Zero Tolerance For Teenagers
Mrs Blunkett | 24.06.2004 12:58
After having shut down every youth club in and around Camden Town, giving teenagers no alternative but to congregate at suitable street corners, the police have now issued them with a curfew. Penalties for non-compliance include a £5,000 fine, or six months in jail!
New powers which enable police, over a far-reaching area, to disperse and expel persons they ‘suspect’ of being a ‘nuisance’ is a breach of basic civil rights. It is not a crime to be on the street after 9pm as an unsupervised teenager and it is not illegal to gather in a group, unless martial law has been surreptitiously imposed?
Inevitably, enforcing this ‘exclusion-zone’ will result in harrassment of the innocent, along with the guilty. Contrary to the hype, not all youngsters are anti-social or potential drug dealers, but they are being treated as such.
New powers which enable police, over a far-reaching area, to disperse and expel persons they ‘suspect’ of being a ‘nuisance’ is a breach of basic civil rights. It is not a crime to be on the street after 9pm as an unsupervised teenager and it is not illegal to gather in a group, unless martial law has been surreptitiously imposed?
Inevitably, enforcing this ‘exclusion-zone’ will result in harrassment of the innocent, along with the guilty. Contrary to the hype, not all youngsters are anti-social or potential drug dealers, but they are being treated as such.
Mrs Blunkett
Homepage:
http://www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/n170604_1.htm
Comments
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Angelo
25.06.2004 07:18
I would have to say that is a sweeping statement. Many children live without youth clubs in their area without feeling the need to stand on street courners. Indeed in my experience those who do stand on courners are the moaners who never attend youth centres anyway. The cry "there's nohing to do" I have heard from teenagers standing twenty yards from facilites.
There are other alternatives
damm those pesky teenagers
25.06.2004 19:25
criminalise the lot of them, i say. a curfew is too good for them. surely moaning should carry a more severe penalty. like a lifesentence in a call centre for example.
or is that too good for the ungrateful little darlings too?
heather