egafd.com

http://web.orange.co.uk/article/news/ch ... e_at_night

Discuss?

This was a Labour government measure as I recall - the dispersal order.

This article highlights the usual sloppy journalism you get in most rags.

"Children under 16 have been banned from going into a city centre in North Wales at night "

Well, a dispersal order does not do that. A dispersal order leaves it to the discretion of the police to decide that if two or more under 16s are either at risk of anti-social behaviour or there is a reason to believe that they have been acting in an anti-social way that they can be asked to leave the area covered by the dispersal order. Banning implies road blocks or such like on pedestrian streets to stop under 16s entering the area.

There in lies the problem i.e. it is down to the interpretation by the police. Have the police got enough commensense to deal with this properly without getting totally carried away and pissing off loads of law-abiding under 16s who just want to go to a concert? I am not sure. Besides inherent in dispersing people is just shunting the perceived problem to another part of town.

Its always amusing to get the occasional, knee jerk reactions to this from the civil liberties people , in this case, Nick Pickles

"To say that any under-16-year-old who is unaccompanied between 9pm and 6am is a criminal is the kind of draconian law you'd expect in North Korea, not North Wales."

Well Nick, it doesnt say that every under 16 is a criminal and no, this is not North Korea which is why despite your speaking out against this police measure, your bollocks are still attached to the rest of your body.

Personally I suspect this is a sloppy bit of policing used when the police do not have sufficient resources to implement all the other laws we have to cover anti-social behaviour.