"Keep the bastards out of prison". It`s not too difficult to imagine that directive being given from one senior civil servant at the MOJ to his/her assistant. What might be surprising to many is that that conversation would have taken place in 2012 or 2013. By that time the original supposed deterrent to antisocial behaviour was ASBO; antisocial behaviour order beloved by prison governors because it reduced the tendency of having to allow for ever increasing numbers of miscreants being subjected to short custodial sentences in their already crowded prisons. It was "sold" to magistrates and local councils as a method by which local nuisances both in noise and behaviour by local hooligans which might fall short of actual criminal behaviour could be contained without the high bar of trial and beyond reasonable doubt to prove guilt and local witnesses or council officers being able to submit anonymous statements.
I suppose all that began with a new Tory government in place not long after the 1979 election. Home Secretary William Whitelaw had announced he was going full steam ahead on a key manifesto promise – the Short Sharp Shock. To a euphoric Tory party conference in October 1979, the urbane and aristocratic Whitelaw told delighted delegates that detention centres for teen lawbreakers would no longer be ‘holiday camps’. This played on widely believed media stories of young hooligans leading cosseted lives behind bars. “Life will be conducted at a swift tempo,” he assured the party. The belief was that a regime of early wake up calls, military drill and manual labour over a three month period would shock young offenders out of a life of crime. To break even the most determined spirit periods of recreation could be denied and silence was the general rule with only 30 minutes of chat between prisoners permitted each day. It wasn`t long before there was a rising disquiet amongst many in the legal fraternity and pressure groups that such sentencing did little to improve or deter criminal behaviour at the lowest end. So in 2013 ASBO begat CRASBO later shortened to CBO or Criminal Behaviour Order.
On 21/06/2016 I posted of my personal involvement in this historic legislation. Generally I consider that this form of civil sanction [the breach of which is a criminal offence] is displacement legislation. "Don`t commit an offence within our boundaries; go elsewhere to offend." So from pillar to post the offending continues. Breach of an anti-social behaviour order is triable either way with the maximum sentence for this offence in magistrates’ courts of 6 months’ custody and a maximum 5 years’ custody at the crown court.
It seems that it`s taken eight years for the message, for what it`s worth, to get through to Barnsley Council. The offender in this case had previously been issued with another of these so called orders; a Community Protection Notice. As far as I am aware the MOJ has no knowledge of the deterrent value of these civil orders. It has been unable or unwilling to provide numbers of those breaching them and being subsequently convicted as above. All that can be said, in my humble opinion, is that it reduces the burdens on police and prisons. Whether or not such orders are another sign of outcomes determined by cost cutting or an innovative process to control low level but aggravating local misbehaviour is as much dependent on political opinion as social innovation.
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