Groups of youths congregating to play football or just �hang out� have been part of summer evenings for longer than anyone can remember.
Groups of youths congregating to play football or just "hang out" have been part of summer evenings for longer than anyone can remember. At some point between misty memory and today that sociable outdoor gathering turned its focus in many areas to anti-social and threatening behaviour. Graffiti, vandalism and noisy disturbances, the sort of behaviour traditionally curbed by a sharp word from a neighbour, is now ignored in order not to provoke antagonism. The result is that conditions deteriorate further as younger children take their cue from older ones.
This is one example of a failure in parenting that is causing considerable anxiety across Britain, with teachers reporting more children starting school without the basic social skills and teenagers increasingly out of control. In 1997, problems associated with large numbers of unsupervised children and teenagers out after dark in three areas in Hamilton prompted Strathclyde Police to pilot the Children and Young Person's Safety Initiative which almost immediately became known as the Hamilton curfew, despite protestations of that not being the intention.
In practice, children found out in the streets after dark, some of them very young, were taken home and their parents warned of the potential danger. It provoked a debate about the civil liberties of children and young people, but the independent evaluation of the initiative found that even the parents whose children had been returned to them supported it after recognising the concern being shown for their welfare. Nevertheless, many of those who had been out in the streets had been drawn into crime: during the "curfew", crime fell by 23% in the areas involved and youth crimes of theft and vandalism dropped by 49%.
Similar problems in Inverness, where youth referrals have risen by 15% since 2006, have prompted Northern Constabulary to ask for powers to take a slightly different approach. It wants to be able to impose a curfew on individual young people under 16 who repeatedly commit crime or cause a nuisance. In a traditionally law-abiding part of Scotland, a steep rise in juvenile crime is a symptom of something going awry that must be taken seriously. When the crimes include violence and sexual offences, they cannot be dismissed as bad behaviour that has got out of hand. Imposing a curfew on such individuals offers the practical advantage of preventing them committing further offences and, in the case of young children, requiring their parents to take active responsibility for them. Unfortunately, however, it is rarely that simple. It has been thoroughly established over 40 years of the children's hearing system that youngsters who commit crimes are generally in need of care rather than punishment. In this case the focus should be on the parents' responsibility for their children's safety, as well as their behaviour.
A curfew for all young people in a particular area unfairly penalises those who have no desire to cause a nuisance. Imposing one on individuals whose behaviour prevents others from venturing out at night might be poetic justice, but the sanction of individual police officers runs the danger of being rough justice: society must tackle the root of the problem.
