offence. Where a person is convicted for a breach the courts can impose stiff penalties of up to five years’ imprisonment.

- ASBOs should be used wherever it is thought that they will be a successful remedy to anti-social behaviour, and where other methods may be less effective. This does not necessarily mean that other methods have to be tried first. In other words, ASBOs are not, as some have suggested, a measure of last resort.

Source: www.crimereduction.gov.uk/asbos4