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They say these devices are prejudiced, but i'm going to argue against that.
I cover 2 beats. Both are similar in size, both have the same sort of mix of private/council housing and similar levels of employment, ie most people are employed.
In both beats, the kids congregate, they look intimidating and they can get quite loud.
In the first beat the numbers of kids on the street will be a lot higher than the second, they will be everywhere.
But, they are polite, they are friendly, they talk to me quite a bit, and I (at the seeming disgust of the older generation) will stand and chat with them. They know me by first name, they come to me for help/advice, if they misbehave it will be in a mischevious manner. The most they do is a bit of drinking on a Friday night, until we turn up and take their beer off them, then they'll just stand and chat without beer. When they congregate, they do it outside the shops in the precinct and on the benches. If someone needs to get past they will shuffle out the way.
They NEVER hang around outside peoples' houses, smash their windows or do anything malicious. On a busy night there will be about 30-40 of them milling around.
The second beat is the problem beat. The youths and their parents are hostile to any sort of police presence. They will abuse us and the police officers, they are constantly drunk or high on some cocktail of drugs. They are violent and will regularly attack people for no reason.
In the last few months they have:
Attempted to set a house (with young children and a baby in it) on fire.
Dragged a man from his car and beaten him into unconciousness.
Smashed the windows of a woman's car, whilst she was driving and had a sleeping child in the back.
Thrown bottles at police and fire crews
Laid boards with nails across the road as we're driving to incidents
Smashed windows of the police station
Assaulted random members of public on their precinct.
Regularly steal cars and set them on fire/crash them.
They ALWAYS congregate around peoples' houses, they have no sense of right/wrong, no respect for anyone or anything. They are a pack of feral animals. They are always being arrested, serving time in prison, being released, breaking their licence conditions and being sent straight back. They have had the SAME opportunities as the kids from the first area.
I see no problem, whatsoever in erecting a device that keeps youths from the second beat away from someone's house.
It isn't prejudiced against all youths, because the ones who BEHAVE and act lawfully won't be anywhere near it when it is switched on.
I DO have a problem with putting them up outside shops and public meeting areas, which is what I said first time around.
Except for any young neighbours that particular person might have. :rolleyes:
If your neighbours are the sort of people who like hanging around outside your house smashing windows and chucking beer cans in your garden then who cares if the noise irritates them....?
If your neighbours have young children who play outside then you use the "off" switch and only switch it back on again if the idiots turn up.
I suggest you look up the word prejudiced in the dictionary before you post anything else on this topic.
Hmm, funny that you know exactly where these incidents occur, and they presumably happen at fairly regular and predictable intervals, and yet the police are presumably so unaware as to provide a police presence in certain areas? Or are they just isolated incidents that don't justify punishing an entire demographic of people? Thought so. Presumably also, if I mention all of the violent incidents I've seen involving the over 30s, I would be justified in using a similar device against them?
I fail to believe people only turn these things on and off depending on what's going on, otherwise they'd have to be constantly monitoring what's going on outside. I've heard them when there's been no sign of trouble whatsoever. It's a stupid idea that victimises young people. I agree with IWS - is it any wonder these young people now hate the police and other authority, when they get treated like this?
Does it not occur to them that older people might adopt this little ruse..?
When it's used indiscriminately outside shops and meeting places, then yes I agree.
When you use it outside your own house against thugs who have no respect for people, authority or the police anyway then I fail to see what your point is.
If you read my original post, you'll find I get on very well with young people. if this device was used in the town I mainly work in I'd be annoyed and i'd be amongst the people trying to get it switched off.
But when used appropriately to combat the idiots who have no respect for you, me, other peoplr or their property then i'm all for it.
My point is that it doesn't just target thugs. If it did then great, but it doesn't. It also targets harmless children and other young people in the area. It should not be put into the hands of your average civilian, no way. What you'll get is the paranoid androids turning it on at the first sign of anything that resembles a hooded sweatshirt. I know it's shit for the people who are targetted by thugs, but surely there's better ways e.g. CCTV. I know that's not perfect either, but it's a damn sight better than these things.
And i'm trying to agree with you in principal. You're totally right, it doesn't just target the thugs, when it is used indiscriminately and put outside shops and bus stops e.t.c.
But, if it's put on a house, switched on late in the evening, then the only people to be affected by it, will be the ones hell-bent on causing trouble.
my point is, from my experience that the "good" kids will congregate, outside shops, on parks and on benches in precincts. When they do so, whilst intimidating to a lay-man they are mostly harmless.
They NEVER hang around outside peoples' houses causing trouble. I'm yet to meet one of the "good" kids who has or does.
To that end I will never advocate putting these devices anywhere like shops e.t.c.
As for CCTV, unless you've got borough-level resources at your disposal for a decent system, the results when used at night are shite at best. The only decent private system i've come across was used by a bloke who worked for a CCTV firm.
So in other words, you know exactly where the problems are occuring, and the police aren't doing anything to stop it. Sorry, but failures on the part of the police aren't an excuse to take the law into your own hands, and that's what these devices are attempting to do. And incidentally, over-30's do tend to congregate outside clubs and taxi ranks in the early hours of the morning, so I presume you support their use there as well?
That and the fact that there is not a shred of evidence that they achieve anything. If they're as mild as you claim, then they're not going to stop someone (as you put it) driving through a shop window (I fail to see how they would even hear it from a car, so to cite that as an example of the crime you're attempting to prevent is rather ambitious). If they're as distressing enough to deter an angry teenager, then they're most certainly greatly magnified on the ears of an innocent baby.
Another point I would like to add is that any other form of excessive noise would be illegal after 11pm. Again, as long as only people of a certain age are the victims, it's okay is it? :rolleyes:
Most police forces don't have the manpower to stay in one area 24/7, unless it's a busy city centre.
Talking CCTV then. 1 police officer required for a large number of positions combined with the ability to single out trouble-makers and send the police to where they're needed.
I'm not aware of vandal grease, but I can guess what it is. And presumably like razor wire, it only affects those who are climbing onto someone else's property, and is required to have a sign warning people.
I'm talking about a hypothetical device. But you have no sympathy for whatever reason someone might be hanging around outside a shop (putting their child back into the pushchair they had to leave outside for example, or waiting for a bus, as someone else mentioned), so why should that be a consideration when it's older people?
Wow, that's the worst argument I've ever heard. I haven't heard of vandal grease because I'm not a vandal, not because I come from a nice area. I come from the town with the highest number of people in benefits in the country, so it's as far away from affluence as you can get. Not that I have to defend myself to you. Maybe coming from a city, you hear about these incidents more often, even though on a per person basis, they don't happen that often. There's more bad news to fill the Liverpool Echo than my local paper I imagine. But then with 500,000 people compared to 70,000, you'd expect that.
I work in rural towns, the CCTV isn't extensive enough to make that work. And it sounds bad but on a Friday night 1 officer down leaves us even worse off.
Good idea though, and it works very well in city centres where they have staff to follow it through.
How exactly do you help and support an 18 year old man, who has been offered work, has been offered support but instead decides to around assaulting people (quite seriously), trying to burn their house down and stealing their car.......
We're not talking about children with nothing to do, we're talking about the small minority of youths who have got the same opportunities and chances as the rest of their peers, but instead make a concious effort to go and make the lives of everyone around them a living hell
Of course this is complete and utter bullshit. If you think a child who grew up on a sink estate has the same opportunities in life as someone who went to Eton then your head's up your hole.
I suggest economic and social regeneration of deprived areas as well as social provision for parents and disadvantaged kids. I'm not saying it'll eliminate all crime but lots of this has to do with economic inequality and bad parenting, sort some of that out then you're going a long way to helping things out, putting silly wee sound devices in street corners will do fuck all in the long run. Simple as.
No, that's you working hard and helping yourself get to where you are. Fuck all to do with opportunities. At the end of the day, those who are economically advantaged will always have better opportunities in life to suceed than those who don't. I'm not saying people who live in sink estates have none, just that there options are limited and through bad parenting, education and drugs they usually end up on street corners wrecking people's heads in. These sort of problems need to be solved first.
I think you're right. The world'll never be fair, but we can try to make it fairer--something that sound devices will not do. They're ridiculously short-term and aren't going to help society on the whole, so why use them? Attitude is a societal thing, in my opinion. And in order to change society for the better, better education is needed. You can't give everyone equal opportunities, but you can try. Directing sound towards a certain faction of society is ridiculous and not going to do any good.
:yes: or lift it woudl be better.
Where did I say they had the same opportunities as someone from Eton? I didn't, you're putting words in my mouth and changing the context completely.
I said all the kids in this one town have had the same opportunities as others. They all go or went to the same schools, they've all had the same access to services, education and employment as everyone else. The vast majority have turned into well adjusted, productive members of society.
A minority have become utter shits with contempt for everything and everyone. They've had help from all angles and they've refused it. If a small device that is a bit irritating keeps them away from somebody's house and keeps their windows intact for a night then I don't understand what your problem is.
If you put yourself in the shoes of someone who has to deal with them, or live with them on your doorstep constantly taunting you, harassing your kids or violently attacking you and your family, you might welcome an evening's respite, brought by a box that will only irritate the persons who are causing the problem.
It doesn't ONLY irritate them though. It can be heard by everybody in the age group.
If you agree with this, you agree with curfews because it's the same sort of thing. It presumes that because your young you must be trouble. It's wrong.
What about the kids with 'behaving normally' who have to suffer. It's bullshit.
If you'd read my earlier post you'd know i'm against their indiscriminate use in public places. Something i've said quite often. In my experience i'm yet to meet a group of youths hanging around outside someone else's house who aren't causing problems for the people who live there, but lots of times I meet, talk to and get along quite well with groups of youths who hang around in public areas, like outside shops e.t.c. who aren't causing problems.
Hence, the only people who would be affected by these devices, if used properly would be the ones causing problems, and not every under 25 year old who just happens to be walking past.
And i'll repeat it again, the kids who behave themselves, DON'T hang around outside peoples' houses.
But they might live next door. It's no different.
And if you can hear it on the street then it is a public place. If kids are causing doign something wrong then you call the police. If they're doing nothing more than hanging around in the street what are they doing wrong?
If your next door neighbours are outside then you turn it off. You can't hear them through walls.
The youths i'm talking about start by hanging around in the street, then they smash someone's windows and run off. Once the police have been they come back and do it again.
I'm thinking this is something we'll have to disagree on. I've seen first hand the result of what this behaviour ends in, and i'm for anything that helps prevent that from ocurring.