In July 2010, home secretary Theresa May heralded the end of the anti-social behaviour order (ASBO). She claimed that an ASBO order is responsible for putting “too many young people on the conveyor belt to prison.”

According to the Centre for Social Justice, a report on street gangs called ‘Dying to belong’ argued: “Over the past decade, British society has seen an increase in gang culture and its associated violence. In addition, the composition of gang culture has shifted: gang members are getting younger, geographical territory is transcending drug territory and violence is increasingly chaotic.”

The report went on to say that the “police in London and Strathclyde have each identified 171 and 170 gangs respectively.”

The Metropolitan Police Service have also identified that the majority of gang members are between 12 and 25.

The proposed new injunction would enable a court to impose a range of restrictions:

• Not entering a specified place, for example, the neighbourhood that the gang regards as its territory.

• Not being with named members of a gang, Gangs are able to intimidate people because they operate in significant numbers. Being alone, gang members are much less able to threaten or commit violence.

• Not wearing particular items of clothing such as gang colours or balaclavas which prevent identification.

Under the Policing and Crime Act 2009, police and local authorities now have the power to apply to their local county court for an injunction against local gang members.

At present, the injunctions are for over 18s, although the government intends to roll the scheme out to younger teenagers later this year.

Gang injunctions appears to simply shift the problem to civil courts.

The guardian reports that ASBO breach rates among teenagers have reached 73 per cent. This fuels the claims that ASBOs have become a badge