Anti Social Behaviour.
I've just returned from a week spent in a small town in western Sicily. Castellammare del Golfo is about 40 kilometers from the island's capital Palermo. It is a small town and according to a teacher I met there a couple of years ago, it has an official unemployment rate of about 10-15%. The schools term had ended, which meant the town's kids were left to their own devices during the day. OK, there's a beach and a small football pitch, but I noticed teenagers seemed to congregate at a local park. The same park that the retired men used to discuss football and politics in the mornings. There were sometimes about twenty youngsters sitting on the seats. None, so far as I could see, had abused alcohol, though alcohol was freely available most of the day. Their behaviour was not threatening, though they were noisy. In fact just typical teenagers. I suppose in England, police officers or Blunkett's new Community Wardens, would be wandering about asking these kids to give their names and addresses and why they were outside. And if they could not offer a good reason, they would be marched home. Why on earth does the Home Office use the United states as a template to reduce so-called anti-social behaviour, which has not been that successful, rather than our European neighbours
posted by Tony @ Thursday, July 08, 2004
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