A “21st century clip around the ear” sounds like one of those stretcher earring things.
This morning I heard the latest idea to come from the Tory camp – seizing the mobile phones and bicycles of young troublemakers. Apparently this is, what the Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Grayling, the equivalent of a “21st century clip around the ear”. Of course, in the 21st century a physical clip around the ear would break several human rights and health and safety laws and would probably end up in far too many pointless court cases to count.
I do appreciate the idea. Looking beyond wagging a finger and handing an unruly troublemaker an ASBO, but really, what is this going to achieve? How is taking away a sim- card punishment in any way? Grayling stated that “If we are to deter potential troublemakers, the consequences they face have to be relevant to the lives they lead and to be immediate. Otherwise why would they stop what they are doing?”
We all know how easy it is to get a sim card, you can get them for free, and I don’t think that losing your contact list for a couple of weeks is going to send out the message that the Tories are tough on tacking crime. The problem is, these troublemakers have little or no respect from authority, and therefore a telling off from the police or any other source of authority is likely to have little or no effect. The first problem that needs to be dealt with is how the police can get back the respect they once did. If respect for rules and authority is not taught in schools and nor communicated by parents, what chance do we have in the future?
I also read that three troublemakers who had been handed ASBOs and were not allowed to wear hoodies in public have now been granted permission to wear them, because their mother buys their clothes and she had purchased ‘cheap sports clothes with hoods’. They just aren’t allowed to wear the hoods up. Way to stand strong in tackling anti-social behaviour! This is exactly the problem. The Government needs to stop being scared of offending people, and really start punishing people and provide a deterrent so that they won’t want to commit crimes or participate in anti-social behaviour. I’m not saying that they should chuck everyone in prison, because that’s not the answer, but if the Tories think that confiscating a sim-card meets the ‘punishment fits the crime’ criteria, I think they are sadly mistaken.
Photo courtesy of JoJon2K8 @ flickr
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Reply #2 on : Thu July 23, 2009, 07:32:40
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Reply #1 on : Fri August 07, 2009, 17:57:03