The Prime Minister claims that Anti-Social-Behaviour Orders have brought respite for “communities living in fear” from years of harassment and abuse by “aggressive drinkers and drug dealers” and quoted statistics to substantiate the success of curfews and dispersal in areas like Camden. If true, the policy is commendable, but what about innocent and law abiding citizens who find themselves the object of these new powers, simply because they fit the ‘cap & hood’ stereotype, are they not also entitled to live free from police harassment, intimidation and fear?

My seventeen year-old, mixed-race son has been stopped and searched four times, on his way to school, youth clubs and parties, finally culminating in his arrest on Saturday 23^rd October 2004, for allegedly bumping into a policeman. According to J.C., my six-foot, 6^th form student son, who has recently passed eight GCSE’s and does not lie, steal, smoke, drink, take drugs or carry weapons, the reverse is true; the burly officer barged him, which resulted in a verbal altercation and provoked an incident where none had existed.

J.C. was handcuffed and detained, before being charged a fixed penalty fine of £80 and then released. Rightly so, he is deeply disturbed by this injustice and no longer trusts ‘community policing.’ By all means apprehend and fast-track convicted criminals, but ordinary youths should be permitted to go about their daily business, unmolested by over-zealous and racist police, meeting government ASBO targets. If my son is the prototype, then all children may as well sign ASBO contracts, including Tony Blair’s, after all, it was his son who was picked-up, reeling drunk in the West End, not mine.

http://www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/n251104_07.htm