Don't Be Un-Mutual

Julian Sanchez | February 9, 2005

The most recent Economist has a piece on the Orwellian-sounding "Anti-Social Behavior Orders" (subscribers) used by police to slap restrictions (on pain of jail-time) on folks who ignore their neighbors. The article informs us that "one man was sentenced to four months in prison for howling like a werewolf." Sold on the grounds that police would, of course, deploy them with restraint and careful judgment, more than a thousand were issued in the first half of 2004 alone. Fewer than one in 70 ASBO applications are rejected. Worse, "ASBOs allow the police to bypass the normal procedures of criminal justice when they suspect somebody of serious criminal activity but can't prove it."