ETA: OK, having read detective_boy's post, I realise I've got slightly the wrong end of the stick as this is about controlled drinking orders. Still, although this post mentions ASBOs, I think the point stands - in fact it's even worse, if we're developing more and more effectively unaccountable approaches to controlling people's behaviour. CDOs, like ASBOs, do seem to be a cheap'n'easy way of imposing restrictions on behaviour that probably wouldn't be able to be done - perhaps quite rightly - through the usual legislative channels. So for "ASBO" below, read "ASBO/CDO/other similar quasi-legal restrictions". I realise this will probably make d_b cross. Sorry *shrug*
So the universal panacea, the ASBO, gets trotted out again.
This really bothers me.
I do think it's a bit iffy for people to be standing around outside a school drinking out of cans, but...well, it might not be what we like, but unless these people are actually behaving in an anti-social way, shouldn't we be letting them get on with it?
There's always going to be an issue with the kind of thinking that says "if people do something I don't like, then it should be banned". Part of living in a free society is having the right to do things that other people may not approve of, but which they must be prevented from stopping us from doing.
When ASBOs came out, lots of people worried that they would end up being used in an overbroad way, and I think that is exactly what has happened. We're seeing ASBOs being used as a way of circumventing due process - effectively doing an end run around all the protections and safeguards that our justice system possesses (and they're arguably not enough sometimes).
And they're also being used to address "problems" they simply shouldn't be applicable to: I can remember a case a year or two back where a mentally-ill woman was given an ASBO to prevent her from making suicide attempts. Sure, one could argue that trying to commit suicide is an "antisocial act", but is that really the best way to view it?
Similarly, is hitting people to whom it hasn't occurred that drinking a few bevies outside school isn't quite the Done Thing with a big ASBO Hammer the best way to address such behaviours? I don't believe it is - you're far more likely to create even more of the kind of alienation and resentment that undermines law and order, and prompts even more antisocial behaviour in the long run. Surely, they'd be better off having the head of the school write to parents to ask them not to drink outside his/her school, and then following up any unpleasantness that might result from that through the usual criminal channels (threatening behaviour, etc...). I know that means that someone has to do the hard job of standing at the school gate and saying "Excuse me, but would you mind not bringing alcohol to this gate in future?". But if the alternative's yet another small nail hammered into the coffin lid of people's relationship with society, I think we have to do it that way.
Because I'm getting really tired of all this stupidly transparent "quick fix" legislation we seem to be going in for - our legal system seems to be turning into a kind of massive collage of sticking plasters, with laws being passed to mandate health (eg smoking bans), ID card legislation being hailed as the cure of all ills as far as identity and security are concerned, ASBOs being hailed as the line of first resort whenever some slightly trick or challenging behaviour, which isn't quite serious enough to warrant a criminal prosecution, rears its head.
If this silly idea of ASBOing people who are inconsiderate and misguided enough to be drinking booze while they wait for their kids gets implemented, count on it that it'll then creep a bit further, and someone will end up being walloped for, oh, I dunno, standing on their front doorstep having a brew while they chat with their neighbour, or something.
