The return of the Asbo

The Home Secretary has revealed plans for new 'respect orders' to handle antisocial behaviour, with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

Yvette Cooper described the plan as a "modernised version" of the Asbo, or Anti-Social Behaviour Order, introduced by Tony Blair in 1998.

Respect orders and curfews

Under the new proposals, police, local authorities and social landlords would be handed the power to impose "respect orders" on "hooligans, drug users, street drinkers, fly-tippers, nuisance neighbours" and others engaged in antisocial behaviour, said The Times.

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Officers would have the power to seize e-scooters being ridden on pavements and to ban offenders from urban centres and parks. "Where appropriate", said the broadsheet, perpetrators would be forced to attend anger management classes or rehabilitation treatment for drug or alcohol issues.

Offenders who breached a "respect ­order" would be committing a criminal offence and courts would be allowed to hand out unlimited fines, and order offenders to carry out unpaid work or keep to a curfew. The "maximum sanction" would be two years in prison.

'Boon for curtain-twitchers'

Last month, a watchdog said the police "must and can do better" in cracking down on antisocial behaviour. Describing the problem as a "blight” on communities", Lee Freeman, HM inspector of constabulary, said it was "vital" that forces understand its "complexity and prevalence" and focus on "effective early intervention".

Yvette Cooper said "too many town centres and neighbourhoods across our country are being plagued by antisocial behaviour" and her measures would make sure the "most serious offenders are dealt with before their behaviour can escalate and cause further harm".

But antisocial-behaviour measures are a "boon for curtain-twitchers", said Josie Appleton for Spiked, because they "heighten people's mutual intolerance" and "fuel their negative fixations on one another".

Speaking to The Justice Gap, Akiko Hart, director of the campaign group Liberty, said the plan was "concerning given we know from experience that these powers are routinely misused by the police, in particular to criminalise those experiencing homelessness".

'Badge of honour'

The respect orders signal the "return of the Asbo", said The Times. Upon its introduction in 1998, critics argued over whether it was a "symbol of the Blair government's creeping authoritarianism" or a "godsend for communities blighted by a minority of nuisance neighbours", said Jon Kelly for the BBC.

Headline writers "seized upon the term with gusto" and a "mini-industry flourished selling T-shirts, hoodies and even babies' playsuits emblazoned with Asbo-related slogans".

If Asbos "ever were effective", that "certainly wasn't my experience of them", wrote Ryan Coogan, who "grew up in a pretty deprived area of Manchester" during the late 90s and early 2000s, for Indy Voices.

They were "created to appease the scared middle-class electorate" who would "never set foot" in areas like his, where "shunned, angry kids who might have been upstanding members of society", turned to crime because "they grew up believing they were already criminals by virtue of their upbringing".

For many, the Asbo "became a badge of honour", said Francine Wolfisz in the Daily Mail, and "more than half of those who received one would breach its conditions". For many, Asbos had "little effect on their lives" and they went on to "commit more serious crimes" including burglary, rape and murder.

Theresa May was another critic of Blair's policy: in 2010, she said that Asbos "often criminalised young people unnecessarily, acting as a conveyor belt to serious crime and prison". They were replaced by civil injunctions and criminal behaviour orders in 2014.