CYP Now - Analysis: Antisocial Behaviour - Do the punishments fit the crime?

The courts are dealing out ASBOs to errant children, but many young people simply don't understand the implications of not abiding by the orders. Daniel Martin asks whether this attempt to control nuisance crime is merely making matters worse.

All over the country, councils, housing associations and the police are tackling nuisance crime by imposing anti-social behaviour orders.

But concerns are growing that many of the young people given ASBOs by the courts do not understand the situation they are in. Children as young as 10 can be issued with them.

New Youth Justice Board chair Rod Morgan has said that many teenagers are being "set up to fail" by the overly onerous conditions imposed in ASBOs, which, he says, make them almost impossible to keep to.

Although the orders are a civil matter, a breach is a criminal offence and can lead to custody. Morgan blames ASBOs for an upswing in the number of young people in custody after years of decline.

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