IF any further conclusive evidence were required to demonstrate that Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) really aren't worth the paper they're printed on, here it is. An exhaustive study conducted by the National Audit Office (NAO) has discovered that in 55 per cent of cases examined the provisos of ASBOs had been breached, with 35 per cent of those wrongdoers breaching them five times or more. In an extreme instance one delinquent breached the conditions of his ASBO an astounding 25 times; the average number of violations amongst those surveyed being four.
Of the 893 cases scrutinised, some 20 per cent received almost 60 per cent of all warning letters, Acceptable Behaviour Contracts (ABCs) and ASBOs issued. This fifth of criminals were found to have an average of 50 previous convictions each, compared with an average of 24 for the remainder. A spokesman for the NAO said that there is, '…a hard core of perpetrators for whom interventions had limited impact.' If they are so 'hard core' one might be forgiven for enquiring as to why they aren't behind bars, or breaking rocks in a quarry somewhere, or – better still - in a pit being liberally sprinkled with calcium oxide?
In refusing to build extra prison places and plumping instead for electronic tagging, ASBOs, ABCs, and shorter sentencing, this government is itself guilty of breaching a contract which any democratically elected administration has with its law-abiding citizens: that it is their obligation to provide a force – not a 'service' – that will guard us from the ravages of the criminal classes so that we are not obliged to 'take the law into our hands', a road that would eventually to anarchy. In this obligation they have utterly failed, in large part because of their continuing attachment to the incoherent socialistic dogma that criminals are themselves the wretched victims of a societal disease, which is seen to derive from economic privation and social inequity, instead of any inborn wickedness. This demented creed demands treatment instead of punishment and compassion instead of retribution. In the operation of this foolish, compassionate policing the ASBO is just another characteristic New Labour gimmick simultaneously calculated to make the government appear to be alert to crime whilst keeping wrongdoers out of gaol.
As Bill Bratton, former Commissioner of the NYPD under Mayor Giuliani, said of the UK earlier this year: 'You can do something about crime. You can control it. … You need smart policing, intelligence-led policing, you need resources. This is not rocket science. Fighting crime is not the most difficult thing in the world.' This is, of course, obvious, but the major problem facing effective crime fighting in the UK is of an ideological nature: it is the pandering attitudes of our politicians and police chiefs towards criminals that has unleashed an epidemic of lawlessness onto our streets and unless these notions are relinquished the situation will undoubtedly get worse.
Regarding these findings Home Office minister Anthony McNulty made this extraordinary response: 'The breach of an ASBO is not the failure of the ASBO but the failure of the individual to abide by its conditions.' And why shouldn't the individual abide by its conditions, Mr McNulty? Is it because he has absolutely nothing to fear from our inadequate criminal 'justice' system?
Of the 893 cases scrutinised, some 20 per cent received almost 60 per cent of all warning letters, Acceptable Behaviour Contracts (ABCs) and ASBOs issued. This fifth of criminals were found to have an average of 50 previous convictions each, compared with an average of 24 for the remainder. A spokesman for the NAO said that there is, '…a hard core of perpetrators for whom interventions had limited impact.' If they are so 'hard core' one might be forgiven for enquiring as to why they aren't behind bars, or breaking rocks in a quarry somewhere, or – better still - in a pit being liberally sprinkled with calcium oxide?
In refusing to build extra prison places and plumping instead for electronic tagging, ASBOs, ABCs, and shorter sentencing, this government is itself guilty of breaching a contract which any democratically elected administration has with its law-abiding citizens: that it is their obligation to provide a force – not a 'service' – that will guard us from the ravages of the criminal classes so that we are not obliged to 'take the law into our hands', a road that would eventually to anarchy. In this obligation they have utterly failed, in large part because of their continuing attachment to the incoherent socialistic dogma that criminals are themselves the wretched victims of a societal disease, which is seen to derive from economic privation and social inequity, instead of any inborn wickedness. This demented creed demands treatment instead of punishment and compassion instead of retribution. In the operation of this foolish, compassionate policing the ASBO is just another characteristic New Labour gimmick simultaneously calculated to make the government appear to be alert to crime whilst keeping wrongdoers out of gaol.
As Bill Bratton, former Commissioner of the NYPD under Mayor Giuliani, said of the UK earlier this year: 'You can do something about crime. You can control it. … You need smart policing, intelligence-led policing, you need resources. This is not rocket science. Fighting crime is not the most difficult thing in the world.' This is, of course, obvious, but the major problem facing effective crime fighting in the UK is of an ideological nature: it is the pandering attitudes of our politicians and police chiefs towards criminals that has unleashed an epidemic of lawlessness onto our streets and unless these notions are relinquished the situation will undoubtedly get worse.
Regarding these findings Home Office minister Anthony McNulty made this extraordinary response: 'The breach of an ASBO is not the failure of the ASBO but the failure of the individual to abide by its conditions.' And why shouldn't the individual abide by its conditions, Mr McNulty? Is it because he has absolutely nothing to fear from our inadequate criminal 'justice' system?
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