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ASBO = AAAAAAGH

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Vendetagainst:
That raises an interesting question, how do ASBOs treat homeless people? They seem like people who could definitely be targeted by this system. Of course they have to urinate in public, they LIVE in public. And they often have to resort to other "frowned upon" means to get by as well.

a pack of wolves:
Mainly, they seem to be used as a means of displacement. They throw them out of city centres or in some instances can prevent them from asking for money at all in an attempt to prevent them begging as well as other more particular restrictions. That's rarer though, most people I've spoken to with an ASBO related to homelessness seem to have a geographical restriction and little else. It might mean shoppers don't have to endure the terrible hardship of saying 'sorry mate' when someone asks them for change, but it also makes it harder to locate people when doing street outreach, find a bed for the night (you're screwed if the shelter is in the area you're prevented from entering and in many cities large shelters are in or near the city centre, the most likely area for a homeless person to be banned from) and for organisations to get an accurate headcount of rough sleepers since they're more dispersed. And because of this, it allows for the distortion of statistics since some local authorities will only count rough sleepers in the city centre and not go looking for them in outlying areas.

RedLion:
I'd just like to say that the Labor party is fucked anyway, especially after the results of the elections in Scotland. Brown probably can't hold on that much longer, and when the next general elections roll around, the Conservatives will probably have a landslide on their hands.

pwhodges:

--- Quote from: a pack of wolves on 27 Jul 2008, 21:50 ---When kids are stood around shopping centres being abusive I don't want to know why the police aren't harassing them, I want to know why kids feel that fucked off with the world. When I look around, I can see little reason why they shouldn't be angry all the time.
--- End quote ---

QFT

The key to parenting and early schooling is setting limits.  Children naturally push against those limits, which need to be imposed so that they learn where they are.  This is not cruelty, but is a necessary part of growing up - it wires the brain ready for life in society.  Many parents have abandoned this aspect of parenting, through ignorance, laziness, or fear, and all too often because of inappropriate legal strictures against punishment (cruelty's another matter) exactly when it is most needed.  Schools have stopped teaching for life, because they are judged on their preparation for tests.

ASBOs can be seen as an attempt to remedy this lack of teaching of the self-control that socialises us; but fundamentally they won't work, simply because it's too late - the time for the brain to learn those lessons has passed.  However, they may mitigate the effects of the lack of socialisation on other people - which is, I admit, no more than a "least worst" justification for them.

Society, not for the first time, has created a partially lost generation.  We have to learn from the mistakes for the sake of the next (there's no sign of that process starting, though), but meanwhile we also have to find a way to live with what we've created.

Paul

RedLion:

--- Quote ---However the broken window policy isn't a great one, what's needed is to actually address the massive inequality in society. When kids are stood around shopping centres being abusive I don't want to know why the police aren't harassing them, I want to know why kids feel that fucked off with the world. When I look around, I can see little reason why they shouldn't be angry all the time. I know I am.

--- End quote ---

I partially agree with the sentiment, but when you put that into context, it's a ridiculous claim. Kids in Britain--in America, too, in most of the rest of Europe, the "west" in general--have it remarkably well off. The world can be a shitty place, and life can be shitty, and I wouldn't ever attempt to diminish an individual's trials and sufferings, but sometimes I'd like to take some of these kids who are so angry at the world that they feel it necessary to break things and assault people and put them in sub-saharan Africa, or in Laos. Existential angst is a luxury that most of the world's population can't afford. Rather than making any attempt to better themselves and make at least some bit of positive change in the world, so many people just lash out. I believe in rehabilitation of people rather than focusing solely on punishment, but you can't just look at things solely from the kids' perspective. If these kids really angry, then this anger is real and shouldn't just be ignored. But don't treat it like it's some kind of justification for making their world, their country and their community an even worse place. Then they're just part of the problem. Then there are those who don't care about any of that, and just do things like smashing windows, stealing things because they think it's fun and/or they're bored. I'm certainly not going to cry over those people getting a bit of retribution.

On the other hand, I severely distrust the police. Granted, I've never had to rely on them for much of anything before, and I figure if I was being chased by a murderer or a gang, or my house was being broken into, I'd call the police immediately and be grateful for their presence. But in civil disputes and minor offenses, the police usually act with no regard for the actual situation that they're in. In a way, this is good, as it theoretically should promote unbiased action, but in some cases it's just ludicrous and can sometimes lead to the person who's really at fault getting off with less of a penalty than a person who's been victimized and began to fight back. Arbitrary authority in general frightens me as not much else does. The police are nominally bound by regulation and the law themselves, yet they're given wide latitude to deal with just about any situation they find themselves in as they see fit. Only rarely will an officer be held accountable for breaking the aforementioned regulations or laws, and usually such behavior won't even go public because of a desire among other members of the police force to suppress it out of some sense of solidarity, and the stigma that ratting out a fellow officer brings with it. The machinery of the "law" and the police force many times quashes those that it is supposed to protect.

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