HOME Secretary Theresa May called time on the controversial Asbo last night after stating the measure – one of Tony Blair’s flagship policies – had failed.

Ordering a review, the Home Secretary said it was “time to move beyond the Asbo”, pointing to figures that revealed more than half have been breached – and that councils and police forces are using them less.

She called for simpler sanctions that focused on rehabilitation, rather than hardline measures that were “criminalising and coercive”.

Praising schemes that recruited “volunteers in highvisibility jackets” and organised “walkaround days” to watch over communities, she said: “We need a complete change in emphasis, with communities working with the police and other agencies to stop bad behaviour escalating that far.”

The review triggered furious criticism from Labour, which made the Asbo the central plank of policy to tackle the scourge of anti-social behaviour, since its launch in 1999.

When it appeared that police and councils were starting to go slow, the then Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, ordered them to impose more Asbos – and described high breach rates as evidence of tough action.

Yesterday, Mr Johnson said: “There is no doubt that the introduction of Asbos has made a huge contribution towards tackling crime and anti-social behaviour.

“If the Home Secretary is to restrict the opportunities for the police to use Asbos, and other measures currently available, then this will be yet another example of this Government going soft on crime.”

Last night, Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate, a former Durham Police superintendent who helped set up the Asbo in 1997, said he believed the measure had worked and hoped it would not be scrapped without an effective replacement.

He said: “We had great difficulty with dealing with youngsters back then. It was seen as heavy handed to take them to court, so the Asbo was seen as a useful vehicle to stop anti-social behaviour.

“It certainly did the job and I still think it is a good idea. It worked for a lot of people – and for those it didn’t, they ended up back in court.

“It is far more costly to allow people to continue to offend.”

He added: “A lot of people in this country suffer from antisocial behaviour. I hope that if the coalition Government is planning on changing it, it puts something as effective in its place. It is too dangerous just to scrap it.”

The figures released by Mrs May revealed that more than 1,100 Asbos have been introduced across the North-East and North Yorkshire since 2000 – of which nearly 63 per cent have been breached.

Asbos stop troublemakers visiting a particular street or building, or harassing a particular person. They require less strict evidence than charging a person with a criminal offence.

But critics warned that troublemakers celebrated an order as a “badge of honour”

– and that they failed to tackle the root causes of bad behaviour.

In her speech, Mrs May poured scorn on Labour’s “ludicrous list” of hardline measures, including “the Iso, the Asbi, the Asbo and the Crasbo, crack house closure orders, dog control orders......”

And she said: “We must turn the system on its head.

For 13 years, politicians told us that the Government had the answer – that the Asbo was the silver bullet that would cure all society’s ills.

“These sanctions were too complex and bureaucratic.

There were too many of them, they were too time consuming and expensive and they too often criminalised young people unnecessarily – acting as a conveyor belt to serious crime and prison.”

Insisting antisocial behaviour was a local problem, Mrs May added: “The answers to it can only come from local people, who are close enough to understand the root causes.”