Press Release

26 February 2007

Over 30% of youths receiving ASBOS have a diagnosed mental health disorder or an accepted learning difficulty

bibic has criticised the government’s policy on issuing anti-social behaviour orders without first carrying out an assessment of the young person. bibic carried out a survey of ASB officers and youth offending teams for the BBC and discovered that over a third of under-17s issued with ASBOs have a diagnosed mental health disorder or an accepted learning difficulty.

The survey demonstrated a huge difference in recognition of the youths’ learning difficulties. Anti-social behaviour officers look at the individual cases and produce the order. They reported 5% of their youth cases had special needs or a learning difficulty. This compared with 38% reported by youth offending team officers who had seen conditions that included autism, ADHD, moderate learning difficulties, and emerging personality disorders, depression and self harming. They estimated that 6% had a mental age of less than 10 years old.

Julie Spencer-Cingoz, chief executive of bibic says “Not understanding the underlying difficulties of so many of the young people has meant they have been given orders that they do not understand and cannot keep. Without specialist help they are being set up to fail, and a breach of an ASBO is a criminal offence. This is the wrong way to be treating vulnerable young people. Early intervention is a more sensible approach to prevent major problems emerging. ASBOs are failing both the young offenders and the communities they are supposed to protect.”

The Home office is saying that they have not received any case studies from charities but bibic sent details of cases over a year ago and re-sent them only one month ago. That said, it is not for charities to do the government's work which is to monitor their policies for issues concerning disability. Charities are able to raise the question and alert the government to concerns, but ultimately it is their responsibility to do the monitoring.

bibic started the Ain’t Misbehavin’ campaign in 2005 to draw attention to changes needed in the system and to launch a training programme for professionals working with youths with challenging behaviour. bibic has also been on hand to assess children and support families being drawn into the criminal justice system when their child had never committed a crime.

Click this link to view bibic research on ASBOs and young people with learning difficulties and mental health problems.