ब्ज्ज्ज्ज्ज्ज्ज़

Mosquito, is a device employed by shopkeepers and the like, throughout the country. It is a sound generator that produces high pitched noise that is undetectable to old fogies like me, but is unpleasant and highly irritating to children and teenagers, as their thresholds of audibility are so much higher than ours.

The idea is that if you have one of these in or near your premises, that kids will not want to linger there and make general nuisances of themselves.

This is becoming a bone of contention, with civil liberty groups claiming that it is a major infringement on the rights of children. Others have said how disgraceful it is to be using a sonic weapon against our children.

Now i can see both sides of this argument. I agree that it seems discriminatory and that effectively it makes such areas, more or less no-go to young people. On the other hand, there are gangs of teens, who by their very presence are making other areas into no-go for virtually everyone else. Groups of hooded youths are intimidating for most people, as they are quite understandably seen as threats, and my hiding their faces, amplify the fear that some deliberately impose on their communities.

Many shopkeepers find that when these gangs collect outside their stores, no-one else will come anywhere near. So what are they to do? The police are more or less without power to deal with youths on the streets, and their parents have often no control, or worse, no knowledge of what the kids are up to. Anyone even approaching these clusters of young people is risking verbal and even physical abuse, and so most adults have abdicated any responsibility for their behaviour.

The gang culture is growing again, but now against a background of untouchability. Adults won't confront them, the police won't or can't do anything and the kids know this. The lines that we grew up with have slowly been erased by those whose blinkered approach to human rights, have and continue to, erode the rights of everyone else.

A shopping centre found that by playing Mozart through a PA system helped to move the gangs away, but eben this was seen by some do-gooders to be an infringement of someone's rights.

Yes in a civilised country, there should be basic human rights. To drink clean water, to afford to eat, to have shelter and security at home, and to feel safe. Unfortunately, now everyone wants everything that they can see others enjoying, but without having to go through the process of earning it. Everyone expects that the world owes them something, because they have been told that they have "rights". Unfortunately t hey have not been told that they also have responsibilities, and that those responsibilities include granting the same basic rights to their fellow citizens.

It is time that our society grew up and maybe enforced some of the basic laws that apply to adults, but seem to not apply to the youths. Maybe if the police spent less time bleeding money from motorists and more time on the streets where the new waves of criminals are at work, that things might improve.

Many think that the kids only cluster the way they do because they have nothing else to do! That is rubbish, they cluster because they want to and because they are allowed to and because they have power in numbers. There is far more for kids to do now than there ever has been, and it is only a minority that make others lives a misery. The only thing that is lacking is enforcable rules.