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27 October 2005 Youth Nuisance I first saw this phrase on a home office web site. The obvious nasty thing about this phrase is that it seems to be saying that "youths are a nusiance". Given that middle-class children are generally not being referred to by the expression "youths" it is fairly obvious that "youth nuisance" is anti-working class. Also; it appears that youths are not a nuisance when they do something but just their being youths is sufficient to make them a nusiance. Ethically it is the responsibility of adult society to be providing (education, training, welfare) for young people rather than atacking them just for being. A home office paper "Defining and Measuring Anti-social behaviour" published in 2004 (ISBN 1 84473 332 7) considers the definition of anti-social behaviour. This paper specifically states that "However, the decision was taken not to include a youth
category in the typology as it was felt that anti-social behaviour should be defined by the nature of the activity,
not the age of the perpetrator. It was also felt that a youth category would attract reports of young people ‘hanging
around’ and, while it is recognised that a group of young people can appear intimidating to members of the
public, gathering in a group is not in itself necessarily anti-social. Only when these groups engage in nuisance or
threatening activities can their behaviour be considered as anti-social behaviour and it is then the nature of the
activity that defines it as such." This seems a more measured tone, if anything this government does under the heading of "Anti-social behaviour" could be considered measured. However, in fact the term "youth nuisance" is used freely throughout government and local government web sites about "anti-social behaviour". Just search Google for ".gov.uk" and "youth nuisance". According to Google there are not less than 10,900 such uses. For example; Suffolk Coastal District Council provides a handy PDF on its web site which people can download to report "Anti-social behaviour" which includes a specific category for "youth nusiance". And an example from Central Government: Crime Reduction Website. This government whips up popular hysteria against vulnerable groups such as children. Even when its own report has introduced a degree of reason in practice it ignores this, in the popular war on children. One final comment; the Home Office concludes in the paper above that "gathering in a group is not necessarily anti-social". Of course hanging around (or 'gathering' though that sounds a bit sinister) in a group is in fact social activity par excellance.
Link to the Home Office paper Defining and Measuring Anti-social behaviour
Link to page on Suffolk Coastal District Council's web site where you can obtain a form to report youth nusiance in Suffolk (despite the fact that the Home Office does not recognize officially this category of "Anti-social behaviour") |