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There's a wonderul caricature of a Guardian piece on Comment is Free. I'd have a good laugh, except that it seems to be meant to be taken seriously. Writing about the Mosquito - a device that emits a buzz which can only be heard by people under 25 and which is so annoying that it stops them hanging around where it's working - Rowenna Davis argues: What really matters here is the psychological effect of this policy; what kind of message does it deliver to our young people about society's relationship with them? For me, it says that you are a pest that needs to be got rid of, not worth talking to or engaging with about community problems - simply something that should be swept away. If we want to improve kids' antisocial behaviour, we need to engage in a dialogue with them, not shoo them away. Ah, the poor dears. All they want to do is have a dialogue. That's why they hang around in the streets, hoods up, drinking and swearing and glowering threateningly at passers by. That's no doubt why, on Saturday, a group of them slashed my car tyre in broad daylight after I refused to bow to their threatening behaviour and buy them cigarettes. (More on this to follow in another post.)
If they behave like pests - I'd say thugs, but let's not squabble over definitions - then the only way to treat them is as pests. Anyone who has tried aggressively swatting away a wasp will know that it just comes back twice as likely to sting you. But human beings, unlike wasps, have the capacity to understand laws and punishment for bad behaviour. So why don't we try it?