US-style uniforms for yobs in new disorder crackdown

[T_i_B]

Maybe it's just me, but at this rate it's just a matter of time before a politician decides to ban burberry, or maybe just ban "chavs" altogether. Make of this what you will.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1484497,00.html

Teenage yobs are to be forced to wear US-style uniforms as they carry out community service punishments under plans for a new high-visibility crackdown on public disorder.

The move, echoing American chain gangs whose members wear orange jackets to shame them publicly, will be highly controversial and could risk reprisals.

But Home Office minister Hazel Blears argues justice must be seen to be done in the battle against what the government calls a 'culture of disrespect' - ranging from swearing, spitting and neglectful parenting to petty crime and violence.

The crusade against yobbish behaviour, from the classroom to the street corner, reflects reports from the election campaign trail of concern about a breakdown in public order. Last week Tony Blair demanded more 'respect' in society after a shopping centre banned hooded tops because some youths use them to shield their faces from CCTV.

[SouthernDem2004]

1. Er, what do.

yob, burberry, chav and yobbish mean?

[T_i_B]

2. Fair question

They are all very English words, not words Americans use.

a "yob" is "A rowdy, aggressive, or violent young man." being "yobbish" is just being a "yob".

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=yob

Burberry is a sort of clothing worn by "chavs", usually as caps or handbags. A "chav" is defined by the dictionary as "lower class; uneducated and ignorant people". Although it's more an insult aimed at teenagers who wear tracksuit bottoms and burberry caps and drive around in Ford XR3i's wirth the stereo on full whack.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=chav

Here's another site that shows you what has suddenly become public enemy number 1 over here. I'm getting sick of all this chav-bashing now I must admit. However much some of these people are an annoyance the anti-chav stuff is far too obsessive, and now it's spread to Westminster.

http://www.chavscum.co.uk/

[SouthernDem2004]

3. Thanks, went to the chav website...

Rather strange... Those people posting on the site need a hobby or something.

[mr blur]

9. Well, looks like they've got one (nt)

[Anarcho-Socialist]

4. I think chavs need a make-over more than anything

Although in my own experience, there are many 'chavs' in my area and 75% of them are not at all pleasant people.

[bennywhale]

14. I think labelling and demonising an entire class is disgraceful

to be honest.

These are essentially the "underclass" as far as i can understand as much as i hate to use the term. Up North they are anyway. Down South i understand they are more 'moneyd' with bad taste.

This country has got an obsession with scapegoats, and chavs are just the latest.

Disaffected, underpriviledged youths from poor backrounds carving out a group identity, and being tarnished by snobs and those who like to feel there are people beneath them. Always been the same and pretty shitty really.

btw bit of trivia. As i understand it the word comes from the Geordie dialect word Charva, which has been used since the 17th Century, died out, and enjoyed a revival in the past fifteen years. It means: a Gypsy's son, originally, coming to mean a rough looking youth.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

16. I believe that another theory says that the word derived from

a London dialect also.

BTW - are you accusing me personally of 'labelling and demonising an entire class'?

[bennywhale]

17. Not you personally just linked

my post to yours. Its the usual suspects, right wing media and the sad bastards that get all their knowledge of the world from them.

Plus the WI. Who are fascists

[Anarcho-Socialist]

18. Oh right

I think the RW newspapers are just recycling themselves: just look at old headlines and cross-out "teddy boys", "mods, rockers" and "skinheads" and replace with "chavs".

[bennywhale]

19. Exactly

same old shit to give their own lives a meaning. They don't seem to feel alive unless they're hating a group of people who can't answer back.

Moral panic, and self righteous shit. These people sitting in their gated communities, scared shitless by the press they won't even leave the house on foot. Its as if we've regressed to Dickens' London and there are dangers around every corner.

Young males behaving disorderly. Well fucking hell sherlock do you think?

[D-Notice]

5. Does this mean

they'll stop shops from selling "Chav clothes"?

[Taxloss]

6. Talk about treating the symptoms, not the problem.

Banning hoodies is such a great way to tackle social exclusion. As for the uniforms, it's a transparent attempt to give the impression that Something Is Being Done, rather than actually doing anything, and further marginalising what is developing into a terrifying underclass. Something similar was floated by the Major government, and I remember how Labour howled about it then. This approach is so cynical, but I find it very hard to reserve all blame for the Home Office as it's the moronic scaremongering of the RW press that is largely the root of the genuine public concern that now exists.

[ben_packard]

10. Exaclty. Less 'tough on chavs' more 'tough on the causes of chavs' perhaps

[fedsron2us]

7. Moral Panic anyone ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic

We have had mods, rockers, skins, punks, acid raves etc etc. All have induced the same simple minded knee-jerk responses from the authorities. Quite why wearing a hooded top makes someone a menace to society I do not know. Presumably the Old Bill will now be rounding up whole communities of Benedictine and Cistercian monks. As one kid pointed out it is the sheerest hypocrisy for the Blue Water mall to ban kids wearing this clothing while at the same time allowing shops to sell it on their site. Youth crime may be a problem in Britain but this does not even treat the symptoms let alone the causes. Anti social behaviour is largely the result of the UK adopting a political and economic system which states that there is 'no such thing as society only individuals'. Given that self gratification at all costs is the philosophy of the ruling elite and is reinforced by media around the clock it is hardly surprising that the rest of the country copies their example.

[mr blur]

8. This "respect" thing just pisses me off

How the hell are "they" going to force people to show respect? It's just more bullshit. Of course we don't want "yobs" drunkenly screaming down the high street - who would? But the roots of this behaviour lie far deeper than Blair is going to dig. It's another smokescreen to try to convince Daily Mail readers that New Labour (god I hate that!) is set on a course to return Britain to a time when we could all watch cricket on the village green, eating fish paste sanwiches and drinking tea before trotting home for a "Songs of Praise" and a nice cop of Horlicks.

[Vladimir]

11. Oh for fucks sake

More CCTV, more police, more ASBOS, ID cards and assorted biometrics, uniforms for yobs, curfews and bans on clothing... how long until we really do live in a police state? Some people really really need to get a grip and realise that crime is going to be stomped out by getting rid of the inequalities and divisions in society which fuel it, not by filming every motherfucking thing anyone does.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. Remember when "tough on the causes of crime" got people to admire Blair?

Now it appears the causes of crime are hoodies and insufficient humiliation for offenders.

[Briar]

13. Good grief

As if systematically humiliating and brutalising offenders to satisfy the "vengeance is ours" lobby were working so well in the US.

[bennywhale]

15. The Daily Express, i kid you not, suggested that anyone wearing a

hooded top should be treated in the same way as anyone carrying an offensive weapon.

Witch burning anyone?

[Kipling]

20. The Daily Express...

...would gladly have teams of police snipers on every street corner shooting anyone wearing insubordinate socks if it could. I honestly believe they're a bigger threat to us than Al-Qaeda.

[sweetheart]

21. If they must do a uniform...

then a suit and tie, or professional business dress would be much
more appropriate. Then we'll better be able to identify the corporate
criminals amongst us. ;-)

I realize they want to dress people up like slaves to break them, but
perhaps the opposite, and having them dress up like their sunday best
for a year on parole in public, would have a much more "respectable"
effect.

A magistrate in a times LTTE recommended this, and i do agree. Dressing
up respectably engenders respect... if that is the idea... it seems
rather that tony is in to degrading people so that they respect their
slave masters, rather than themselves.

[Briar]

22. This is a deeply protestant interpretation

of "justice" and human nature. Like the American one, which is all about punishment, humiliation and denial of human rights. We have enough of that in our system already: we don't want more. The next thing we know, we'll have capital punishment back, chain gangs replacing illegal immigrants picking potatoes and any one-time prisoner denied the right to vote for life.

[sweetheart]

24. What about those yobs

I've myself met some of the local yobs. They really are insolent and
have no respect for anyone... too much american TV, combined with the
british welfare state, seems to give them loads of expectations without
any sense of being obliged to one's elders.

Round these parts, the "yobs" light brush fires, destroy street signs,
vandalize snow-gritter salt stance machinery, and are not really a
threat to person, but a nuisance nevertheless.

People know who they are, but have not nailed them up with ASBO's
preferring tolerance, in the hopes that they'll grow up and learn
respect. It seems that in a world of shakespearean feuds, old
villiages of hundreds of years, and long term, complex interrelationships,
bastard children, stolen livestock, and all the long term history,
the new youth are rootless, unemployed and frankly unemployable, for
housing estate mentality.

I just avoid them. I've no solution... but tony blair can't... they're
in his face... and i'm pressured to wonder what i would do were i him.

Enslaving them is not the answer, and i am no friend of police state
tactics, chain gangs and youth prisons... so what can be done? Going
after the partents is hardly appropriate, as they're not rich people
and are making due with difficult circumstances... so what then?

How to deal with the yobs? I hear from teachers and headteachers of
local schools, that these kids are so distruptive, that they can't
teach a class with them in it... the behaviour of insolent kids
that are above any form of authority, really is a problem, and
indeed respect is in order... but the real deal, and how is that
earned? Tony hasn't earned it, as he is a criminal yob himself,
and justifies why britain should just go yobbish.

Older gentlemen i've encountered said they would never, in previous
decades go out to the pub or in public without being dressed up in
a suit, as it was dignity in public... and maybe there really is
something to the dress... but not orange jumpsuits, rather spitpolished
shoes and clean, well kept appearance.... ? what to do?

[T_i_B]

23. Bluewater profits from 'hoodies' ban

Now this is the thing that may well clinch this issue for many. The Elephant & Castle shopping centre has followed suit and more may follow.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/20/nchav20.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/05/20/ixportal.html

The number of shoppers at the Bluewater centre in Kent has risen by more than a fifth since it banned gangs of youths wearing hoods and baseball caps.

The centre, near Dartford, says that 22 per cent more shoppers passed through its doors last weekend than during the corresponding period in 2004.

Days earlier it had announced a zero tolerance policy on face-obscuring "hoodies", baseball caps and swearing. The ban, part of a new code of conduct on anti-social behaviour, followed complaints about gangs intimidating shoppers.

The move won backing from Tony Blair and John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, but was criticised by youth organisations for "confusing fashion with behaviour".

[T_i_B]

25. Did Charles Clarke tell 6 falsehoods in 100 seconds about this?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/22/nyob22.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/05/22/ixportaltop.html

An elaborate account by the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, of the tough measures the Government is allegedly imposing on young offenders was a sham, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

Mr Clarke was caught out after claiming in a radio interview last week to have watched offenders dressed in chain-gang style boiler suits undertaking manual labour. But organisers of the scheme he visited said that Mr Clarke witnessed nothing more than a group of middle-aged men on probation, wearing disposable blue overalls to protect their clothes from paint.

They accused him of embellishing almost every aspect of the project they had shown him in order to appear tough on crime. In addition, Mr Clarke's own staff yesterday denied his claim that such schemes were running up and down the country. He stands accused of fabricating no fewer than six claims in the course of a 1min 40sec section of the interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Graham Mandelli, a petty officer at Beckenham and Penge sea cadet centre, which was being redecorated by the offenders, said that he was surprised by the Home Secretary's description. Asked whether they were in uniform, Mr Mandelli laughed and said: "They were wearing blue overalls you can buy from DIY centres. It was protective gear of the sort you would wear for health and safety reasons. "They wore gloves and goggles. It was work wear. I know they are talking about boiler suits but it wasn't like that.

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. Sounds as if he claimed six impossible things before breakfast

But then we knew this was a government Through the Looking Glass.

[Paul B UK]

27. This sort of stuff...

...will merely produce rising authoritarianism and less civil liberty.

More CCTV, 'ID cards' and the database state, even more illiberal anti-terrorism laws and more denial of basic civil liberties.

The US is pulling the UK down the toilet as well.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

28. Welcome to DU

:hi:

[D-Notice]

29. What do you expect?

Where the US leads, the UK follows...

Sometimes I think we've secretly become the 51st state