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Give these kids a break
• I AM writing regarding the recent heavy police presence in Barnsbury, where I live. I felt like I was walking into some fascist police state the other evening, into a street full of police cars.
Young people being shunted from area to area are being criminalised because they happen to be teenagers or younger kids with nowhere to go. What are they supposed to do: sit at home and watch Big Brother?
We live in a consumer society that targets this age group without mercy, and yet we do not provide places to go except a football pitch and some sports facilities. Not every young person wants to be a footballer or Olympic athlete. In fact, they would probably rather be rock stars or models, or make a lot of money. Just like all the people who have moved into this area recently.
If we just abandon each young generation to heavy policing, what exactly does that say about an older generation who seem to have forgotten their youth? Perhaps some kindness and compassion to help this younger generation, rather than resentment and anger, which leads to yet more violence, may be a more positive way forward.
As for anti-social behaviour, a term coined by the Nazis, that does not just apply to young people. How about car owners who pollute the atmosphere?
SILAS TREPOVSKI
Barnsbury Street, N1
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