The people who have ASBOs to thank for improving life

SCOTLAND DEBATE

Antisocial behaviour orders must be used more frequently to improve the quality of life in Scotland, ministers said yesterday. Two years after the Scottish Executive extended the range and scope of ASBOs to give the authorities greater power to tackle antisocial behaviour, many areas are still not taking full advantage of the legislation.

Basic antisocial behaviour orders have been around for seven years but the 2004 Anti-Social Behaviour Act extended the scope of ASBOs to cover young teenagers (12-15) for the first time and allow courts to impose ASBOs as part of a sentence. The act also introduced new measures for councils and the police, including police dispersal orders, fixed penalty notices for litter and antisocial behaviour and closure orders for domestic premises. However, since the Act came into force, only six ASBOs have been handed down to the under-16s and 65 ASBOs have been awarded alongside convictions. This compares to the 200 ordinary ASBOs handed out in 2004-5 alone.

Cathy Jamieson, the justice minister, and her deputy, Hugh Henry, yesterday hosted an event to mark the second anniversary of the act. Mr Henry, the minister for antisocial behaviour, said: "We want the areas that are not using these powers, to use them. If it can work in one part of the country it can work in another. "It's evident that there are still parts of the country where the powers are not being used to the full extent. They can make a difference. We want people to know the powers are there."

So has the Executive's decision to extend the range and scope of ASBOs and give the authorities greater power to tackle antisocial behaviour actually made the streets safer? The act certainly made a difference to David Murray, who had already endured an astonishing catalogue of abuse. Nuisance neighbours had put a hosepipe down his chimney and flooded his sitting room. He had also been threatened, intimidated and kept awake at night. The 60-year-old's crime was to have complained about his neighbours in the area of Brechin where he lives, but nothing had been done to help him. The breaking point came when youths deliberately poisoned his fish pond, killing Ł5,000 worth of koi carp. Then, with help of the Anti-Social Behaviour Act, action was taken. The council caught the people responsible while they tried to flood Mr Murray's sitting room for a second time and they were convicted.

But the new act has not been without its critics. Some experts have warned that ASBOs are counter-productive because they are viewed as "badges of honour" by some . Edinburgh antisocial behaviour campaigner Betty Watson, 65, warns that ASBOs can be particularly ineffective with persistent offenders.

Some police officers were sceptical about dispersal orders when they were first proposed because they feared they would simply displace problems to other areas. Opposition politicians also believed the Executive was guilty of trying to appear to take action for political purposes, when the existing laws were strong enough to deal with antisocial behaviour, as long as they were enforced properly.

Sheila Gilmore, a Labour councillor in Edinburgh said one of the reasons the act had been so infrequently used was because the rules on under-16 ASBOs are so restrictive, it is very difficult to get them approved. She said: "The way the legislation has been framed means you are required to sign up the backing of children's services, social work and the children's reporter's office to get an ASBO for an under-16. Also, there are a lot of professionals who do not believe they should be used on the under-16s in the first place so are reluctant to use them."

However, as far as the police are concerned, their experience on the ground does seem to have been positive. Superintendent Campbell Corrigan, the sub-divisional officer for the West End of Glasgow, said there had been fears of displacing the problem to elsewhere, but this did not seem to have happened. He said: "It's been a success. I am not naive enough to think it's the only thing we need to do. As we get towards the end of it, we need to look at it long-term. I will consider whether we need to reinstate it."

Helen Eadie, the Labour MSP for Dunfermline East, is one of the many, however, who have come up against virulent antisocial behaviour which has been unaffected by the new laws. Ms Eadie's car was attacked by a marauding group of children as young as 12; she was intimidated and abused. She said the Executive had done all it could and she too blamed the authorities for not implementing the new powers. "At the moment, the powers are not being used," she said. "My constituents feel they are not getting the protection they need to go about their business."

Jack McConnell, the First Minister, clearly sees tackling antisocial behaviour as central to his re-election plans. He believes that if he can persuade the people that they are safer, with a greater recourse to the law than before, then he will deserve - and receive - their votes. For the few who have managed to get the authorities to take action, the new laws have made a big and positive difference and they will undoubtedly appreciate Mr McConnell's efforts. There are many others, however, who are still having to cope with intimidation and abuse and who have received no respite from the new act.

Questions and answers

Q: What is an ASBO?
A: An ASBO is an antisocial behaviour order, made against a person who has been shown to have caused alarm, harassment or distress to others. ASBOs are issued when the courts believe they are necessary to protect the public from further antisocial acts.
Q: How are ASBOs issued?
A: ASBOs are issued by sheriff courts in Scotland following action by local authorities. They are civil orders, but anyone breaching them is guilty of a criminal offence and can be prosecuted. Although they are civil orders, the behaviour of the perpetrator must be proved to be to a criminal standard.
Q: What happens if an ASBO is breached?
A: The offender is liable for criminal prosecution, resulting, if guilty, in a fine of up to Ł5,000 or up to five years in prison.
Q: Who can get an ASBO?
A: When the first law was passed in 1998, ASBOs could only be issued against adults. The Anti-Social Behaviour Act of 2004 extended them to 12-15 year olds, but only after the approval of authorities, including social workers and the children's reporter. Their effect has been wide-ranging. A cockerel in the Borders was threatened with an ASBO earlier this year but that was thrown out by a sheriff. In England, a woman was given an ASBO to prevent her jumping into rivers, railways and canals. This is because she was putting the emergency services in danger when they came to rescue her.
Q: What sort of behaviour can result in an ASBO?
A: Typical sorts of behaviour include vandalism, theft, abusive behaviour, begging, harassment, flyposting, or organising raves. However, a typical factor in an ASBO is repeated offences which alone might be considered minor. For example, swearing at a neighbour in itself is likely to be considered a minor infraction; but when it happens daily over many months it becomes harassment.
Q: How many ASBOs have been issued in Scotland?
A: The figures for 2004-5 show that 200 were handed down by the courts and this was a 60 per cent rise on the previous year. The number of under-16s hit by ASBOs is much smaller, however, with just six granted in the two years since the law was changed.
Q: What do people feel about ASBOs?
A: They are generally very popular. A MORI opinion poll published last year found that 82 per cent of the British public were in favour of ASBOs, however only 39 per cent believed they were effective in their current form.
Q: What do opponents say?
A: Some critics argue that it criminalises behaviour that is otherwise lawful. Other parties have voiced concerns about the open-ended nature of ASBO penalties - that is, there is little restriction on what a court may impose as the terms of the ASBO, and little restriction on what can be designated as antisocial behaviour. There have also been fears that some offenders try to get them, wearing them like "a badge of honour" instead of seeing them as a punishment.

Stories

Local efforts paid off when her estate became overrun with rowdy teenagers, Betty Watson, from Edinburgh, decided to take the law into her own hands. For more than five years, the 65-year-old pensioner has been campaigning to integrate young boys and girls on the Broomhouse Estate, firmly convinced that only stopping teenagers engaging in petty crime can put an end to anti-social behaviour. Her tireless efforts to reach out to unruly children earned her an MBE last year, but Mrs Watson believes antisocial behaviour orders may not always be the answer to teenage crime. "ASBOs are not always the solution. It depends on how far down the line you're going to hit the boys and girls, she said. If they are habitual offenders it's quite difficult to hit them with an ASBO stick. I've had problems in the past. I remember one of the teenagers on the estate would phone the fire brigade all the time, making false calls. That person was served an ASBO, around the time when ASBOs first came in force. Then, I have a feeling the youth was caught phoning the fire brigade again. In the end it was the police who got involved and sorted the matter out." The pensioner said Broomhouse Estate has been transformed from a wasteland into a peaceful community thanks to the concerted efforts of residents.
Evidence led to ban from Mall
Shopping centre managers are used to youths hanging around their malls, but occasionally someone comes along who is such a menace that extra action needs to be taken.This was the situation that confronted Neil Fincham, 55, manager of the West Side Plaza in Edinburgh's Wester Hailes. He said: "There was one particular individual who was barred from the centre, but he continued to try to flout the ban. He would continually try to come in to steal. When we confronted him, he was abusive and threatening." Mr Fincham was advised that he might be able to get an anti-social behaviour order imposed on that individual, but no commercial ASBO had ever been issued in Scotland before. The manager recorded all the problems he had with the individual until he had enough evidence for the council to take action, and the first commercial ASBO in Scotland was issued, barring the person from the centre and the surrounding area. Mr Fincham explained that, unlike the centre's own ban, the ASBO is backed up by the force of law. "Breaking the conditions of an ASBO is a criminal offence. He can be arrested on the spot, taken to court and given a Ł5,000 fine or five years in prison," he said.
Noisy neighbour silenced
For Raylene Anderson the problem with her noisy neighbour could not have come at a worse time. Ms Anderson, 37, had just returned to her home near Easter Road in Edinburgh at the end of last year after giving birth to her second daughter, when a neighbour started playing loud music at all hours of the day and night, banging on the walls and shouting obscenities. "What little sleep I had with a newborn baby, he deprived me of that she said yesterday. And she added: I have never felt so upset, so frustrated. That noise, combined with the baby when I returned to work, was appalling. Some nights I didn't get any sleep at all and had to cope at work." Ms Anderson contacted Edinburgh City Council and the police, and the council sent an antisocial behaviour team to assess the problem. The 47-year-old noisy neighbour then attacked the council officers. The culprit was issued with an interim order in May this year and a full antisocial behaviour order, barring him from making noise in the Albion Place tenement flats, in July. "That did make a difference. What I think is good is that, when you are really down, you can believe there is light at the end of the tunnel; that's what happened to me," she said.

Hamish MacDonell and Aura Sabadus
10 November 2006

http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1661922006

home / Previous feature