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GIVING YOUNG PEOPLE A VOICE! |
Heard the buzz?
13th March 2008
REPORT BY TOM FOLLETT
IF YOU are an adult you may have read about it, seen it, heard about it, but you will have never heard it.
That’s because the Mosquito alarm is a siren which only people under the age of about 20 can hear (since hearing deteriorates with age), and it’s becoming increasingly popular with shopkeepers and police in the UK who use it to deter kids from hanging around where they’re not wanted.
The police say it’s deployed in situations where there is a real problem and shopkeepers claim it has real benefits to their businesses.
So what’s the problem? Well, for one thing the device obviously can’t distinguish between ‘troublemakers’ and ‘customers’.
Any young people in the 15-20 metre range can hear it. This includes young children and anyone who might live within hearing range of the device. Well, one might well say, the shopkeeper would only turn it on if there was a real nuisance.
But that’s the thing - it may deter some who are actively intimidating people, but it is also used on young people who mean no harm to anyone and are just hanging out.
Indeed the manufacturer’s website, compoundsecurity.co.uk, proclaims it to be ‘the solution to the eternal problem of unwanted gatherings of youths and teenagers in shopping malls, around shops and anywhere else ‘. ‘Are you bothered by crowds of teenager’s hanging around your street?’
It asks us, like a faint echo of Vicky Pollard. Well yes, we are bothered because teenagers have as much right to stand on their street as anyone else.
I have heard from a South West MYP that at one location in Cornwall there is a ‘Mosquito’ in their local park which activates a few minutes after young people arrive at the park, presumably in case their presence intimidates the park’s ‘customers’?
Supposedly this is not what the manufacturer intends, but since any private citizen can install a device, it looks like we’ll only be seeing more of them.
Imagine a special device outside a shop which causes discomfort to passing black people. Can you imagine the uproar there would be. Such a latent discrimination and disregard for human rights has thankfully not been seen since the 60s and the passing of equality laws.
If anyone installed such a device they would rightly be arrested. So why do we have no objections to this device I have described when it discriminates against age rather than race?
This is a question those who promote the merits of this Mosquito need to consider very well indeed.
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