This is more about controlling the poor than squeezing them for cash. However as free prisoner labour is surely something the conservatives dream of, it amounts to the same thing.
I actually find Monbiot quite annoying, but it's an important point and this is an attack on liberty that is desperately open for abuse:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...one-everything
The bill would permit injunctions against anyone of 10 or older who "has engaged or threatens to engage in conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to any person". It would replace asbos with ipnas (injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance), which would not only forbid certain forms of behaviour, but also force the recipient to discharge positive obligations. In other words, they can impose a kind of community service order on people who have committed no crime, which could, the law proposes, remain in force for the rest of their lives.
The bill also introduces public space protection orders, which can prevent either everybody or particular kinds of people from doing certain things in certain places. It creates new dispersal powers, which can be used by the police#to exclude people from an area (there is no size limit), whether or not they have done anything wrong.
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