ASBOs Don't Work on Vegetables

England is such a pleasant place in summer, when the weather is warm, the sky is blue, and the plants on your allotment are behaving themselves.
But, as Nosher pointed out recently, giving miscreant vegetables a reprimand for anti-social behaviour and restricting their growth does nothing for their long term prospects.
We were sat, as usual, in our old deckchairs one lunchtime in the shade of Noshers ramshackle shed, enjoying a glass of chilled fruit juice from his solar powered fridge.
'Apparently' he began 'the Government's own figures reveal that their ten year campaign to reduce youth crime has been an abject failure. ASBOs do not work. It would appear that nothing works. Criminality has become a standardised phase of growing up that, with luck, most will grow out of by the time they're thirty, but by then they will probably have passed most of their anti-social attitudes onto their offspring.'
Nosher sighed and gazed along the neat rows of tomato plants and runner beans on his little plot.
'The latest initiative' I said 'according to Mr Jack "I'm a Slimeball" Straw, our Secretary of State for Injustice, is to place more responsibility upon the parents of these miscreants - although one wonders why, since if they'd got any sense of responsibility to begin with they should know where they children are and what they're up to. I smell failure in this one already, and it's not even a corpse yet.'
'Have you noticed' Nosher inquired 'that the more weeds we root out of our vegetable plots and put on our compost heaps, the more it encourages yet more roots to grow amongst our vegetables, unless we really keep on top of it, and then they seem to give up for a while?'
This was a non-sequitor, even by Nosher 's standards.
'And the point is?' I asked politely.
'Well, maybe that's the problem with this youth crime thing' Nosher replied 'Instead of "assertive outreach" (whatever that is) that the "leave them alone" brigade are proposing, maybe our society should put underage recidivist drinkers onto a great big compost heap and leave them there to fester for a while - a few weeks should do it. The more that arrived, the smellier and more uncongenial the situation would become. If they knew that an evening of under-age drinking meant several weeks festering on a compost heap, they might find something more productive to do with their time.'
'I suggest you sit tight until Gordon the Moron rings you up' I advised 'you never know, your idea might be just the thing to turn his political future around!'