Labour's pledges to stop low-level offenders

When he was shadow Home Secretary in 1995, Jack Straw vowed that a Labour administration would get to grips with the "winos and addicts whose aggressive begging affronts and sometimes threatens decent, compassionate citizens".

The election manifesto two years later promised: "We will tackle the unacceptable level of antisocial behaviour and crime on our streets. Our 'zero tolerance' approach will ensure petty criminality among young offenders is seriously addressed." Six years on, the planned new Anti-Social Behaviour Bill makes similar pledges to crack down on "the nuisance neighbours, yobs, drunks, drug users and beggars ... ruining our communities or streets".

The Bill's very existence is an admission of Labour's failure to reduce the petty criminality that so disfigures many communities.

The Government admits: "Although there is a wide range of measures in place to address antisocial behaviour, it is clear from what we know and from what people tell us, more needs to be done to address their concerns."

Its first initiative on low-level crime, in the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998, gave courts the power to issue Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) banning acts such as vandalism or stone-throwing. The latest figures reveal that 706 ASBOs have been issued in the four years of their existence. In addition, 170 Acceptable Behaviour Contract schemes – requiring unruly youngsters to behave better for six months – have been set up by English and Welsh councils.

In an attempt to tackle low-level crime, 207 neighbourhood warden schemes have been set up, and another 38 schemes are due to start next year.

The Government has also introduced parenting orders, requiring mothers and fathers to take responsibility for children; restrictions on drinking in public; and fresh powers to remove abandoned cars.

Nearly three years ago, Tony Blair was ridiculed for suggesting that police give on-the-spot £100 fines to drunken thugs and that the offenders be taken to cash machines if they didn't have the money on them. That specific plan was abandoned, but the Government is now hailing the success of fixed penalty pilot schemes in Essex, Croydon, the West Midlands and North Wales.