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Publications · Community Sentences, Policing, Sentencing and the law

The ASBO: Wrong turning, dead end

Neil Wain questions the success of ASBOs in preventing further crime and anti-social behaviour

  • Price: £12.95

  • ISBN: 978-0-903683-99-9

  • Published: 2007

  • Pages: 141

  • Publisher: The Howard League for Penal Reform

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2007

The anti-social behaviour order is a flagship policy of the government’s Respect agenda.

In The ASBO: Wrong Turning, Dead End Chief Superintendent Neil Wain, of Greater Manchester Police, questions the success of ASBOs in preventing further crime and anti-social behaviour.

In the book, he argues that:

  • ASBOs fail to prevent further crime and anti-social behaviour among offenders
  • Leaflets naming and shaming those who receive ASBOs could endanger vulnerable children by publishing their contact details, while also risking vigilante attacks, cases of mistaken identity and turning offenders into the resident scapegoat
  • Many ASBO conditions actually encourage crime by preventing offenders from getting help from their families or going to work in a normal day job
  • Offenders receiving ASBOs are given little or no support to get back on the straight and narrow

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