Net-widening, gap-filling, and shortcut justice: the practice of Community Protection Notices to regulate anti-social behaviour

Since being introduced in 2014, Community Protection Notices (CPNs) have changed the anti-social behaviour (ASB) policy landscape in England and Wales. Using Cohen’s (1985) netwidening analogy as an analytical framework, we evidence how CPNs are an example of the creeping criminalisation of sub-criminal behaviours from first-wave to second-wave ASB policy. In doing so, we highlight how frontline policing bodies have lowered the behavioural threshold at which ASB enforcement takes place, demonstrate how CPNs are employed to fill gaps to regulate behaviour not traditionally associated with the criminal justice system, and show how CPNs are escalated to a Criminal Behaviour Order in a way that shortcuts due process and results in disproportionate punishment.