'Anti-social behaviour' has become a label attached to a huge range of nuisance and petty crime, and rarely out of the headlines as tackling this problem has become a central part of the British government's crime control policy. At the same time 'anti-social behaviour' has provided the lever for control mechanisms ranging from the draconian to the merely bureaucratic, most notably in the shape of the Anti-Social Behaviour Order, or ASBO.

This book seeks to explain why anti-social behaviour, as a focus of political rhetoric, legislative activity and social action, has gained such a...