I'm afraid I will have to get everyone started on ASBO's WAR.... :)Quote:
Originally Posted by WeAreRovers
Now - I personally don't like ASBO's. But what I will ask is - tell me a viable, workable alternative ?
Try living in some of the less salubrious parts of London, for example. There you have kids who are to all intents and purposes feral. They have no respect for anyone what so-ever, literally do what they want when they want, would stab/punch you as soon as look at you, and when challenged by the Police they know the limitations of the legal system inside-out so simply trot out all the rights in the world and get away with everything on the basis of the acts being very minor, evidence being difficult to gather and their age being so low. I'm talking about a very small number of people (not always kids) who are continuously involved in activities that make the lives of people in the communities in which they live an absolute and utter feckin' misery - day and night. That leave old people afraid to leave their homes, and neighbours afraid to speak out. For example - for 4 weeks either side of Halloween, parts of South London resemble Fallujah. There's kids launching firework at Council tower blocks at 4am, firing them across the street at random passers by etc. This happens for weeks - until they can no longer get their hands on fireworks. Then they go back to their usual acts of petty thuggery, vandalism and general crime for the rest of the year - like setting large estate-bins alight, then stoning the fire brigade when they come to put ithem out. Or attacking ambulance crews called to emergencies. Or... need I go on ?
It's usually the same small number of people who cause 95%+ of the problems in certain areas, and they are well known to the rest of the community. The police can do little about them, and their neighbours are too afraid to stand up to them. So what exactly do you propose is done to stop these people being an absolute menace to society ?
Dahamsta - if you're saying the answer to problems like these is simply to put more police on the beat, then you have a very limited grasp of public sector budgetary pressures and/or Police priorities. The Police in London do not have the time or resources to put to such relatively petty issues, nor indeed should much of their resources be prioritised on such relatively trivial issues. London is under the constant threat of major terrorist attack. It is the gun crime capital of Britain, a major international drugs centre, has massive sex-slave and inter-linked people smuggling industries, serious racist and homophobic crime, constant corruption and fraud occuring at all levels throughout the public and private sectors etc etc. And you want police resources spent and/or diverted to patrolling shopping centres keeping an eye on potential shop lifters........?
So what is the answer ? ASBO's are anti-libertarian and far from perfect. But you know what - they work ! There are plenty of examples of the level of crime and sheer thuggery in areas declining spectacularly as a result of ASBO's being served on known troublemakers. ASBO's were introduced because all other systems - parental control, police surveillance and intervention, community pressure, the standard judicial system - were failing to deal with a tiny number of people who destroy the quality of life of so many. No alternatives were working. ASBO's go some way towards giving a degree of power back to communities who are blighted by those who believe they are above the law.
So ignoring what is wrong with ASBO's for the momnent - tell me other genuinely workable ways of dealing with people who act and believe that they are above the law ?
P.S. My favourite threatened use of ASBO's has been against the Marketing Directors of the record labels etc that mess-up entire city centre areas with constant and indescriminate fly-posting. Has really cleaned-up the appearance of parts of certain English cities, without even having to act upon the threat.
