Police in Nottingham, England declared war on youth on Saturday night: anyone between 13-24 getting off a bus into town was sent through a metal-detector, and the streets were swarmed with drug-dogs that were set on young people.

Something like 90% of urban England Over 1,000 English cities and towns have a curfew for young people, giving police (and fake "citizen cops") the power to send kids home after dark for any reason, if, in their judgement, the kids are apt to be disturbing "real" people. Many stores and restaurants have signs on the door that say "no more than two kids at one time" (imagine if it said "No more than two Jews" or "No more than two blacks"). And there's a kind of para-law called the Anti-Social Behaviour Order that gives courts the power to invent laws for people (mostly kids) who face complaints about their behaviour (the accused aren't allowed to rebut the evidence against them).

You have to wonder what kind of values about citizenship, fairness, privacy, and the social contract are being imparted to young people by these measures.

The major operation involved 200 officers as part of a Home Office project targeting 13 to 24-year-olds. Officers and a specially-trained dog met young people coming off a number of bus routes. Metal detectors were used in an effort to find concealed weapons while drug testing was also carried out. A search centre was set up where a full body scanner checked suspects.





Police in Nottingham city centre knife purge



(Thanks, Dougall!)