youth

Image / Toby Ord

Trick Or Treat: The Dark Side

Image / Toby Ord Marylebone dwellers, best lock your doors and switch off the lights this Saturday: seems a ruthless gang of trick-or-treaters are using the seasonal excuse to don masks and demand prezzies as a license to commit ill. A group of eight youths …

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What Not To Wear

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a hooded garment must be engaged in criminal activity. This is the precedent set by a judge who banned an Asbo youth from wearing a hoodie, a ruling which has been upheld by …

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Berg’s Back To Help The Kids

Ex-Arsenal striker Dennis Bergkamp returns to London today for the unveiling of a community football pitch that he has bankrolled. The ground in Elthorne Park, part of a international network of “Cruyff Courts”, administered by the elder Dutch legend, aims to offer disaffected young Londoners …

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Knife Crime Is Bad Say Bands

We’ve had fake funerals, government issue parental guidance, a chocolate baby, shock tactics, marching and in your face policing. It’s about time someone actually listened to Lily Allen and put on the benefit gig. Yes, the Knife Crime Awareness Tour will be coming to a …

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Government Gang Guide

In another desperate attempt to do something useful about curbing youth crime and tackling gang culture today the Home Office published “The Gangs: You and Your Child”. It’s an attempt to help parents identify whether their kids might be involved with gangs and deliver sound …

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Wanna Make A Movie?

While hand-wringing from the chattering classes about what to do with “da kids” dominates the media, charities such as Get Connected, who offer confidential advice to young people, are busy doing something about it. Ever keen to engage London’s youth in constructive projects that actually …

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You Won’t Fool The Children Of The Revolution

Not content with tracking the every move of its errant young, a London borough is bribing its youths to behave themselves – or lose their privileges. The Positive Citizen photocard being trialled in Sutton works on the premise that young people engaging in ‘positive behaviour’ …

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Have Data, Will Travel

Those slightly addle-eyed folk who rant about Government conspiracies, claim that we’re all microchipped at birth and believe the Oyster card is a sinister scheme to track our movements may be feeling a little righteous today: Transport for London has been criticised for “collecting data …

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London Calling… Crimestoppers

At a time when the mainstream media is awash with knife crime statistics and government-sponsored images of dismembered hands, it is refreshing to find that members of the public have taken it upon themselves to offer assistance in the ongoing War on Knives (yes, this …

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Face Scans For Teen Drinkers

Pity London’s poor crafty underagers. A further hurdle was today placed in the way of their illegally buying booze and fags as supermarket chain Budgens unveiled a trial of hi-tech face-recognition cameras in one of its London stores – technology that will weed out teenage …

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God On The Buses

In the relentless battle against anti-social behaviour and juvenile crime on our public transport we’ve reported on 999 text hotlines and genuine gansters brought in to educate the kids. We’ve had local heroes, PCSOs, poster campaigns and overzealous bus drivers. Now, apparently, we need God. …