Call to hound yobs as Asbos decline

3:56pm Tuesday 13th May 2008

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A LARGE fall in the use of antisocial behaviour contracts (Asbos) in North Yorkshire does not mean the police are going soft on louts, according to the Home Secretary.

The number of Asbos in the county has fallen by 21 per cent, but there has been a massive increase in the use of acceptable behaviour contracts (ABCs) and parenting contracts.

There were 232 ABCs issued in the county between their launch in 2003 and September last year - 93 of which were handed out in the nine months up to September 2007.

The contracts are voluntary agreements to persuade troublemakers to "take responsibility for unacceptable behaviour" - with the threat of an Asbo if they do not. There were also 122 voluntary parenting contracts given out, which aim to change a child's behaviour - perhaps by requiring them to attend school regularly, or to stay at home at certain times.

In a key speech, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said the police and councils were now using those measures to crack down on troublemakers.

She said: "There is no let-up in tackling antisocial behaviour."

She said she had urged police to go further by "harassing" badly-behaved youths, openly filming them and hounding them at home.

Across England and Wales, the number of Asbos fell by a third in 12 months, from 4,123 in 2005 to 2,706 in 2006.

In North Yorkshire, they fell from 34 to 27 in the same period. There were 41 in the county at their peak in 2004. Asbos have long come under fire from Conservative MPs because so many of them are breached.

In North Yorkshire every person who is given an Asbo is caught breaching it an average of 2.4 times.

More than half (55 per cent) of all ten to 17- year-olds with Asbos in the county breach the orders at some stage. For those 18 and over, the figure is even higher - 56 per cent).

There were 162 breaches in North Yorkshire between 2000 and 2006 and 35 people breached their Asbo more than once.