banning hoodies

[English assassin]

There is a large shopping centre in the UK (Bluewater in Kent) that has just announced that it is banning anyone wearing hooded tops, baseball caps, or any other clothes that obscure your face. Apparently they have a problem with gangs of hood rats hanging around abusing people, swearing, etc.

Notwithstanding that its a free country etc and you should be free to do what you like I don't have an issue with this myself. There is only one reason teenagers wear those stupid hoodies, and its because they don't want their faces on CCTV (or they want you to think they don't want their faces on CCTV). If they need people to feel scared of them to get some sense of worth into their pointless existences hen they can hardly complain about being banned IMHO.

Whats more, and while I am being iliberal, we should go back to the days when large groups of teenagers hanging around on street corners got moved on by the police. I don't care if you are hard as nails, gangs of pack-hunting scrotes hanging about are intimidating, and even if they don't intimidate you they will intimidate your girlfriend or granny. I couldn't give a monkeys if they've got "nowhere to go" either (anyway, they have, they could go home or to the library and do their schoolwork).

[Duke Malcolm]

John Prescott said that he agrees with the ban, but he is a funny fat man...
I agree, EA, the Her Majesty's constabulary should be able to skelp the youths round the ear, and move them off

[Gawain of Orkeny]

There is a large shopping centre in the UK (Bluewater in Kent) that has just announced that it is banning anyone wearing hooded tops, baseball caps, or any other clothes that obscure your face. Apparently they have a problem with gangs of hood rats hanging around abusing people, swearing, etc.

So whn do the bombs start going off there? Are they going to turn Muslim women away?

[Adrian II]

Whats more, and while I am being iliberal, we should go back to the days when large groups of teenagers hanging around on street corners got moved on by the police.

Hear hear, and this in all public spaces please.

(..) they could go home or to the library and do their schoolwork).

Or they could build a nice neighbourhood centre for the benefit of the whole barrio under guidance from some of those daft old people who can teach them to work (!) with, you know, wood and nails and bricks 'n stuff and actually make something worthwhile instead of vandalising it.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Whats more, and while I am being iliberal, we should go back to the days when large groups of teenagers hanging around on street corners got moved on by the police.

I dont know about where you live but in our malls security is constantly breaking up large groups of teens who are just hanging out there and making them disperse.

[Kanamori]

I must live a sheltered life; I've never seen any of this stuff at malls

[KukriKhan]

Q: "council estates" = publicly funded housing?

[JAG]

Yes. They are given out via a list system rated on the most needy.

[Duke Malcolm]

The houses are built for and owned by the Council. The people rent them off of the Council at a cheaper rate. The houses can be bought after a certain amount of time living in them at a discount price. There are a great many schemes across the country.

I've never seen any security in my local shopping centres, except the Overgate, which has about 3, even thought it is quite large, and these just wander about trying to stop shoplifting, which they aren't good at either.

[JAG]

Or they could build a nice neighbourhood centre for the benefit of the whole barrio under guidance from some of those daft old people who can teach them to work (!) with, you know, wood and nails and bricks 'n stuff and actually make something worthwhile instead of vandalising it.

You see that I leave totally down to the govt, and the govt is failing in not investing in these forms of activities more. It should not be down to the gang members themselves to set up these forms of things it most definitely should be down to govt, it is what govt is for. This Labour govt we have at the moment, to it's credit, has started to try and combat this. Through the New Deal which gives people like this new chances - which the Tories wanted to scrap, naturally - and more money into needed public institutions. But it isn't enough and far more needs to be done, especially redevelopment in housing estates.

[Papewaio]

You see that I leave totally down to the govt, and the govt is failing in not investing in these forms of activities more. It should not be down to the gang members themselves to set up these forms of things it most definitely should be down to govt, it is what govt is for. This Labour govt we have at the moment, to it's credit, has started to try and combat this. Through the New Deal which gives people like this new chances - which the Tories wanted to scrap, naturally - and more money into needed public institutions. But it isn't enough and far more needs to be done, especially redevelopment in housing estates.

Jag you are an intelligent guy and you do read. So how much of the public library is utilised? Is it overflowing, crowded or dead quiet?

The Parramatta and Chatswood Libraries I go to are fairly full as are the uni ones in semester.

I'm just wondering because in some cases facilities exist but are not used. In other cases you are right there is nothing to study or work on.

[JAG]

To be fair, my local library is actually used quite well and has some new computers with internet connections which do get red hot. It doesn't have enough funding for better books however and more still needs to be done to make it even better and used more. It isn't brimming full but isn't empty either, just right some would say I guess.

However I understand that over all libraries are going down the pan, not enough investment and not enough people going.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Libraries in Cardiff are terrible. My local library doesn't seem to have bought a book since the 1980s, and the Central one is being shut down due to lack of funding, I understand.

I'm fairly well off so my parents are able to buy me most books I need for study, but there are lots of people who aren't in my position and it's a real shame they aren't catered for.

[JAG]

I think you will be surprised, but I totally agree with you. Having directly experienced these gangs - and still experiencing them day in day out via my wonderful college - I know the form of intimidation and the low level abuse which would lead the authorities at the shopping centre to make this decision. These gangs might not be always causing serious problems, but their presence and low key swearing at / intimidation of people, does create an atmosphere we really don't want. So far we have done pretty much nothing to combat the rise in this or the rise in the low key 'yob type' behavior. This will not solve the problem, but it needs to be done in the short term so that we can find the real conclusions as to stopping the need to behave like this and the tendency for people to join in these 'hood rat' gangs. To do that you need development in things to do for people of this age, better public services so people do not feel they 'don't learn anything, what's the point' and better development of the council estates and housing where most of the people in these gangs come from. Until we seriously start addressing these reasons we cannot simply let them get away with blue murder as they do in many cases at the moment. Moving them along when they congregate in specific areas or banning certain wearing of clothing in specific places where the gang mentality is most felt is needed albeit in the short term. I don't really like it, but it has to be done.

[ShadesWolf]

Are these people also banned from the 'Car Parks' outside the shopping centre, or are they allowed to wait, hooded to mug somebody

[BDC]

Are these people also banned from the 'Car Parks' outside the shopping centre, or are they allowed to wait, hooded to mug somebody

Only if they are holding 'Vote BNP' signs.

[Templar Knight]

Where I live it is very quiet, although we have the odd spot of bother now and then like when a gang of 15 threaten my mum and threw something at her, which obviously pissed me off

Getting the bus is sometimes a problem, since they like to hang out at bus stops and naturally they don't create a nice atmosphere. They hand about in under-passes so at night time you need your wits about you.

One thing I did notice was if threatened, shouting - BRING IT ON - in a sort of commando way, they don't bother and head off, seeing as they usually pick on weak individuals who wont fight back.

If Blair cracks down on them, then great!

[ah_dut]

One thing I did notice was if threatened, shouting - BRING IT ON - in a sort of commando way, they don't bother and head off, seeing as they usually pick on weak individuals who wont fight back.

If Blair cracks down on them, then great!

I wholeheartedly agree...maybe I sound like a git, but the people they pick on tend to be old people and the disabled. Or people like me...grr, flippin 8 year olds with too much money and time on their hands...if you hit them, it's run to mummy time, even when they hit you first. Grrr

It does exist unfortuantely and it is a totally new thing, in relative terms. Maybe the last few months. It is the same people we are talking about in this thread who carry out the 'happy slappy' stuff.

Happy slapping is relatively old (i.e. a few years) it's just the videoing of it that's new. I say this as I have been happy slapped many timesover many years... most of the time it's a practical joke, but it can descend into a street assault.

Yeah, I'd agree, except I have no body fat so for survival I resort to wearing sweatshirts during winter... Some have hoods, but they aren't the huge ones most people in my school wear, and I never put them up...

EAT FOOD

[lanky316]

Where I live it is very quiet, although we have the
One thing I did notice was if threatened, shouting - BRING IT ON - in a sort of commando way, they don't bother and head off, seeing as they usually pick on weak individuals who wont fight back.

I've also found carrying a toy gun is enough to make them scatter, most of them are all mouth, no testicles and can't figure out the little plastic thing I've just told them they try anything I'l use doesn't work anyway.

[Templar Knight]

I've also found carrying a toy gun is enough to make them scatter, most of them are all mouth, no testicles and can't figure out the little plastic thing I've just told them they try anything I'l use doesn't work anyway.

its true yep,

another thing to do, if the situation gets heated, is hit the ringleader and the rest will run

[|OCS|Virus]

lol thats nice, I love my blue hoody, I barely wear the hood, but it keeps me nice and toasty at nearly all tempuratures{sp?} I'm glad I don't live in the uk right now, I'd like to see them rip off my hoody, would be a cold day in guess were, before that would ever happen. I do however understand why they are doing it, I just don't agree with it. If it were me I would just step up security, hire a guard or police officer to just keep things under control.

[LittleGrizzly]

I love my hoody to, it keeps my head dry and keeps me warm and its nice and comfortable, i probably wouldn't wear the hood up in a department store anyway...

[PanzerJaeger]

This is what happens when society stagnates.

No one expects anything from them and they dont expect anything from themselves. I read an article that said -(about many kids in the US)- that kids have no aspirations to move up the social and economic ladder. They were born trash and have no intentions of ever being anything else.

Such an opinion in such large numbers is new in the US and im sure the UK. Even during the height of the hippy movement, most kids were pretty straight arrows and strove for success.