GeekLawyer’s Blog

15 year old boy “W” who can’t be named because of his age has, with the help of civil rights group Liberty, won a high Court case claiming that the power of local councils and police to arrest him and take him home forcibly because he is under 16 and in a dispersal area, is a breach of his civil rights.

The justification for the orders is that older people find groups of youngsters hanging around the streets intimidating and menacing, and that groups of young people are often unruly and troublesome. Richmond Council even claims that crime has gone down in the area as a direct result of dispersal orders. The police say they very rarely use them but they are handy to have ‘just in case’.

For my part I find these orders repellent. Targeting someone who is behaving lawfully just because of their age and the fact that they induce an irrational fear in others seems to me to be the height of bigotry. Not so very many years ago we had loony feminists insisting men should be kept off the streets of the North because the Yorkshire Ripper was a man behaving psychotically. It was hardly fair on men to target them all as an innocent group just because of one madman. It never happened of course because men have power and wouldn’t accede to such demands but the young teenager is typically unpopular and an easy target for his elders: “what is that racket he is listening to? that’s not music its a racket, in my day tunes had a melody, look at the Sex Pistols”, “why do they all dress the same with those hoodies and caps? They’re so scruffy why can’t they wear a nice three piece suit? and cut their hair”; and so on. Would it be tolerable if we spoke of blacks in this way? no I think not, at least not nowadays. In the 50’s and 60’s you might have heard it said, but times change and some targets of prejudice remain easier than others.

Much of the justification is so bogus when analysed. Older people find groups of youngsters intimidating. In the reports I’ve seen this is described as young people intimidating older people rather than than older people merely finding that they feel intimidated by the presence of the youngsters. This is a rather different meaning. In one case it is an active process initiated by the youngster and in another the perception of the older person irrespective of the youngsters acts. Sure, if a young person does initiate intimidating behaviour that is unacceptable and the police should act. Furthermore this does happen: it happened to me but I didn’t blame all kids - I just tore the young thug concerned a new arsehole.

The correct response is efficient and proactive policing. where there is a problem have the police monitor events and target the wrongdoers, involve the community. Just harassing all innocent people in the vicinity is unfair. Furthermore to say, as the police do, that it is a convenient and efficient power is not enough. Many coercive and abusive powers of the state are convenient. They need to be just and proportionate. Too often our police are lazy and inept, attacking civil liberties is easier than doing their job effectively and properly.

What needs to be done is to give these kids something to do. If you talk to them mostly they are bored shitless. They live in crappy little communities where nothing goes on: no social facilities, clubs, recreation areas or any form of constructive employment or education. The government and local authorities don’t want ’soft’ policies that are expensive and ‘reward’ bad behaviour. Better to spend tens of millions on CCTV and billions on jails.

What is needed is the classic solution to feckless youth: a good, bloody, war combined with conscription. Aha! Iraq. What if …