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That CurfewDateline: 8th August, 2004It is not surprising - indeed, it is predictable - that the chief executive of SOLT should fulminate against the Metropolitan Police's plans to impose a curfew on under-16s unaccompanied by an adult between 9pm and 6am in areas of the West End His job is, after all, to protect the interests of the West End's theatre managers and owners and, in particular, their income. The police, on the other hand, along with Westminster Council, the other party to the curfew, are charged with the responibility of maintaining law and order and protecting visitors to the West End from the danger of crime and intimidation. It would be a very foolish person indeed who claimed that there is no anti-social behaviour, petty crime or even intimidation in the West End, and particularly in the area around Leiecester Square. As has been said often in the past few years, the West End needs a Rudolph Giuliani! The new curfew will not solve all the problems of the West End at a stroke, but it is a start, and it is not, as Richard Pulford suggests, a blanket ban. Indeed, the Met has said that it will target vulnerable youngsters on their own (for their protection) and gangs of youths who are causing trouble (for the protection of others). To suggest that this will put off parents bringing their families into the West End seems decidedly wrong-headed. The effect of the "dispersals" will be to engender a greater feeling of security for family groups, who can now be sure that the children will not be targeted by gangs of drunken youngsters. And it is hardly likely that we are going to see hoards of police swooping down on huge numbers of kids and dragging them back to the suburbs. It would not be a profitable use of police time and manpower. If a group of kids are walking quietly through the streets, obviously going somewhere in particular and not causing any kind of disturbance, then a load of jack-booted stormtroopers is not going to bundle them into the backs of vans and drive off with them. If, on the other hand, a group is causing a disturbance, is clearly looking for trouble or obviously under the influence of alcohol (or another substance), the police now have another weapon in their armoury to get them off the streets and away from trouble. There may be civil liberty issues here - but it's more than likely that the vast majority, whose civil liberties are infringed by the idiotic behaviour of a few, will welcome the new powers. As, I suspect, will not a few parents who do not like the idea of their kids being at large in the West End late at night but who, for one reason or another, do not have enough influence over them to stop them. Articles Indices:
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