A survey by the Youth Justice Board (YJB) found that many professionals on teams set up to tackle tearaways had concerns about the Government's flagship anti-social behaviour measure.
The in-depth survey also found 49 per cent of under-18s breached their Asbos.
The report concluded: "High levels of breach had led some sentencers to question how much impact Asbos were having on the behaviour of individual young people.
"A considerable number of respondents alluded to the potential for the order to become 'glamorous'."
One magistrate told the YJB's year-long research programme: "It's being used as a badge of honour."
Parents and carers of young people handed the controversial orders said they were seen as a "diploma" and boosted "street cred".
"Some of the friends are left out now because they're not on an Asbo," said the mother of three young men who were all on Asbos. "I know a boy that's hell-bent on getting an Asbo because he feels left out."
Asbos were introduced by the Government in 1999. They allow magistrates to impose conditions on a person's behaviour in a bid to stop them acting in an anti-social way. Breaching the order can lead to jail.
But a district judge told researchers that youngsters who breached their orders were often not being properly punished.
"The danger is that you would increase the (prison) population enormously if we... enforced Asbos fully," the judge said.
"So I think... there are quite a lot of people breaching orders and not a lot happening to them when they do."
Analysis of 137 Asbo cases found 67 breached an order at least once.
Of the breachers, 42 (31 per cent of the total number) broke their conditions on more than one occasion.
Among that group, six yobs breached their Asbo on six occasions or more.
One police officer criticised the use of geographical "exclusion zones" as part of Asbo conditions.
He said: "You're inviting little Johnnie Smith to... run over the imaginary line and then run away. You've actually invented a game for the kids to play."
Some Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) have argued that Asbos "undermine" other work they do to improve youths' behaviour.
The YJB, a Government agency which manages how child criminals are punished, said police, councils and the courts should involve YOTs every time they considered handing a youth an Asbo.
YJB chairman Professor Rod Morgan said: "Asbos can – and do – work incredibly well but they need to be used correctly. That means exhausting every preventative measure in the community first and ensuring that YOTs are not excluded."
The report showed that 22 per cent of young people handed Asbos were black or Asian – two-and-a-half times the level of ethnic minorities in the population at large.
One district judge made official inquiries after noticing that Somali youths were over-represented in Asbo applications. He raised it with the justices' clerk and the senior judiciary, the report said.
"Quite frankly, it was bordering on the point where criticism could be made that the police were targeting a particular ethnic group," he said.
The research was conducted by the Policy Research Bureau and crime reduction charity Nacro, looking at Asbos given to young people between January 2004 and January 2005 in 10 unnamed areas of England and Wales.
Nacro said it was concerned Asbos were used too readily with "worryingly high" applications for Asbos on some ethnic groups.
Chief executive Paul Cavadino said: "Asbos should only be used as a last resort but some areas are using them as an early option without first trying other approaches.
"The wide definition of 'anti-social behaviour' which can result in an Asbo has created enormous potential for discrimination."
He called on ministers to set up "rigorous" ethnic monitoring.
Shadow home secretary David Davis said: "This is yet another demonstration of the Government's total failure to tackle crime. The Asbo system was set up as a headline-catching gimmick."

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