Last Updated on September 26, 2026 by Karl Thompson
An Anti-Social Behaviour Order, or ASBO, was a civil order restricting what a named individual could do, breach of which was a criminal offence.
- Introduced by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and available from 1999
- Issued by a civil court on the civil standard of proof, but punishable by up to five years in prison if breached
- Aimed at behaviour that was anti-social rather than criminal — noise, harassment, intimidation, persistent nuisance
- Abolished in 2014 and replaced by Criminal Behaviour Orders, Civil Injunctions, Community Protection Notices and Public Space Protection Orders
- A form of environmental crime prevention, associated with Right Realism and with New Labour’s approach to anti-social behaviour
ASBOs are useful for A-level sociology because they are a clear, recent, British example of formal social control being extended to behaviour that is not a crime — which is a point Interactionists, Marxists and Right Realists all have something to say about. The topic sits within crime and deviance, examined on Paper 3 (7192/3).
How ASBOs Worked, and Why That Mattered
The sociologically interesting thing about the ASBO is not what it banned. It is the legal structure.
An ASBO was applied for by a local authority or the police in a civil court, which meant the standard of proof was the civil one — the balance of probabilities — rather than the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt. Hearsay evidence was admissible. The person subject to the order had not been convicted of anything.
The order itself then imposed individually tailored prohibitions: not to enter a particular area, not to associate with named people, not to play music above a certain volume. Breaching any of those prohibitions was a criminal offence carrying up to five years’ imprisonment.
The effect was to create what critics called personal criminal law. Conduct that was perfectly lawful for everyone else — walking down a particular street, owning a dog, being in town after a certain hour — became a criminal offence for one named individual, on the basis of a civil finding. A person could end up in prison for doing something nobody else could be arrested for.
This is the point to make in an essay. Whatever you think about ASBOs as policy, they represent a genuine change in how social control works: a hybrid of civil and criminal law that allows the state to criminalise an individual rather than an act.
A CRASBO was an ASBO imposed on conviction — that is, attached to someone already found guilty of a criminal offence, as an additional restriction on top of the sentence.
Examples: ASBOs in Practice
The case studies below were part of the original post and are retained, because they do something a summary cannot — they show the range of behaviour ASBOs were actually used against, which is the heart of the argument about them.
A note on sources: these accounts come from national and local press reporting at the time, and the tabloid coverage in particular is written to invite contempt for the people described. Read the behaviour, not the framing.
An ASBO for shoplifting
In 2013 Jade Underwood, a young single mother from Stockport, received a CRASBO banning her from 80 stores after persistent shoplifting, alongside complaints from neighbours about abusive behaviour. Local shopkeepers described a sustained problem — one branch of Boots stopped displaying make-up.
An ASBO for persistent drunken abuse
In 2012 a man in Rhondda became the first person in the area to be banned from all hospitals, except for genuine emergencies and pre-arranged appointments, following sustained drunken and threatening behaviour towards residents and hospital staff. A second order followed when the first expired.
An ASBO for playing loud music
In 2010 a partially deaf country music fan in Peterhead admitted breaching an ASBO obtained after complaints from a neighbour about the volume of his record collection. He was unrepentant, observing that if you live in a terrace you should expect some noise.
O’Rourke commented….
“My neighbours were just being vindictive… If you’re joined onto another house you’ve got to expect a bit of noise.”
He explained: “I play my music every day. Who doesn’t like music? I like country and western, 60s music, Scottish music. I also like some of the up-to-date stuff. Why should I stop listening to my favourite music just because of a few vindictive folk? I’ll never stop playing my vinyl.”
One former neighbour said: “I wasn’t sorry to see him go. He wasn’t the best of neighbours.”
A warning letter about a scooter
In 2009 a mother in Nottingham complained after police wrote to her about her twelve-year-old son riding his push scooter on the pavement, warning that he could be given an ASBO if officers were called again. Her son, she said, thought he would get into trouble for going out to play.
Statewatch’s ASBO monitoring project documented a long list of comparable cases through the 2000s, including orders against children for behaviour that a generation earlier would have been dealt with by a neighbour having a word.
Why ASBOs Were Abolished
ASBOs were repealed by the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which replaced them with a simplified set of powers from October that year.
The stated reasons were practical: there were too many separate powers, the orders took too long to obtain, and breach rates were high. The underlying criticism was that a punitive order with no supportive element was unlikely to change the behaviour of someone whose anti-social conduct came from addiction, mental ill health or chaotic circumstances — and that a prison sentence for breach simply confirmed the person in a criminal identity.
What Replaced Them
Four orders now do the work ASBOs used to do. Students often confuse them, and the distinction between them is straightforward once you see what each one attaches to.
Criminal Behaviour Orders (CBOs) attach to a person, on conviction for a criminal offence. Like the old CRASBO, they impose prohibitions on top of the sentence — but unlike the ASBO they can also impose positive requirements, such as attending an anger management or substance misuse course. That addition is the main policy change: control plus an attempt at correction, rather than control alone.
Civil Injunctions attach to a person, without a criminal conviction, and are obtained in a civil court. They are the closest direct equivalent to the old ASBO, and they too can carry positive requirements. Breach is contempt of court rather than a separate criminal offence.
Community Protection Notices (CPNs) attach to a person or a business whose conduct is having a persistent detrimental effect on a community’s quality of life. They are issued by councils or police without going to court at all — typically for things like refusing to control noise, waste or overgrown land.
Public Space Protection Orders (PSPOs) attach to a place, not a person. This is the significant innovation. A council can designate an area and prohibit specified activities within it, and anyone doing the prohibited thing in that area commits an offence.
| Attaches to | Requires a conviction? | Court? | Can require positive action? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Criminal Behaviour Order | A person | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Civil Injunction | A person | No | Yes | Yes |
| Community Protection Notice | A person or business | No | No | Yes |
| Public Space Protection Order | A place | No | No | No |
PSPOs and the control of public space
PSPOs deserve separate attention because they change who is being controlled. An ASBO named an individual whose behaviour had been complained about. A PSPO names a space and applies to everybody in it.
Reported uses have included orders requiring dogs to be kept on leads, orders prohibiting groups of under-16s from gathering, and orders restricting street drinking, rough sleeping and begging in town centres.
The sociological point is that a PSPO can make an otherwise lawful activity an offence for an entire category of people in a particular place, without any individual having done anything wrong. Critics — including civil liberties organisations — argue this represents the control of public space on behalf of those who use it commercially, and that the activities most commonly restricted are those associated with poverty and youth.
Arguments For and Against
For
They deal with behaviour that ruins people’s lives and is not otherwise actionable. Persistent noise, intimidation and harassment fall below the threshold for most criminal prosecutions but have a severe cumulative effect on neighbours. Left Realists as much as Right Realists take that seriously: the victims of persistent anti-social behaviour are overwhelmingly working class people who cannot afford to move.
They act quickly, and can be tailored to the specific problem rather than applying a standard sentence.
They respond to the public’s actual concern. Anti-social behaviour, not serious crime, is what most people report as the problem where they live.
The replacement orders can require positive action, which is a genuine improvement. A CBO requiring attendance at a substance misuse programme is doing something an ASBO never could.
Against
The civil standard with criminal consequences is the core objection. Someone can be imprisoned for breaching an order made against them on the balance of probabilities, partly on hearsay, without ever having been convicted of an offence.
From an Interactionist perspective, ASBOs became a badge. There is a well-documented phenomenon of young people treating an ASBO as a status symbol — a formal label conferring exactly the reputation the recipient wanted. The Jade Underwood case includes precisely this: a defiant social media post treating national coverage as fame. Labelling theory would predict a self-fulfilling prophecy, with the labelled person taking on the identity and acting accordingly, and the high breach rates are consistent with that.
They criminalise the young and the poor. A substantial proportion of ASBOs went to under-18s, and the behaviours targeted — gathering in groups, being loud, being in public with nowhere to go — are behaviours of people who lack private space. Wealthy teenagers are noisy in large houses and gardens, where nobody complains.
They punish the symptoms of problems they do nothing about. Alcoholism, mental ill health, poverty and chaotic family circumstances underlie a good deal of persistent anti-social behaviour. A prohibition addresses none of them.
Marxists would argue the whole apparatus is aimed downwards. There is no equivalent order for a company that persistently pollutes a neighbourhood or a landlord who persistently leaves properties unfit — those are dealt with, if at all, by underfunded regulators rather than by an order carrying five years in prison.
They are inconsistent and depend on who complains. The music and scooter cases above involved no violence, no threat and, in the scooter case, no offence of any kind. Whether behaviour becomes ‘anti-social’ depends heavily on whether a neighbour complains and how persistently — which means the orders track social conflict rather than harm.
| ASBOs and replacement orders — evaluation | |
|---|---|
| Supporting | Criticising |
| ✓ Address persistent behaviour below the threshold for prosecution | ✗ Civil standard of proof with criminal penalties for breach |
| ✓ Fast, and tailored to the specific problem | ✗ Interactionism: the order becomes a badge of status; self-fulfilling prophecy |
| ✓ Respond to the public’s main stated concern | ✗ Fall heavily on the young and on those without private space |
| ✓ Protect victims who cannot afford to move away | ✗ Punish symptoms of addiction, mental illness and poverty |
| ✓ Replacement orders can require positive action, not just prohibition | ✗ Marxism: no equivalent power used against corporate harm |
| ✗ High breach rates suggest they do not change behaviour | |
| ✗ PSPOs control whole categories of people in a place, with no individual wrongdoing |
Signposting and Related Posts
This post is written for students studying the crime and deviance topic as part of the AQA’s A-level sociology course, examined on Paper 3 (7192/3).
ASBOs are an example of environmental crime prevention, which sits alongside situational and social prevention in Crime Prevention and Control Strategies.
They are also a form of zero tolerance control — see Zero Tolerance Policing.
The perspective behind them is Right Realist Criminology, and the labelling criticism above is developed in Labelling Theory.
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Sources
Crime and Disorder Act 1998. [LINK NEEDED — legislation.gov.uk]
Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.
Home Office, Anti-social Behaviour Powers: Statutory Guidance for Frontline Professionals.
Statewatch, ASBOwatch: monitoring the use of anti-social behaviour orders — https://www.statewatch.org/observatories/2004-2010-asbowatch-monitoring-the-use-of-anti-social-behaviour-orders/case-studies/asbos-used-against-children/