Were Anti-Social behaviour orders effective?
Anti-social behaviour on a whole has no set definition, the concept of what can be considered an anti-social behaviour (ASB) is very subjective. ASB can be defined as a “behaviour that ‘caused or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household” (Millie et al, 2005, p.1) As the definition of ASB is universally debated, it covers a variety of behaviours from “excess noise from sound systems or dogs, to repeat burglaries, and actual vandalism and repeated violence.” (The Labour Party, 1996, p.4) The origin of ASB such as “family problems, poor educational attainment, unemployment and alcohol and drug misuse…” (Millie, 2008, p.53) are likewise broadly discussed. In 1998 Tony Blair and the New Labour Party came into power and one of the main aims was to ‘redefine’ anti-social behaviour, as a result of Blair’s declared intention to be ‘tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime’, the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998 was introduced. To tackle ASB, the Crime and Disorder act bought in Anti-social behaviour orders (otherwise known as ASBO’s), these gave local authorities the ability to apply for an ASBO against an individual, aged ten years or over, if they were causing harassment, alarm or distress. The outcome of an ASBO would have an effect for a period of time that is specified within the order – but this would be nothing less than two years. (Padfield, 1998, P.13-17) According to Nidirect government services, ASBO’s could order people to stay away from certain places, not to contact/see certain people and stop them from doing certain acts, for example, graffiti. (Nidirect, no year) In 2003, the government passed the Anti-Social Behaviour Act which outlined the new ideas for tackling ASB. It focused on giving the local authorities and the police the power to disperse groups and impose curfews, it gave them a “more flexible range of powers to meet their existing responsibilities and respond to the needs of their local communities”. (Legalisation, Anti-social behaviour Act, 2003) Throughout this essay it will be discussed whether the use of ASBO’s were effective in dealing with anti-social behaviour problems, this includes the successes and limitations of tackling ASB in the United Kingdom.
The establishment of ASBOs on April 1st 1999 by The Crime and Disorder Act has raised many questions to whether they were effective in stopping/reducing anti-social behaviours, but a prime flaw within the ASBO is the notion of unfair targeting and criminalising the vulnerable populations within society. This can be seen as a huge weakness when dealing with the problems of anti-social behaviour, the reason is that such populations as adolescents and the homeless can be targeted – Campbell (2002, P.Viii) says that because 84% of ASBOs are given to males below the age of 21, there can be an unfair targeting or stigma – otherwise known as “labelling” – given to certain groups within the society. Linking to this, Muncie (2002, P.237-238) was concerned that ASBOs make it more probable for young people to be fast-tracked into the criminal justice system (an example of criminalising the vulnerable population). Furthermore, the punishments of breaching an ASBO – most commonly resulting in the courts imposing a sentence of immediate custody (Home Office, Ministry of Justice, 2014a) – increased the number of children in custody, likewise showing that ASBOs can criminalise vulnerable populations quite easily, proving to show ASBO’s as ineffective.
In 2010, when Theresa May took her new role as the Home Secretary in the coalition government, she made an evaluation on ASBO’s, 11 years after they were first introduced. She argued that “… they too often criminalised young people unnecessarily, acting as a conveyor belt to serious crime and prison.” (Ireland, 2011, P.26) Moreover, another example of the vulnerable populations within societies being criminalised and unfairly targeted is that some children and adults who suffer from learning difficulties are being given or threatened with ASBOs, due to the fact that their behaviours are not widely educated and are often misunderstood. A case study that shows this strongly is one of a 12-year-old child who had been diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), they were threatened with an ASBO due to their behaviours and actions – in which they cannot personally control. (Ahmed, 2005) Although anti-social behaviour orders were not designed to criminalise the vulnerable populations, they did to a vast extent. This shows that ASBOs were not as effective as a whole, because vulnerable societies were made out to be criminals and deviants when in fact they were not. The stereotypical view of a person who has an ASBO is a male, under 21 and wearing a hoodie – which then further criminalises those in that category, when in fact a large percent would not have ever caused ASB. Likewise, ASBOs also caused unfair targeting of vulnerable groups, those who are suffering from mental illness could be mistaken of causing ASB and therefore being labelled as a criminal, when (for example) it is just the outcomes of autism or asperges’s syndrome – thus showing that ASBOs were not effective in reducing/stopping anti-social behaviours.
This graph is compiled from data obtained from Nancy Loucks (2007, P.25-27) article on offenders suffering from learning difficulties and disabilities, the graph produced shows the number of children with learning difficulties who were threatened or given an ASBO. The backs up the fact that ASBO’s unfairly targeted vulnerable groups within societies, Louckes also reported that 35% of children under the age of 17 with an ASBO – had been diagnosed with a mental disorder or a learning difficulty.
A conflicting explanation is that the introduction of ASBOs in 1999 was of great effect, and had many benefits to the United Kingdom. It has been pointed out that the orders can increase public confidence and additionally reduce the public’s fear of crime taking place. (Kirby and Edmondson, 2012a, P.98) ASBO’s help to increase the confidence of the public because it becomes general knowledge of who is at fault of the anti-social behaviour, for example – the public become aware of who is at fault of the graffiti. The confidence of the public then becomes greater as they no longer need to worry about the individual continuing with the ASB, without getting some sort of a punishment. Local authorities and the police all have a duty of care to support the victims of ASB, but also to deal with the perpetrators of ASB – the addition of ASBO’s allows these authoritative figures to be able to start to diminish the problem. (The Home Office, Police UK, no year) In a recent British Crime Survey (BCS) it was shown that in England and Wales an estimated 10% (of over 16’s) had a perception of high amounts of anti-social behaviour in their local area. (Office for National Statistics, 2016)
As well as this, the BCS asked individuals questions on their experience of witnessing crime first hand in their local areas, the crimes which had been most frequently witnessed were “dangerous driving, anti-social behaviour and threatening or violent behaviour.” Linking to this, 58% of the witnesses felt that the police handled the matter in a satisfying regard. (Allen, 2004, P.14-15) This can put forward the idea that the although the amount of ASB is high, the fact that the public believes that the police are dealing with the matters in a satisfactory way- suggests that the use of ASBO’s were aiding the public to feel more confident within their local towns. Furthermore, ASB was never going to be completely terminated, therefore by only having 10% of people having a high perception of ASB – makes ASBO’s a huge success because of the reduction in the perception of ASB. Following on from this, ASBOs can be seen as effective because they can empower the local communities to tackle the problem behaviours within their neighbourhoods, ASBOs were an order which allowed the locals of a community to attempt to control the ASB – by doing this, the public’s fear of crime and disorder can be decreased as they can see first hand that something is being done – displaying ASBO’s to be effective.
Bateman (2011) recorded that the number of juveniles being returned to court for breaches of orders remains extremely high and adds undoubtedly to the amount of those in custody. Between the 1st June 2000 and the 31st December 2013, there were 24,323 ASBO’s issued in England and Wales – of these 58% (14,157) had been breached once and a further 75% (10,651) were breached on more than one occasion. It has been reported that only half of the people who breached their ASBOs went to jail as an outcome, this meant that the others were left to continue tormenting their local communities. This demonstrates that ASBOs were not effective (to a degree) because not everyone who received an ASBO was punished for their actions – on average around half were allowed to continue their actions without being disciplined. These statistics show that the introduction of ASBO’s may not have been a successful deterrent – because typically once an ASBO has been breached, it is then breached a further 5 times – showing ASBOs not to be a good deterrent, as the perpetrators continued to cause trouble. (Home Office, Ministry of Justice, 2014b). The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) suggested in 2008 that ASBOs alone do not work, especially on children under 12. Researchers say that ASBOs work as a “self-fulfilling prophecy” which encourages bad behaviours to continue because of the labelling, and instead, children under 12 should be targeted with family intervention once they’ve committed the anti-social act. (BBC News, 2008) The high amount of breaching has to suggest that giving ASBOs too troublemakers, cannot be effective.
Not to mention, the use of ASBOs were slowly turned into a “badge of honour” – this meant that teenagers and young adults were encouraged to get an ASBO by causing ASB, but as well as this – they were less likely to stick to the rules of the order, causing many cases of breaching. This makes ASBOs less effective because those who see the order as a “badge of honour”, will not care about the rules that have been enforced upon them; and will continue to breach and break the rules of the ASBO. Once a person has been labelled/treated as a criminal, deviant and an unlawful citizen of the community, they are more likely to begin to look for these roles in the future, which causes them to continue causing ASB – for example, stealing. The concept of the “badge of honour” proves to be a factor of ASBOs that is ineffective, as it makes them strive to gain an ASBO, so it can be seen as the “badge of honour” and they can, therefore, look ‘cool’ and impress their peer groups. The Telegraph reported in 2006 that a mother of three boys (all on orders) said that “Some of the friends are left out now because they’re not on an ASBO. I know a boy that’s hell-bent on getting an ASBO because he feels left out.” This suggests that ASBOs are seen to some teenagers as something that they should achieve in order to be perceived cool by their friends – The Telegraph continues and says that ASBOs are were not seen as punishments anymore, even though there was an imprisonable offence for breaching an ASBO. It has been reported too that a number of teens risked the potential of gaining an ASBO just be “glamorous” in the eyes of young people who are involved in ASB. (Johnston, The Telegraph, 2006) The idea of the “badge of honour” proves that ASBOs are not effective in tackling the problem of ASB, because the younger generations strive to achieve ASBO’s in order to look cool.
The practitioner perspective, however, is adjacent to this, this proves ASBOs to be effective in acting as a deterrent to ASB. It was strongly highlighted within research that police officers noted that a large number of youths were not breaching their orders, and it was concluded to be because the threat of a prison sentence was enough to make them behave and stopping causing ASB. The practitioners then continued to point out that constant offenders were going to breach the order more than once, and would then need to experience the consequences before the ASBO worked. (Kirby and Edmondson, 2012b, P.101-103). This research appears shows that ASBOs were effective when they were applied because although some offenders did breach their order, once the threat of a prison sentence became real, the breaching rate was lower. Likewise, ASBOs are effective especially when they have been used with another method to deal with ASB, but in most cases, ASBOs have been used as the first resort by the police and the local authorities – showing the effectiveness of the order. (Thames Valley, 2005) The orders developed by the Labour Government are effective in dealing with ASB because once the problem behaviour has been identified – the local authorities and the police can begin to resolve it by introducing programs and youth clubs. For example, if a group of youths were hanging around by a corner shop causing trouble to the locals, to stop this from happening continuously the local authorities could build youth clubs, in order to get the youth off the street – which is in the long run-tackling the ASB problem.
Besides this, the use of ASBOs can indicate the underlying factors of the anti-social behaviour – such as why the offender is being aggressive in public. This could lead to intervention into the perpetrators home life, such programmes as early intervention can be added with ASBOs to prevent any anti-social behaviour from the start. This is a strong point to show that ASBOs are effective because they can work alongside programmes and help abolish the behaviours from the start, to eventually remove all types of anti-social behaviours. Similarly to this, ASBO’s give less power to the perpetrator, which can make the victims feel safer within their community, as they know that their perpetrator is being controlled by the rules of their ASBOs.
As a closing remark, anti-social behaviour orders were not effective when dealing with ASB, this is as a result of unfair targeting to certain groups and further fuelling public concern which can cause individuals to fear particular demographics – for instance, males and people wearing hoodies. Correspondingly, the amount of breaches alone leads to suggest that the orders were not an effective deterrent – some offenders completely neglected the orders they had been given. Furthermore, ASBOs were turned into a “badge of honour”, which promotes the intention of ASB – proving to be a negative to the way ASB was policed. Amongst the negatives, some benefits appear from the use of ASBOs, such as the awareness of ASB is raised and local businesses are protected from the vandalism that they once experienced. The introduction of ASBOs were disputed, as the border between criminal and civil law were blurred, but they were intended to make a positive difference in the policing of ASB – even so, the way that they were applied led to a major flaw – due to the application of ASBOs, they were ultimately ineffective in reducing/stopping ASB.