YOUTH HIT HARDEST BY NEW LAWS
Labour Home Secretaries have created more than 300 new crimes since coming to power and will introduce dozens more in bills now passing through Parliament.

The latest crackdown on anti-social behaviour and youth crime will make it an offence to sell aerosol paint to children and introduces tough fines for fly-posting, graffiti, dropping litter and riding a bicycle on the pavement. The anti-social behaviour bill will also make it an offence for groups of two or more youths to gather on a street corner in an intimidating manner. Failure to disperse when asked by police could result in a three-month prison sentence.

Crimes created since 1997 include measures to crack down on terrorism, sex offences and racism, but include an array of minor offences, many designed to crack down on unruly teenagers.

The anti-social behaviour legislation will introduce at least a dozen new offences. Most controversial are powers to remove under-16s from the streets if police believe a member of the public might be 'intimidated, harassed, alarmed or distressed' as a result of their presence.

Figures obtained in a parliamentary answer to Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesman Simon Hughes show that the Terrorism Act 2000 alone introduced 38 new offences; the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act created a further 69.

'The Government is shown to have the worst authoritarian tendencies,' Hughes said. 'The Vagrancy Act of 1824 has not stopped people begging, and making cannabis illegal has not stopped people puffing. The Government should remember that saying no to people changes behaviour less than positive encouragement to do something else.'

'This is evidence of the growing trend in government to criminalise nonconformist behaviour, no matter how low-key. This intolerance will further exclude disadvantaged young people from mainstream society,' said Harry Fletcher of Napo, the probation union.

Penal reformers said that the Government's 'obsession' with teenagers on street corners had contributed to the sharp rise in the number of young people in prison.

'This is a marked expansion in the definition of anti-social behaviour,' said a spokesman for Nacro, the independent crime reduction charity. 'Youngsters congregating in groups might be undesirable, but it is difficult to see such behaviour as criminal. Anti-social behaviour ought to be tackled, but not by making criminals out of litter louts.'

A report published by the charity this month claims the moral panic caused by events such as the murder of toddler James Bulger and a fear of teenage 'bail bandits' have led to a ninefold rise in the number of children under 15 being sentenced to custody.

The report, written by Lord Carlile QC, says the Government's 'rush to custody' is in breach of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It also says the Government has failed in its policy to reduce the number of children in prison when the rate of youth offending is falling.

'It is a national disgrace that incarcerating children is viewed as anything but a last resort in response to problems of juvenile crime. The UK continues to flout international conventions on children's rights by locking up increasingly young children for considerably less serious crimes than was the case a decade ago.'

Nacro backs the Observer's Children Behind Bars campaign, run jointly with the Children's Society, which calls for an end to the incarceration of all but the most violent and dangerous children.

This was written by

Martin Bright, home affairs editor
Sunday April 13, 2003
The Observer