Police should back adults who confront unruly children

Police should back adults who confront unruly children, say Tories
Adults who challenge unruly children in the street will be protected from police prosecution, the Tories have promised.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/4076583/Police-should-back-adults-who-confront-unruly-children-say-Tories.html


Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said the public should feel free to confront anti-social youngsters without fear of being arrested as he promised a return to "common sense" policing.

It is time for the public to stand up for traditional good behaviour and not have to "bleat" to the police about every minor matter, he said.

The senior MP promised a new Conservative government would act within days to redraft guidelines to police and prosecutors to ensure those who take on low-level nuisance are not targeted.

He also pledged to restore discretion for police officers over whether they need to pursue "trivial" allegations.

In November, Norfolk Chief Constable Ian McPherson called for a return to the days when tearaway children could be told off and stopped from misbehaving by the public.

Mr Grieve said: "If people feel they cannot tell children to stop misbehaving, that will fester and they will have a perception that things are very bad," he said.

"History shows that if you go out and tell 10- and 11-year-olds who are misbehaving to stop misbehaving or you will call the police, they will stop.

"There is also the need for police back-up, but the public have also come round to seeing the police as more likely to bite them than do something about the problems in the community around them."

At present, police across the UK advise people not to put themselves at risk if they come across young people acting in an anti-social way or committing a crime.

Mr Grieve stressed he was not advocating vigilante activity but criticised the fact the public have become "tremendously willing to go running off to the police to bleat about the most minor matters".

He added: "Most of the complaints being made by the public are about low level anti-social behaviour issues about children and adolescents.

"I don't believe these problems didn't exist in the past, but in the past they were controlled because adults felt confident in tackling these problems themselves, not by being vigilantes, but by being sensible citizens."

Last year, Mr McPherson said wayward youngsters should not always be "dragged'' through the courts and called for a return to a society where "park keepers, wardens and parents'' felt safe in tackling street crime.

His comments suggested a return to the days when a child could be given a "clip round the ear'' and taken home to their parents without someone being accused of assault and breaching the child's human rights.

Last summer, Louise Casey, the Government's anti-social behaviour adviser, warned Britain had become a "walk-on by" society where law-abiding citizens are unwilling to help victims of violent crime because of fears they will either be attacked themselves or face arrest.

Mr Grieve said police were wasting their time investigating trivial offences.

"There is no doubt - the police say their discretion has been eroded," he said.

"If somebody comes in to a police station and makes an allegation clearly of the most trivial character they nevertheless have to go through a process of dealing with it which may involve going round and confronting the person against whom the trivial allegation has been made."

Members of the public will have a greater say in the kind of community punishments handed to low level criminals under proposals to be unveiled by the Ministry of Justice in the spring.

*********************************************************************************************************************************
I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

WTF? Being hassled because you told a misbehaving child to stop? Doesn't Britain have bigger problems--like crime and terrorism? This law NEEDS to be changed.

Adults shouldn't have to threaten calling the police to make a 10-11 y/o stop misbehaving. I don't know what the police expect for people to do besides pester them about bad kiddie behavior, because kids will retaliate, get violent, or lie and tell police or their sorry parents that the adult struck them or harrassed them and then the adult will be charged with child abuse. Breeders constantly say, "It takes a village to raise a child", but then they castrate "the village". That "village" BINGO has come to take on a different connotation over the years and now it means: 'we want SOCIETY to put up with our kyds, ignore their bad behavior, do things for our kyds at no cost, give our kyds things, help us out with our kyds, praise our kyds even when it's undeserved, makes things easier for our kyds even if that means dumbing down school and entrance exams, etc....HOWEVER, we will NOT allow "the village" to reprimand our kyds, discipline our kyds, or teach our kyds anything of which we do not explicitly approve, or we will complain and humiliate them publically, files criminal charges, or sue".

The bastards need to make up their minds if they want "the village" to help raise their fuck trophies or not, because it doesn't work both ways.

I would like police back up the next time I have to deal with a out of control child while I'm out...in fact, I'd like a damned SWAT team.

"It truly is the one commonality that every designation of humans you can think of has, there's at least one asshole."
--Me