July 27, 2004

• What utter bullshit. I was going to say that this kind of law would never fly on this side of the pond, but I'm pretty sure it would nowadays. Abso stats
• Reading this was quite disturbing. shawnj you have a point, I can see this as a possibility over here as well. The fact that the testimonies of the neighbors don't have to be verified is what scared me the most, someone could be slapped with an order by a rumor. And why in the world would the word "grass" be offensive enough to ban a boy from saying it for six years? No offense to British monkeys but that strikes me as stupid.
• While I have great sympathy for neighborhoods trying to deal with delinquency, it seems inherently unfair to slap potential offenders with these extremely broad restraining orders that allow significant jail time for rather minor breaches, many of which are not even criminal offenses. This all smacks of the notion that undesirables should be completely stifled or driven from the community. Even if you endorse that view, in a global village that solution only shifts the problem onto someone else. I am reminded of my own local metropolitan police force, which killed their own minor efforts at community policing so that they could put that tiny amount of funding towards the major expense of a helicopter.
• The BBC link gives me a 404. But I have to ask why any word should be banned by virtue of its supposed offensiveness? "Everyone agrees that anti-social behavior is a problem?" Am I right to guess, then, that this perfect consensus holds together in every individual case? Good that the UK has worked out a suitable punishment for such heinous crimes without all the messy rights. This all smacks of the notion that undesirables should be completely stifled or driven from the community. Exactly. What's that about anti-social behavior?
• re BBC 404; try this And here's the Google cache, just in case.
• ASBOs, I agree, are very challenging both as a policy tool and a legal doctrine. They bridge civil and criminal proceedure, things have have developed with distinct character for good reason. They have the potential to be a mild corrective, but more frequently are a 1000 pound hammer (though in theory they are very specific). During the debate about them this year, I worked on a campaign against them, even though I have no shame is saying gangs of roving kids looking from kicks are more frightening than drunken frat boys. This argument (that boys are boys, hijinks and puppy dog tails, etc.) utterly fails and hopefully cases like the British 14 year old handed a life sentence for stabbing a schoolmate through the heart this week should put to rest that fallacy. The problem is that legal tools are not precision instruments; law is mostly too coarse to shape social policy. ASBOs could only work as part of a comprehensive network of social service provision, that ensures that they aren't just social exclusion orders, a stepping stone to harder time (and possibly harder crimes) -- and that network just isn't there. Ultimately, they are just too easy to abuse (infamous dog & sheep ASBOs, not to mention ASBOs as a tool for vendettas) and in the end create an even more distructive environment. They are the quintessential NIMBY response. um. (strident much? yeah. all righty then.)
• Ilyadeux - are people seriously equating boys-will-be-boys romanticism with roving gangs of thugs and 14 year old murderers? I'm genuinely curious, because that seems imbecilic (to me). Surely the debaters on your side (ie arguing against asbos) weren't operating at that level.
• Some people say an ASBO in the right place might have prevented Luke Walmsley's death*. Maybe true, maybe not. There are also people (some rightly) saying that these are given out without thought, as if they were the cure rather than the band-aid. The extreme of this position is that running through gardens and knocking on doors is juvenile, but harmless and not deserving of the kind of permanent trauma (like the sort detailed in the Guardian pieces you linked) an ASBO can entail. In fact, in those profiles, mothers of children with ASBOs do adopt this position. If playing nicky-nicky-9-doors were it, well, yeah: boys will be boys, freakin' annoying creatures that they are. But that ISN'T it; it's dumping garbage all over the allotments of senior citizens, pushing them over and swearing, tearing up their gardens and sending pizzas and curry to their house at 4am for 17 nights straight. For a 85-year old widow that is serious harassment [real example]. Obviously, I have a lot of sympathy with what the advocates of ASBOs are striving for, and I think most people do, but the method - cure worse than the disease, maybe.
• Speaking as a liberal left-winger who was very concerned by Asbos when they were introduced, I have to say that I've been (generally) impressed by the way they've been used. There seem to have been relatively few horror stories of them being used oppressively, they do genuinely seem to be mainly used as a last resort by local authorities, and the wide range of uses is impressive. Any law that could potentially both put a Sony executive in jail and stop a kid shouting "grass" (and yes, I can well see how that would be both terrifying and threatening, given certain circumstances) is, in my book, a good thing. On an ideological side, while I appreciate the worrying nature of melding civil and criminal law, I can actually see a perfectly good "social contract" argument for them, as a way of in fact reducing the amount of criminal action necessary to enable a community to ensure that it is not unduly harmed by selfish or violent individuals. I'm sure there are tweaks that need to be made to the law - New Labour does rush these things through without proper thought, the anti-intellectual tossers - as certain elements are either under-used, over-used or wrongly targetted. But generally, I've somewhat reluctantly come to accept, the principle is a fine one.
• Wouldn't you agree, flashboy, however, that it's not the implementation of the law that matters much, but the potential of the law as written that should indicate whether something is a good law or not?
• Is anyone addressing why the more violent kids are so angry and disenfranchised, or are the authorities just slapping them with ASBOs and hoping for the best? I'm curious because the UK seems to have a social and mental health safety net of sorts in place that is lacking in the US. Or am I completely wrong about that? Thanks for the interesting post, Polychrome.
• GRASS!
• shawnj: yes, I would. But... that's what I meant by tweaks to the law being necessary. As I said, I don't think there's a powerful, coherent argument from the left-wing liberal perspective I hold (which is ideologically based in social contract concepts) against the general principle of these orders. I think perhaps you have to appreciate these orders from the perspective of British legal and social institutions. Bear in mind that the very structures that shinything mentioned are themselves a reasonably effective barrier against the unjust implementation of these laws. We don't have (with a few exceptions) the model of local tinpot sheriffs, in the Joe Arpaio mode, which would make such orders deeply worrying. We have a slow and sullen social-care beauracracy, and (in this case) thank the sweet Lord for it. Certainly, there may need to be some greater blocks put in to regulate the reckless implementation of these orders in certain circumstances, but as a genral principle, the idea of locally implemented, communitarian restraining orders is a good one. As I said before, I see it as a way of minimising the necessity for full, authoritarian legal action (e.g. NY-style zero-tolerance, or a broad "three strikes and you're out" policy) in combatting anti-social behaviour. Which, you must believe me, is a very serious problem. Perhaps my stance is more pragmatic than idealistic, I'll happily admit that. But, in the face of a problem to which more care-based solutions are not the only answer (although they're a vital and significant part), I think this is a workable, socially-just set of measures. If they lessen the emphasis on certain traditional liberal preferences, do so only by replacing them with other, equally important ideals. But yeah, the law needs to be better written...
• Yours truly was thinking the whole thing was gonna be all horrorshow like when I first viddied the news of Absos. Why I thought me an me droogs wouldn't be able to engage in a little bit of the old ultra-violence anymore. This, obviously sent shivers from me gulliver down through me guttiwuts all the way to me toes. This is the real weepy and like, tragic part of the story beginning O my Brothers and only friends, not a bit for the squeamish. they took your humble narrator in and labelled him, they did. Then, pony if thou wilst, devotchkas and chellovecks, The Ludovico method and the pain and sickness worse than like flu when witnessing any ultra-violence, or in-out being applied liberally to the sounds of the one and only Ludwig Van? Horrorshow! But now, yours truly is a functional, contributing member of society, cured of all his baser ills.
• surlyboi, I am sooo stalking you. D'ya still wear that top hat now?
• Flashboy- as something of a lefty myself my concern with these sorts of laws is that they can become an example of tyranny of the majority in action. If some little old lady becomes sufficiently concerned because nasty young people are walking around the neighbourhood wearing black clothing, would that result in an Asbo, for instance. It seems like there are no limits on what they can be used for, provided someone is able to stand up in front of a sympathetic magistrate and get weepy. And combining civil and criminal codes like that is just wrong, whether the current structure works (for whatever value of works) or not.
• this is exactly the problem I have with ASBOs - the blurring of civil and criminal jurisdictions. Generally, not a huge problem so far, and I recognise the need to attach consequences to a breach; but one of the most fundamental principles of English criminal justice (proportionality) is pretty clearly violated when saying "Paki" (however grossly offensive) results in jail time.
• In addition to ilyadeux's arguments, with which I fully agree, ASBOs have the effect of enabling the MAN to tailor criminal charges to the particular "offensive" behaviours of (especially) young people. Saying "grass" ain't a crime; but kid A breaching his ASBO clause preventing him from saying "grass" is - its a bespoke criminal proscription. So what? you says. Apprehended Violence Orders and the like do the same for (say) stalkers. But I put it to the gang that this "private criminal law" element of ASBOs is another disconcerting element of the scheme - especially if the person involved is a child and is poor. Adult stalkers can afford better lawyers. ASBOs have the potential for brutish generality, allowing the civic fathers to pile clause upon clause of restrictions upon otherwise harmless behaviour - walking here, speaking this word, being late or early, dressing in this or that - until a child is beset by criminal sanctions on all sides - they find the criminal law has crept up and over the walls of his or her personal liberty. Or some shit like that, I dunno.
• D'ya still wear that top hat now? I've still been known to doff me lid from time to time...
• A triumph of hearsay and hysteria.

  A woman living on an estate in East Kilbride was given an Asbo ordering her not to be seen wearing her underwear at her window or in her garden. The local Asbo unit handed out diaries to her neighbours to record when she was seen in her underwear, giving a new meaning to neighbourhood watch.

  I'd love to see someone try and get an ASBO against Tony Blair - he's not allowed to use Iraq and WMD together anymore, and no more naughty invading of other countries either!
• These are just getting creepier. Rewarding nosy neighbours? In Canada, when people masterbate at open windows, the judges tell people not to look if it offends them. Just avert your eyes!
• A few years ago, in the US, there was a news story about a couple who were arrested for making out in a condominium parking lot, and it wasn't even that they were having full on sex. Couldn't find a google reference, but I seem to remember that it was because it violated a condominium rule. So, yeah, your neighbors are taking more and more interest in the ways you impinge on their dislikes.
• This is an interesting thread. Why is it a bad thing to blur the distinction between civil and criminal law (genuine question - I'm not saying it isn't)? My impression is that ASBOs are meant to fill a kind of gap previously filled by more subtle social pressures. We have become a radically less disciplined society over the last fifty years: once people went in terror of what the neighbours thought and of possible damage to their reputation for being respectable. Mostly the change is for the better, but a side-effect is that some people now see no particular reason why they shouldn't behave as brutishly and belligerently as they like. I can see that some grave problems of principle are involved: I can also see that the results may sometimes be good and sometimes, well, not so good. But in the end I doubt whether any legal remedy can deal with problems that have deeper social roots. Or maybe that's complete bollocks. Anyway, I look forward to being further educated.
• Plegmund - the problem is a combination of two issues 1) the standard of proof required for civil cases is much less than in criminal cases. Civil cases allow for hearsay evidence (someone told me that they had heard some other person down in the pub saying that she'd been told...you get the idea) and they also only require that there is a balance of probabilities (unlike criminal cases, with beyond a reasonable doubt being the metric). So the bar is much lower. 2) An ASBO can criminalise anything and everything, even actions that would otherwise not be a crime. And the penalty is up to 5 years in prison. So the standard of proof is much much less, but the consequences can be profound. Take the woman and lingerie for example. To the best of my knowledge, walking around in your house in your underwear is not a crime. But now, if she is caught doing it, she can be put in jail for up to 5 years.

• My impression is that ASBOs are meant to fill a kind of gap previously filled by more subtle social pressures. We have become a radically less disciplined society over the last fifty years: once people went in terror of what the neighbours thought and of possible damage to their reputation for being respectable.

  I am...not sure that this is true. Crime rates have been falling for several decades now. I think, rather, that certain activities are becoming increasingly marginalised, and more strongly associated with other anti-social acts and undisciplined activities. Take smoking, for instance. A generation ago, 40% or so of the population smoked, and smoking in public was tolerated and considered the normal thing. Today, in the US, smokers account for roughly 25% of the adult population, but an undue fraction of that 25% has some pretty profound problems, in addition to smoking. Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, mental health issues, all run at rates between three and ten times higher than in the non-smoking population. I suspect, though I don't have the numbers to prove (they may not even be available, smoking has been studied more heavily than practically any other social behavior) that other behaviors that we would now classify as extreme (such as binge drinking) were not that unusual a few decades ago either. Now they are more marginal. So it is not that society is less disciplined - if anything, we are more disciplined now than at any time in the past. Which makes undisciplined activities stand out even more. Actually, if you want to see something _really_ hair raising, check this out. Figure 1, annual new users of prescription pain relievers for non medical reasons - that's not a good shape. And compare figures 2 and 3; by the way, figure 3 isn't to the same scale as figure 2. Marijuana use barely makes the cut, if it was plotted on figure 2, and heroin use is really teeny weeny.