Nuisance Offenders: Scoping the Public Policy Problems (From Confronting Crime: Crime Control Policy Under New Labour, P 80-94, 2003, Michael Tonry, ed. -- See NCJ-204841)

• NCJ Number: 204845
• Author(s): Rod Hansen; Larry Bill; Ken Pease
• Date Published: 2003
• Length: 15 pages
• Sale Source: Willan Publishing
• Publication Format: Book (Hardbound)
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom

Annotation

After examining the nature and impact on communities of cumulative, minor "nuisance" offenses, this chapter examines the effectiveness of the British policy of the antisocial behavior order (ASBO) in addressing this problem.

Abstract

Community residents who are continually impacted by ongoing minor offenses that cause cumulative anxiety and frustration undermine the community's quality of life. The criminal justice system, which addresses individual offenses with sanctions that are appropriate for a single offense, fails to take into account the impact of a chronic pattern of minor offenses that undermine the order and peace that residents desire where they live. The ASBO is the provision which comes closest to recognizing and attempting to address the cumulative impact of minor offenses. Local authorities and chief officers of police consult to apply to a court for an ASBO against an individual or individuals who cause harassment, alarm, or distress to "others not in the same household as themselves." An order prohibits its subject from doing anything specified in it. Breach of an ASBO can result in a custodial sentence of up to 5 years. Between April 1999 and March 2002, a total of 583 ASBO's were granted, with 36 percent of them being violated within 9 months. Just over half of the violations resulted in custodial sentences against the offender. The weakness in the administration of the ASBO is that although the evidence for the issuing of an order is cumulative, the evidence for a violation of the order reverts to consideration of a single event that violates the order. Given these parameters, a subject apparently escapes custody in almost half the cases brought before a court. The problem of cumulative nuisance offenses will no be solved until the courts begin to consider the seriousness of the accumulation of crime and nuisance that led to an order's imposition rather than focusing on the single event that led to the order's violation. 2 tables, 2 notes, and 4 references