Lothian bus drivers protest outside of Edinburgh City Chambers. Story here.
Bad Bilder Beispiele
3 years ago
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Reclaim the Streets 2
There is a slightly frightening and altogether disturbing subtext of the recent BBC article "Police need to 'Reclaim Streets'" mentioned in my previous post (http://tinyurl.com/2fhyo3w). If you look at the the two tables in the article, one of what is being reported as anti-social behaviour and the second, who should deal with it. Overwhelmingly, it is the police, responsible for curbing criminal activity and keeping the peace, who are 'should' be responsible for dealing with anti-social behaviour on our streets. Yet the top two complaint categories involve perfectly legal, and potentially peaceful, behaviours, drinking in public* (except underage drinking, of course), and youths hanging out on streets. Even 'rowdy and inconsiderate behaviour' isn't a matter of legality of perception and tolerance.
Once you involve the police in matters that are social in nature you risk anti-social behaviour being criminalised in an inappropriate way. Over the years since the introduction of the ASBO (Anti-Social Behaviour Order) the media has been awash with stories like that of the learning disabled boy given an ASBO for looking over the neighbour's fence too often. As an ASBO, once breached, can lead to criminal charges, Britain has essentially criminalised perfectly innocent activities. Most sinister, I believe, were the councils that tried to use ASBOs to control prostitution, blocking particular women from entering areas of a city and then charging them with the breach of the ASBO if they did, thereby criminalising activity which is not illegal by subterfuge.
Soon after moving into my current home, a local politician knocked on the door and asked, amongst other things, if the anti-social behaviour problem at the end the road had been solved. It seems that teenagers used a courtyard at the end of the road to hangout on weekends and during the summer. I said I hadn't notice and problems. I was aware that kids moved up and down the street on weekend, and on the paths across the road. I was aware that they were occasionally noisy. Talking to neighbours, it seems that what most of us on the street took to be innocent if a bit high spirited behaviour, a few neighbours saw as anti-social. The police were called in and the kids cleared out. This kind of action runs the risk of turning boisterous antics into truly anti-social if not anti-society behaviour and does nothing to help young peoples' relationship with police and other adult society.
The courtyard is a great little area. Used during the day by dog walkers, on weekends at times by families overflowing from the flats that flank it and makes a great viewpoint for Edinburgh's fireworks. It is wonderfully located to be private but not isolated, quiet but connected. So why would it not make a great meeting point for local teens on the weekends? Only because it disturbs our television watching to have teens enjoying themselves outside our weather sealed windows.
Criminalising here-to-fore legal activities outside the constraints of the legal system by involving police in what are essentially problems with the organisation of our communities is indeed a sinister move. It makes the law arbitrary. I strongly suspect that I, a white, heading to middle aged and educated young man would be far less likely to be accused of anti-social behaviour if I decided to have a beer at the end of the road than would many other in society, and therefore my activity would not be criminalised in the way that others' would, for example. By demanding that the police react to localised and subjective complaints of curtain twitchers and jobs worths, we undermine the centuries old legal system that has evolved protections of individual rights and keep reactionary, vote harvesting politicians away from the processes of the legal system. I'm no great fan of our punitive legal system, but I trust it far more than I trust the upstart and arbitrary ASBO system, a symbol and symptom of the a society of individuals that have receded into their little caves, frightened to go out in a community around them which is less familiar to them than the scenes on their big screen televisions and who view every youngster on every corner as a threat.
* it might surprise North American readers that drinking alcohol in public is legal except in certain areas
Once you involve the police in matters that are social in nature you risk anti-social behaviour being criminalised in an inappropriate way. Over the years since the introduction of the ASBO (Anti-Social Behaviour Order) the media has been awash with stories like that of the learning disabled boy given an ASBO for looking over the neighbour's fence too often. As an ASBO, once breached, can lead to criminal charges, Britain has essentially criminalised perfectly innocent activities. Most sinister, I believe, were the councils that tried to use ASBOs to control prostitution, blocking particular women from entering areas of a city and then charging them with the breach of the ASBO if they did, thereby criminalising activity which is not illegal by subterfuge.
Soon after moving into my current home, a local politician knocked on the door and asked, amongst other things, if the anti-social behaviour problem at the end the road had been solved. It seems that teenagers used a courtyard at the end of the road to hangout on weekends and during the summer. I said I hadn't notice and problems. I was aware that kids moved up and down the street on weekend, and on the paths across the road. I was aware that they were occasionally noisy. Talking to neighbours, it seems that what most of us on the street took to be innocent if a bit high spirited behaviour, a few neighbours saw as anti-social. The police were called in and the kids cleared out. This kind of action runs the risk of turning boisterous antics into truly anti-social if not anti-society behaviour and does nothing to help young peoples' relationship with police and other adult society.
The courtyard is a great little area. Used during the day by dog walkers, on weekends at times by families overflowing from the flats that flank it and makes a great viewpoint for Edinburgh's fireworks. It is wonderfully located to be private but not isolated, quiet but connected. So why would it not make a great meeting point for local teens on the weekends? Only because it disturbs our television watching to have teens enjoying themselves outside our weather sealed windows.
Criminalising here-to-fore legal activities outside the constraints of the legal system by involving police in what are essentially problems with the organisation of our communities is indeed a sinister move. It makes the law arbitrary. I strongly suspect that I, a white, heading to middle aged and educated young man would be far less likely to be accused of anti-social behaviour if I decided to have a beer at the end of the road than would many other in society, and therefore my activity would not be criminalised in the way that others' would, for example. By demanding that the police react to localised and subjective complaints of curtain twitchers and jobs worths, we undermine the centuries old legal system that has evolved protections of individual rights and keep reactionary, vote harvesting politicians away from the processes of the legal system. I'm no great fan of our punitive legal system, but I trust it far more than I trust the upstart and arbitrary ASBO system, a symbol and symptom of the a society of individuals that have receded into their little caves, frightened to go out in a community around them which is less familiar to them than the scenes on their big screen televisions and who view every youngster on every corner as a threat.
* it might surprise North American readers that drinking alcohol in public is legal except in certain areas
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