BBC News thinks that the much-maligned ASBO may be going away.
Home Secretary Theresa May has signalled the possible end of Asbos in England and Wales, saying it is “time to move beyond” the orders, first introduced by Labour 11 years ago.
They have been imposed on 10-year-old boys and 80-year-old women, used to sober up persistent drunks and mute noisy neighbours.
Of course, one of the more useful aspects of the ASBO has been to allow the media an easy way to find stories to run in the quiet times, like this one:
A 60-year-old man from Northampton was banned from dressing as a schoolgirl.
Peter Trigger’s Asbo stopped him from wearing skirts or showing bare legs on school days between 0830 and 1000 and 1445 and 1600.
The authorities acted after parents complained he was waiting near a primary school dressed in clothes similar to school uniform. He then breached this in December last year by bending over in front of his neighbours repeatedly.
You see, without the ASBO, reporters would have to dig up gems like that themselves, instead of having the local police blotter highlight the most newsworthy items for them.
I often wondered, when reading some of the weird and whacky things that people were hit with ASBOs over, why existing laws weren’t applied (lots of these violations were clearly against the law before ASBOs were created). The intent may have been to give judges more flexibility in sentencing, but in practice it appears to have created a “market” in unusual sentences and distorted the notion of equality before the law.
