No to the Criminalisation of the Youth! No to a Police State!

Workers' Daily Internet Edition: Article Index :

No to the Criminalisation of the Youth! No to a Police State!

The government and monopoly media are renewing their attack on the youth with the hysteria promoted around "knife crime". The Prime Minister has announced that the government is publishing a "youth crime plan", to contain more "enforcement measures" which will further criminalise the youth.

In effect, the victims of the anti-social offensive are to be made to shoulder the blame for the wrecking of the fabric of society. Not only are the youth to be further criminalised, but Gordon Brown has threatened a "new approach to youth crime prevention", which is to include "tough new parenting programmes".

The Prime Minister gloried in the punitive measures to be imposed on the youth, who are being denied a future, and who are alienated from the "British way of life" that the government is seeking to dragoon the youth into. Brown said in a statement: "People prosecuted for carrying a knife are now almost three times as likely to go to prison as in 1997. Those prosecuted for carrying or using knives get far tougher sentences.  Just in the last month, we have announced and put into immediate effect an end to cautions for knife possession, replacing it with an expectation to prosecute.  We are also giving more money and equipment for police forces in key areas to do more stop and searches."

Such is the hysteria and incoherence that surrounds this campaign that newspapers are announcing that statistics which demonstrate that the level of crime in Britain is falling are allegedly "masking" the "fear" of knife crime. It should also be remembered that some time back, the "fear" was of gun crime or "drive-by shootings", and that this was the evil that demanded the government increase the criminalisation of the youth and has led to a dramatic increase in stop and search by the police. In particular, statistics show that black male youth have borne the brunt of this increased police repression.

This latest hysteria regarding the "rising tide of knife crime" has also been accompanied by calls for powers for teachers to be able to search pupils. The police themselves have been stopping and detaining young schoolchildren, to the outrage of parents and the community.

This assault on and criminalisation of the youth is totally unacceptable. It is the government itself which is showing criminal responsibility to society, and encouraging the police to act with impunity, and targeting the most vulnerable. It is unacceptable that the problems of society and the response of the youth to the block that society is placing to their future be made the pretext for law and order measures by the government.

The government promotes a culture of fending for oneself in society, and has no hesitation in advocating the use of force internationally to impose its will. Yet the attempts of the youth to escape from these models and find ways of taking control of their own future are being blocked and instead of mobilising the youth to take responsibility for changing society, the government declares that society is fine, and that the problem lies among the youth and bad parenting.

These latest measures mooted by the government will be added to the existing oppressive imposition of ASBOs and the programme of citizenship lessons in schools, which go hand in hand with the sensationalist propaganda about the alleged inherent criminality of the youth. Gordon Brown and the government are demonstrating their contempt for the attempts of the youth to find a way out of the crisis, marginalising them and manoeuvring so that the pride and dignity of the youth is being channelled into situations which only harm themselves. The latest measures would include "up to 300 hours of unpaid work, with tasks set by communities, such as cleaning graffiti and tending parks on Friday and Saturday nights," according to Gordon Brown, and "tough sanctions" on the families of children "disrupting the classrooms and roaming the streets committing crime".

It is the government which is going beyond the "boundaries of acceptable behaviour" when it marginalises the youth, and responds to this marginalisation by laying the blame on the youth and punishing them, and attempting to humiliate and criminalise them. It is beyond the "boundaries of acceptable behaviour" to threatened 20,000 families with eviction if they "fail to respond positively".

In related news, the Prison Reform Trust has pointed out that it is unacceptable that more than 3,000 under-18s were in custody while nearly 100,000 young people entered the youth justice system for the first time last year. In a report to mark the 10th anniversary of the Youth Justice Board, the trust said that the number of children sent into custody had trebled between 1991 and 2006. The trust expressed alarm that 37 children under 14 were currently locked up, according to figures for this year, and called for the age of criminal responsibility to be raised from 10 to 14.

All serious commentators have pointed out that rather than youth failing society, it is society which is failing the youth. They are pointing out that the statistics do not event warrant the assertion that knife crime is shooting up. And that furthermore that evidence shows that the measures proposed by the government are in fact more likely to lead to an increase in violence and disaffected youth. Is that what the government is aiming for?

The youth themselves are protesting against these oppressive measures and discussing the ways forward. They are indignant that they are being scapegoated for the serious problems of society, and their dissent is being criminalised. Furthermore, the resistance against police impunity is being stepped up amongst the people.

No to the Criminalisation of the Youth! No to a Police State!