Courts Urged To Avoid Jail For Asbo Breaches

The courts have been officially warned that teenagers who breach their Asbos should not normally be jailed and that “excessive” sentences should not be passed on adult offenders in similar circumstances.

{mosimage}The proposals from the official body that lays down guidelines on sentencing come after latest figures show that 46% of the 7,500 people successfully prosecuted for breaching their antisocial behaviour orders in 2005 were jailed.

The sentencing advisory panel, in its proposals for new guidelines to the courts for dealing with Asbo breaches, says that in most cases involving young offenders the appropriate sentence should be a community order.

The judges, police and prosecutors on the panel say that jail should only be considered for young people if their breach involved serious harassment, alarm or distress, or if there had been a series of serious breaches.

“In principle custody should be used less frequently for youths, so the threshold should be set at a higher level than the custody threshold for adults,” says the panel’s consultation proposals, published yesterday. “Even where the custody threshold is crossed a custodial sentence will not be inevitable. The younger the offender the more likely that perseverance with community orders will be more effective than detention in preventing re-offending.”

The panel advises the courts that they should “normally choose a community order” over juvenile detention unless that option is “impossible or impractical”, in which case four months’ detention should be the starting point for the court’s deliberations. If the Asbo breach did not involve any “harassment, alarm or distress” a fine is recommended.

The rapid increase in numbers of young people being jailed for breaching their Asbos as part of a pattern of other offending is believed to be fuelling the rise in numbers of teenagers being locked up in England and Wales.

The panel recommends a tougher approach to adult offenders but believes that nobody should be jailed for breaching an Asbo unless it causes “harassment, alarm or distress” to others; even then imprisonment should not be inevitable.

Although breaching an Asbo carries a maximum five-year prison sentence, the panel says that the “range” adopted by the courts for serious cases should be from six months to two years. They suggest that breaches not involving distress to the public should be dealt with by a fine or community punishment.

The panel reminds judges and magistrates that the guidelines are based on the assumption that the breach was not serious enough to justify prosecution as an offence in its own right.

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, criticised the proposed guidelines, saying the public would be dismayed that breaches of Asbos – the government’s flagship measure on antisocial behaviour – could be treated so lightly.

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said: “We will feed into the independent consultation … but there are no plans to change the sentencing provisions for Asbos [at present]. Our approach to antisocial behaviour is bringing respite to communities … agencies use them as an effective way to put an end to the bad behaviour that makes people’s lives a misery.”

Punishment

· Two-month sentence for man who breached Asbo banning him from Tyne and Wear Metro. Initially jailed for 22 months, cut by appeal court as he had not caused any distress to others.

· Three years, three months sentence for man with record of abusing NHS staff, who breached second Asbo. He breached previous Asbo eight times. · Eight-month sentence for man who breached Asbo by abusing shopkeeper. Arrested while drinking.