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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[KukriKhan]

So the 'hoodie' kids are low income boys?

Racially mixed groups?

School is mandatory up to what age?

:colour me the question-man today:

[BDC]

So the 'hoodie' kids are low income boys?

Racially mixed groups?

School is mandatory up to what age?

:colour me the question-man today:

White trash would probably be a good name.

So generally white, losers who are either still at school and bunking off or have left at 16 and are doing nothing due to be skilless and lazy. Don't pity them, they have managed to ignore an entire free education and all the other opportunities given to them. A lot of the previous government's policies were directed to stopping this sort of thing, like Anti-Social Behavior Orders (ASBOS) which basically mean the police can ban some sort of stupid behavior an individual keeps doing.

Some kid around here broke one and got himself and his father evicted from their council house. He was banned from any road which didn't lead directly to his house, had a curfew, banned from wearing hoodies and stuff.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

White trash would probably be a good name.

So there only white kids wear hoods and hang around in gangs?

Another case of PC. Imagine if I refered to blacks teens or poor black people as black trash. I would never hear the end of it.

[English assassin]

So the 'hoodie' kids are low income boys?

Mostly, and wannabes. Of course when they are shouting "f Off" and generally arsing about its not too easy to tell who are the wannabes and who might actually be packing knives. truth to tell I don't think the hoodies themselves know if they are dangerous or not, but you put a load of 16 year olds together and sometimes things take on a dynamic of their own.

Racially mixed groups?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. There are hood rats from all the major ethnicities. Sometimes mixed groups sometimes not, just depends on the area really.

School is mandatory up to what age?

16 but IIRC you can't claim benefits til you are 18, and there are payments for staying on if you are from a low income family. There are proposals to make it 18, which is a good enough idea so long as there is training appropriate for all interests.

[BDC]

http://www.chavscum.co.uk/

And this is quite a funny flash...

[English assassin]

So there only white kids wear hoods and hang around in gangs?

Not at all, but as it happens knowing where Bluewater is these kids probably were all or mostly white.

[Duke Malcolm]

here's another one :
www.glasgowsurvival.co.uk

[BDC]

Look, even the government is actually going to do something:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4538599.stm

Blair pledges new 'yob' crackdown

Yobbish behaviour in Britain's streets and schools will not be tolerated, Tony Blair has insisted as he set out his priorities for a third term in office.

"Respect towards other people is a modern yearning as much as a traditional one," said Mr Blair.

He put much of the blame on parents, saying he could bring in laws but could not raise people's children for them.

He told his monthly news conference that the need for more respect was a key lesson from the election campaign.

Family focus

Mr Blair said the end of deference and preference did not mean society did not have any rules.

He said people were fed up with street corner and shopping centre thugs, with binge drinking, vandalism and graffiti.

A very small minority of people were making the law-abiding majority "afraid and angry".


KEY DATES
17 May: Queen's Speech
29 May: French referendum on EU Constitution
1 July: Britain takes over EU presidency
6-8 July: Britain hosts G8 summit
25-29 Sep: Labour Party Conference

"I want to send a very clear signal from Parliament, not just the government, that this type of disrespect and yobbish behaviour will not be tolerated any more," said Mr Blair.

He said there were deep seated cause of nuisance behaviour.

They were "to do with family life in the way that parents regard their responsibility to their children, in the way that some kids grow up generation to generation without proper parenting, without a proper sense of discipline within the family".

He continued: "I cannot solve all these problems... I can start a debate on this and I can legislate. What I cannot do is raise someone's children for them."

'Unhelpful'

Mr Blair denied moves to allow 24-hour drinking sent the wrong signal, saying local people would have tougher controls over pub and club licences.

And he backed the Kent shopping centre which has banned hoods and baseball caps because they can be intimidating.

The Conservatives said 24-hour drinking and more paperwork for police officers were hampering efforts to tackle crime.

The party and in a sense the country just wants us to get on with the business now
Tony Blair

Shadow home affairs minister Edward Garnier said: "For the Prime Minister simply to wring his hands and say that 'something must be done' and that he wants 'to send a message' is about as helpful as putting a note in a bottle and throwing it into the sea."

During the first of his monthly media conferences since his third election win, Mr Blair he said Labour would take forward a bold programme for government with "renewed purpose".

Reform would be accelerated in the NHS, schools, welfare and support for working families, he promised.

Transition questions

Mr Blair argued it was "fatuous" to suggest the government could not get its programme through with a majority of 66.

At a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party on Wednesday, ex-ministers Frank Dobson and Glenda Jackson warned Mr Blair that he was a problem for Labour.

Sources say Mr Blair told Labour MPs he wanted to ensure an orderly transition of the premiership.

On Thursday he refused to add to his public pledge to serve a full term in office.

"I think the party and in a sense the country just wants us to get on with the business now," said Mr Blair.

His deputy, John Prescott, earlier denied that Mr Blair was a "lame duck" leader.

On foreign affairs, the prime minister said he believed the UK had enough support to block the European Parliament's vote to end opt outs from the working time directive.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...cs/4538599.stm

Published: 2005/05/12 15:20:18 GMT

© BBC MMV

[KukriKhan]

"Anti-Social Behavior Orders (ASBOS)

We have something like that here in southern California. It outlaws assemblies of more than 3 people together. It's had a rough go in the courts on constitutional grounds, but keeps getting re-written, because local police use it regularly to break up gang groupings.

In my own town environment, I'd like to see more police on foot-patrol vs what we have now: all in patrol cars. Meet and greet the citizens, and all. And I wouldn't mind funding more youth activities, especially targeted at 12-18 year olds.

[Duke Malcolm]

ASBOS can be issued for just about anything. A woman was banned from appearing at her window or mowing the lawn in a bikini/underwear

[JAG]

I do not particularily like ASBO's, with them you start to concentrate far too much on the act itself and punishing the cause and taking no look at all at the effect. The opposite must be true, far more looking at why the rise in this behaviour is happening and why people make these choices, not simply cracking down on the act itself.

[Duke Malcolm]

it is a surprisingly right-handed thing, for an allegedly left-handed government

[KukriKhan]

I agree. I'm uncomfortable with our anti-assembly statutes as well. When first enacted, they were advertised as a temporary measure in reaction to a swarm of gang activity. That was 10 years ago, and now the gangs are all but eliminated, but the law is still there.

Seems like "temporary taxes" that end up being anything but temporary.

To the thread-starting post: Is it thought that losing their anonymity by banning hoods will disperse the "yobs" (I guess I can use the term if the PM does).

[JAG]

it is a surprisingly right-handed thing, for an allegedly left-handed government

This govt is left on most things other than certain populist right wing ideas - such as crime. All part of the great triangulation and 'third way' politics.

To the thread-starting post: Is it thought that losing their anonymity by banning hoods will disperse the "yobs" (I guess I can use the term if the PM does).

Yes it is probably seen as that, and I think they are right it probably will work. The 'yob gangs' do have a great affection for their hoodies and baseball caps, it is how you recognise them - banning them will in effect ban the people who wear them.

[KukriKhan]

So then, where will the yobs go? Train stations? Playgrounds?

[Duke Malcolm]

loitering on street corners, as those too far away from shopping centres do. Here, they can drink bucky and harass old ladies in peace...

[JAG]

Directly outside the shopping centre probably or outside shops in the street etc. It is not a solution only a temporary fix to the problem of the 'yobs' in some shopping centres and highly populated areas.

[English assassin]

Mainly also that they will then be recognisable on the CCTV so if they do commit a crime they will be caught.

Of course I'd rather have more police than more CCTV but for some reason that seems impossible, all too busy filling in forms I suppose. and yes, get them out of their bloody cars so people can talk to them.

ASBOs are not quite the same as dispersal laws, we have those too but they are rarely used. Basically an ASBO is a sort of super injunction that the police or a local council can seek, and that you can be imprisoned for breaking. You can think of it as a sort of personalised crime if you like. "So, you like to play music very loud at 3 am do you? Well, for you, and you alone, playing music between 11 pm and 7 am is now illegal. Take this as your final warning. Have a nice day."

In principle they could be an infringement of civil liberties, in practice they are overwhelmingly positive. They have even been used against people like the directors of Sony for allowing fly posting (mysteriously as soon as an ASBO was threatened Sony agreed to stop promoting bands in this way...)

[ah_dut]

So the 'hoodie' kids are low income boys?

Not at all, in some areas, there parents are on 100k+ but they want to look 'street' so they wear rediculous blingbling clothes and act as if they're gangster rappers...sigh

To the thread-starting post: Is it thought that losing their anonymity by banning hoods will disperse the "yobs" (I guess I can use the term if the PM does).

I guess it's a symbol of who they are. They pride themselves on these clothes and others (which look suspiciously like Pajamas imo) and hopefully it strips away their identity...I don't think it'll work though. The wannabes and the actual ''hood rats'' seem pretty secure in their ''ghetto'' mentality and don't really like other people very much.

So then, where will the yobs go? Train stations? Playgrounds?

Answered already but hey...they'll just move on to harass someone else. We have very few police in some areas of London. Some like Kingston have loads but Wimbledon Park has 1 bobby...for a 5km area afaik