The Government has Failed Miserably on Curbing Anti-Social Behavior

Comment on Labour Policies : Labour Crime and Justice Policy by David.

Well where to start on this one! In my opinion Labour has failed miserably on curbing anti-social behavior, you only have to walk down a major towns streets on a weekend to see one of the problems, binge drinking!

The perception given by the media is young people are almost out of control and to some degree I’m sure they are. There will be some awful areas in the UK where you take your life in your hands to go out at night on a weekend, but I doubt it’s as bad as the media makes out country wide (there are trouble hot spots).

From what I see when I walk at night (I had an operation 6 months ago on my back and walk for an hour every day and tend to go at night, less pain) in the seaside town of Skegness, there’s a lot of stupid drunken behavior, but it’s not running battles with the police or anything, mainly stupid drunk young people being anti social.

As a teenager (17 to 20 years old, I’m 39 now) I’d go out for a drink with my mates on a weekend, I didn’t have much money (was a student) so I couldn’t drink a lot (beer was more expensive then!!). I did however get into quite a lot of fights, mainly because the friend I went out with the most liked to fight and if I was with someone I’d back them up (a strange sort of loyalty!).

This was under a Conservative government, we never got arrested or even questioned despite having fights inside nightclubs etc… I recall one fight where I went a bit to far and apparently broke various bones on this guys face/body (police never even questioned me and the person knew who I was)!

As a side note the people we fought with was as up for a fight on an evening out as we were, so this wasn’t a case of piling on some poor sod in mass and beating the shit out of them, it was generally one on one fighting that rarely went too far.

We once put or fists through a pub sign, I broke one side, he broke the other. By the next weekend the police had our names and gave us a choice, pay the money to have the sign replaced (think it was £180 each) or be arrested. We paid for the sign to be replaced and never did anything that stupid again! Interesting that for criminal damage we were questioned, but for fighting nothing at all!!

That was under the Conservatives. I no longer drink alcohol (never really liked it) and prefer to go for a walk to the park/beach with my wife and kids than go to a pub (not the person I was as a teenager).

So I don’t think much has changed in terms of how the police/government deal with ant-social behaviour, though it’s probably worse than it was when I was young (but not that much worse, just more publicised).

I think the problem is with how the police deal with anti-social behaviour. If you are out for a night of drunken stupidity and the worse that’s going to happen to you is sent home early with a slap on the wrist (caution) why would anyone stop doing what they enjoy if there’s no penalty?

We need financial penalties for anti-social behaviour, catch someone urinating in the street give them a fixed fine, if I had to pay £50 for spending a penny I’d think twice before doing it again.

We should work on the principal if you damage something, you replace it. We don’t want to lock people away for doing stupid things, prison should be for dangerous people, not idiots!

Parents should be financially responsible for what their children damage. If a parent can’t control their kids, those kids should be put in a home until either the kids change or the parents change.

David