Last orders: What next after end of romance with Asbos?

Published: 05 August, 2010

WITH gritted teeth and a feisty uppercut, former Camden Council leader Dame Jane Roberts punches her way through a poster of pop star Avril Lavigne.

The photograph on the steps of the Town Hall marked the height of the council’s excitable pursuit of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders. It was the day officials revealed how they were deploying Home Office legislation in a way other authorities had hardly imagined possible.

Here were the fly-posters, the guerilla advertisers who left an out-of-date trail of rain-soaked images on the borough’s walls, being run out of town.

Court orders sought six years ago effectively curbed their moonlit activity as club promoters were told they would risk fines and even jail if they kept it up.

The front-page headlines capped Camden’s enthusiastic use of Asbos, which in other areas had been reserved for troubled teenagers, drug addicts and women who worked as prostitutes.

In truth, other councils across London could hardly keep pace as Camden’s love affair with the Asbo intensified. Within a couple of years, more than 250 had been successfully obtained through the courts. Arguments over human rights were largely glossed over in the stampede, even when a coalition of opponents formed a protest group called Asbo Concern.

The romance with Asbos, however, last week looked to have finally been broken by Conservative Home Secretary Theresa May. 

She suggested Asbos – an instrument at the heart of the New Labour government’s response to crime and disorder – would be halted, placing the measure under review.

Ms May said: “Labour introduced a ludicrous list of powers for tackling anti-social behaviour – ­the Iso, the Asbi, the Asbo and the Crasbo. Crack house closure orders, dog control orders, graffiti removal orders, litter and noise abatement orders, housing injunctions and parenting orders. 

“These sanctions were too complex and bureaucratic. They were too time consuming and expensive and they too often criminalised young people unnecessarily.”

Yet Conservative counterparts in Camden are not so sure that Asbos should be Asbo’d.

Belsize councillor Jonny Bucknell said: “If it is only at a discussion stage then I will make sure I get involved to say how good they have been for Camden. There were Asbos around the country that were frivolous and gave them a bad name, but when used properly, Asbos made a big difference.”

Group leader Councillor Andrew Mennear said he had “never argued against Asbos”. But he stopped short of a whole-hearted blessing for Labour’s invention. 

“I welcome anything that helps reduce crime,” said Cllr Mennear. “My view is that you have to solve crime, not just contain it. If crime levels were not reduced under Labour, then there wasn’t a solution there.”

Lib Dem deputy leader Cllr Matt Sanders said: “Asbos are part of the solution but not the whole solution. The real value of an Asbo is it gives instant relief to the victim. The review needs to think of new, additional ways to help councils and the police protect the community.”

While the targeting of music companies and advertising firms who flouted rules by pasting posters across the borough was a headline generator, Camden Council used the orders more regularly to ban drug addicts and prostitutes from King’s Cross and Camden Town.

Addicts and dealers hit with Asbos could be arrested simply for walking down the road if they returned to the area. The idea was to break their cycle of troubled behaviour and steer them – coerce them, say critics – into treatment. 

Officials were told the system failed because the orders were so regularly breached. At one stage, beggars banned from Camden Town were known to be sneaking back into the neighbourhood wearing disguises.

Lawyer Matt Foot, who helped found Asbo Concern, said: “I am delighted that no longer will councils like Camden attempt to gain government favour by implementing as many Asbos as possible. A banning order that could be used to ban anything anywhere forever was never going to deal with issues that arise out of social problems.”

But those who worked closely on the court cases insist otherwise: at least two prostitutes banned from King’s Cross are known to have retreated to their family roots in counties outside of London.

Silla Carron, the award-winning community campaigner and star of hit BBC show The Estate We’re In, said: “This was one thing that Camden got right. It was about giving the community a say, giving people the power to change things. It’s stupid to end it like this.”

Ms Carron, whose home estate in Camden Town benefited from rough sleepers being barred by law from its stairwells, added: “These cases didn’t always end up in Asbos. When there were teenagers up to no good we sat down with them and talked to them before it got to court – and sometimes it didn’t need to get to the Asbo stage. And for those people who did get Asbos, when they could show they were not causing trouble anymore they could get the Asbo removed.”

Labour councillor Theo Blackwell said: “The evidence from Camden is there – ­the question for the new Conservative-Lib Dem government review is which of our 460 orders would they not have issued?”