Bleak Times for Children? The Anti‐social Behaviour Agenda and the Criminalization of Social Policy

The introduction, expansion and reform of anti‐social behaviour (ASB) powers over recent years in England and Wales have witnessed the extension and intensification of interventions designed to exert control over children's ‘troublesome’ behaviour, with those residing in marginalized and socially excluded contexts proving a particular target for the use of surveillant, correctional and ultimately punitive ASB measures. The ASB agenda resonates with the state's approach to social policy more broadly to define, legislate and sanction in relation to the duties and responsibilities it views as fundamental to the membership rights of a law‐abiding citizenship. Charting the continuities and shifts within youth justice policy generally and ASB policy specifically, this article will argue that developments in each reflect a consolidation and escalation of the criminalization of social policy within England and Wales. Focusing explicitly on the use and impacts of dispersal powers (to be rationalized as ‘direction powers’ under current coalition government proposals), it will be argued that criminalizing modes of state interventions such as dispersal/direction powers are likely to promote children's hostility and exclusion from a law abiding citizenship and to extend the criminalization net.