ASBOs

A farmer faces arrest if his pigs escape from their pen. A woman, 27, is barred from gardening in a bikini or answering the door in her underwear. A 15-year-old with Tourette syndrome is forbidden from swearing in public. A teenager is banned from her own home. A suicidal woman faces jail if she approaches a railway, a river or a bridge.

They sound like decrees from a crazy megalomaniac like Saparmurat Niyazov, the president of Turkmenistan who named a meteorite and a calendar month after himself, ordered an ice palace to be built in the desert and devised a new alphabet. But in fact, they are real examples of ASBOs (anti-social behaviour orders) served by judges to restore law to the streets of the reckless British Isles.

ASBOs are civil orders that ban individuals from specific anti-social activities, or from entering a particular area, for a minimum of two years. Handed out by the courts after joint applications from local authorities and police chiefs, they do not give the defendant a criminal record, but carry the threat of severe criminal penalties — up to five years' imprisonment — if breached.

Although their remit is wide enough to include the above, they are most closely associated with juvenile delinquents — hoodie-wearing "yobs" who, if the media are to be believed, are a modern scourge of the United Kingdom. According to Louise Casey, director of the Home Office anti-social behaviour unit, ASBO is "a byword for the country wanting something done about a guy who is 50 and looks 70 who gets gobbed on and has stuff thrown at him by a group of teenagers when he leaves the house for a night shift."

But — thanks in part to cases like those above — it is also a byword for a public debate about appropriate use of the law. Supporters of ASBOs say they protect the decent majority from assaults and intimidation. They send a message that action will be taken against loutish behaviour, a mission outlined by Prime Minister Tony Blair in the Queen's Speech to open parliament last month.

Critics, such as the group ASBO Concern, formed in April this year, say their power is too draconian — by restricting movement or behaviour, they impinge on civil liberties — and their use is too widespread: More than 4,000 ASBOs have been issued so far, and only 3 percent of applications are refused, figures criticized heavily by Alvaro Gil-Robles, the Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights, who suggested the country was suffering from "Asbomania."

Even when applied sensibly, ASBOs still have their detractors. A recent poll found that four out of five people support the orders, but only half of those who do believe they are effective. Some ASBOs are very difficult or nearly impossible to enforce. And among certain peer groups, they have quickly become an essential item for the required amount of street cred. Looking for respect? You ain't shit until you've got an ASBO. Travel by bus in a big city, sit upstairs and there is a good chance the back seats will be taken up by noisy youths bragging about sentences. ("Two years? Is that all? That's crap man; I can't go down Platt Lane for five...")

Critics say that instead of demonizing and potentially criminalizing the young — one ASBO was served to an 11-year-old girl (she terrorized residents of a seaside town by pelting them with eggs) — more should be done to prevent the causes of anti-social behaviour, such as providing young people with constructive alternatives to hanging around street corners and drinking cheap alcohol. Many argue that the scope and focus of the orders need to be more clearly defined, too: A suicidal woman should be offered help, not the threat of jail.

But the government is committed to ASBOs. Home Secretary Charles Clarke has just introduced a special variant to deal with rowdy binge drinkers — "booze ASBOs." Like their regular cousins, these will no doubt be lapped up by the media on all sides, which can use them to declare the fabric of society to be under threat from either asinine laws or degenerate, disrespectful youths. (Unusual or extreme orders are particular godsends. In March the Daily Mirror splashed with "Meet the ASBOs: Seven-year ban for the family from hell.")

So ASBOs are here to stay. The acronym recently entered the Collins dictionary, an indicator of some degree of permanence, and even crossed a further divide into everyday culture — earlier this month, the Guardian reported that when the poet Ian Killen heard somebody shout the word twice in a park, they were met by four legs, a wet nose and a wagging tail.

"It has a quite a good ring to it, ASBO, doesn't it?" said Killen, who was collecting dog names for a commemorative tea-towel.

It does... but it takes a particular breed of human to name their pet after a contentious law. What price a pooch in the 50 states has been lovingly named "Patriot Act?"

— Louis Cooke (louis@mintcake.com)

— graphic by Derek Evernden (derek@ocellus.net)