http://www.statewatch.org/news/2004/sep/01uk-asbos.htm
On 19 July the Home Office launched a five-year strategic plan entitled Confident Communities in a Secure Britain. The package was greeted with uniform hostility from opposition parties who claimed it to be little more than an attempt to grab headlines. Indeed, there are very few new measures, rather just modifications to existing mechanisms for combating anti-social behaviour. Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Mark Oaten, claimed that "this government promised to be tough on crime and the causes of crime. We have seen a lot of get tough rhetoric but little progress on tackling the causes". Criminalising low-level nuisance behaviour is not likely to reduce the public's fear of crime. It is children, in particular, that seem to be the target of this anti-social behavioural clampdown having already faced increasing restrictions of their civil liberties over the last five years."
Anti Social Behaviour Orders (ASBO's) target children and protestors: http://www.statewatch.org/news/2004/sep/asbo.pdf
