ASBOS WOULD WORK IF THEY WERE PROPERLY ENFORCED

The reason Asbos have been only partially effective is that too often breaches of them have been treated by the courts as minor misdemeanours rather than serious offences worthy of incarceration.

That has undermined the notion that those tearaways with Asbos were on a final warning and would end up behind bars if they failed to mend their ways.

In fact, the whole point of Asbos was to provide a quick and efficient route to making young hoodlums accountable for their actions. But if there is no effective punishment for breaching an Asbo it loses its teeth. For the Home Secretary to pass the onus for tackling yobbery down to law-abiding people in the areas worst affected is an abrogation of responsibility.

No doubt many public-spirited citizens will attempt to tackle gangs of thugs. But if those thugs believe the forces of law and order have withdrawn from the battlefields that many neighbourhoods have become then one shudders to think what the consequences will be.