This week the UK's biggest shopping mall, Bluewater, banned hoodies and baseball caps from their premises.
Why? Because hoodies and baseball caps have become synonymous with violent crime and intimidation. Gangs of youths are everywhere in my country (or at least in all towns), and they terrorise people on the street and in their homes with hardly any risk of getting anything other than a slap on the wrist from the authorities.
I was mugged in broad daylight by a gang last year, in my hometown's busiest street. Thankfully, the leader of the gang was banned from the city centre after he left the manager of Sega Park with brain damage after kicking him repeatedly in the face, but most incidents go unpunished.
Not long ago, a woman who fired an unloaded air pistol at the feet of two yobs who had terrorised her for months throwing bricks through her windows, slashing her car tyres and intimidating her, was jailed. The law seems to be on the side of these youths in some cases, and I think that this is disgraceful. I remember a previous incident when a gang of youths laid siege to a woman's home and smashed up her car. She told them she had a gun (she didn't), so one of the gang phoned the police, who turned up within 10 minutes with body armour, MP5s and sniper rifles to arrest the woman. She had called the police many times before to ask them to break up the gang attacking her property, but they did nothing.
The final straw for me, however, is 'happy slapping.' This involves one youth filming his friends slapping innocent bystanders in the face, or beating them up. It started off as a playground fad, where bullies would film themselves karate kicking someone in the head or similar, but it has become public and is getting more serious all the time. Recently, a drunken man fell asleep at a bus stop, a pair of youths found him, doused him in petrol and set him alight. He barely survived and is now permanently scarred.
Extra InfoWhat are your thoughts on this, and what do you think the authorities should do about it?
I think that there should be a mandatory prison sentence for youths who assault lawful citizens, and I also think that the law should be on the side of the people who retaliate after persistent harrassment. If I was to go to the extreme - I would also consider having persistent offenders beaten by the police when they arrest them - or have them placed in solitary confinement with just a toilet and some food.
Hopefully, that way, they will appreciate freedom when they have paid their debt to society, and learn that if they beat up random people, they should expect to have the same done to them.