Dispersal Zone for Brixton Town Centre, Acre Lane, Coldharbour Lane....

[paolo]

Just recieved this:

[Lambeth]
Subject: Dispersal Zone for Brixton Town Centre and Acre Lane

Dear All,

I am writing to let you know that Community Safety and Police are proposing to implement a Section 30 Dispersal Zone in Brixton Town Centre and Acre Lane in late January for a period of 6 months.

Dispersal Zones respond to requests from local people to manage anti-social behaviour, gang and drug related issues in the public realm. Dispersal Zones enable a Police Constable or Police Community Support Officer to direct people groups of two or more whose presence has or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to disperse. People who do not reside in the affected area will be instructed to leave and not return for up to 24 hours. A Police Officer or Police Community Support Officer has a discretionary power, within a designated area, to return young people home, who are under 16 years of age and are on the streets not under the control of an adult after 9pm.

There has been a steady increase in reports of anti-social behaviour in the Town Centre and Acre Lane. Complaints have been made around overt drug taking, drug dealing in groups, groups of youths congregating, street drinking, thefts and robberies. Those who work, live and pass by have felt intimidated, unsafe and some have felt victimised.

The aims of the Dispersal Zone are to reduce anti-social behaviour and improve public confidence through the disruption of groups and target offenders. As well as preventing the congregation groups in large numbers, the order will enable the police to better identify individuals who can then be offered acceptable behaviour contracts (where appropriate). In some cases it may be appropriate to take greater enforcement action, including Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBO’s).

Please find attached a map of the proposed area.

Please let me know if you support the Dispersal Zone and if you have any comments or questions.

We hope that the use of this power will make a difference to the lives of the community in and around the area.

Yours sincerely,
www.lambeth.gov.uk

 

[editor]

Doc showing the area affected here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JzKBMMmx0eovngzhFHWTgsn-vmIxwYaPyAOGnuRiUYg/edit

 

[Brixton Hatter]

There's a dispersal zone where I live (Angell Town / Myatts Fields) - it's mostly used to hassle teenage black kids in hoods who hang around in groups. It's fucking shit for the kids round here cos there's little else to do but hang around with your mates on the street....which means you inevitably get stopped/searched, and come into conflict with the police.

Which is not to belittle the problems experienced by friends and people I know who live in central Brixton. Maybe this will shift the problem down the road towards Loughborough Junction, Tulse Hill, or even better, Clapham

The police are very fond of getting additional powers, even if they don't work. It means they can stop and search people without the adhering to the normal guidelines...and they can be used in almost any circumstance if the police want to justify it.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

There's a dispersal zone where I live (Angell Town / Myatts Fields) - it's mostly used to hassle teenage black kids in hoods who hang around in groups. It's fucking shit for the kids round here cos there's little else to do but hang around with your mates on the street....which means you inevitably get stopped/searched, and come into conflict with the police.

Which is not to belittle the problems experienced by friends and people I know who live in central Brixton. Maybe this will shift the problem down the road towards Loughborough Junction, Tulse Hill, or even better, Clapham

The police are very fond of getting additional powers, even if they don't work. It means they can stop and search people without the adhering to the normal guidelines...and they can be used in almost any circumstance if the police want to justify it.

or up the Hill to Brixton Hill

I understand the reasons, but agree with Brixton Hatter.

Reminds me of the police moving the prostitutes out of Streatham. Just moves the problem elsewhere

 

[colacubes]

Same as it ever was. Dispersal zone just moves the problem a little further up the road, then they put a dispersal zone on that area and it moves further on or back to where it was before.

 

[Brixton Hatter]

dispersal zone currently in operation right outside my house!

 

[Laughing Toad]

There's a dispersal zone where I live (Angell Town / Myatts Fields) - it's mostly used to hassle teenage black kids in hoods who hang around in groups. It's fucking shit for the kids round here cos there's little else to do but hang around with your mates on the street....which means you inevitably get stopped/searched, and come into conflict with the police.

Which is not to belittle the problems experienced by friends and people I know who live in central Brixton. Maybe this will shift the problem down the road towards Loughborough Junction, Tulse Hill, or even better, Clapham

The police are very fond of getting additional powers, even if they don't work. It means they can stop and search people without the adhering to the normal guidelines...and they can be used in almost any circumstance if the police want to justify it.

I find your response incredible. 9pm should be bed time for fifteen year olds. The fact that people like you think it is somehow acceptable for teenagers to be hanging around maybe explains why this needs to be done.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

I find your response incredible. 9pm should be bed time for fifteen year olds. The fact that people like you think it is somehow acceptable for teenagers to be hanging around maybe explains why this needs to be done.

Are you joking? How many 15-year-olds do you know who are in bed by 9.00pm?

 

[colacubes]

I find your response incredible. 9pm should be bed time for fifteen year olds. The fact that people like you think it is somehow acceptable for teenagers to be hanging around maybe explains why this needs to be done.

Loltastic

 

[Laughing Toad]

Are you joking? How many 15-year-olds do you know who are in bed by 9.00pm?

All of them Minnie. All of them. We live in different worlds you and me.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

All of them Minnie. All of them. We live in different worlds you and me.

How exactly?

 

[TopCat]

"acceptable behaviour contracts"? What is this?

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

"acceptable behaviour contracts"? What is this?

Detention/Lines/Stand in the Corner/ASBO for bad behaviour?

 

[Pickman's model]

i hear that some of the met police have formed a re-enactment society. although their approaches to the community in brixton for a re-enactment of 1981 have been spurned, nick ephgrave has found a way to encourage local youth to participate with the police in a rerun of the famous nights. i wonder if you can guess what his engagement plan is.

 

[paolo]

i hear that some of the met police have formed a re-enactment society. although their approaches to the community in brixton for a re-enactment of 1981 have been spurned, nick ephgrave has found a way to encourage local youth to participate with the police in a rerun of the famous nights. i wonder if you can guess what his engagement plan is.

Who's Nick Ephgrave?

 

[ajdown]

Are you joking? How many 15-year-olds do you know who are in bed by 9.00pm?

"Are" and "Should" are two different things.

I may not have been in bed at 9pm when I was 15 but I was certainly home by then, particularly on school nights. Don't the parents care where their children are and what they're up to?

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

"Are" and "Should" are two different things.

I may not have been in bed at 9pm when I was 15 but I was certainly home by then, particularly on school nights. Don't the parents care where their children are and what they're up to?

I had a very strict upbringing but was still allowed out at that time. Think I had to be back in the house at 10.00pm weekdays and 11.00pm weekends

 

[Pickman's model]

Who's Nick Ephgrave?

the police commander in lambeth

 

[paolo]

the police commander in lambeth

Oh ok.

No, I've no idea what his engagement plan is. What is it?

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

dispersal zone currently in operation right outside my house!

Same here since September all the way round the moorlands estate and all the way to that estate with the longish white blocks on barrington road.

I find your response incredible. 9pm should be bed time for fifteen year olds. The fact that people like you think it is somehow acceptable for teenagers to be hanging around maybe explains why this needs to be done.

As it happens, kids under 16 can
be taken home if after 9pm on the street.
The actual constant control/harassment can go on 24/7 though, not just in the evening after what you consider a respectable bedtime for a 15 year old.

 

[Pickman's model]

Oh ok.

No, I've no idea what his engagement plan is. What is it?

to rile the local youth so much that come the summer, when he launches operation swamp '12 everyone will join in with this re-enactors.

 

[ajdown]

I had a very strict upbringing but was still allowed out at that time. Think I had to be back in the house at 10.00pm weekdays and 11.00pm weekends

We'd be bored before then so wanted to go home. Maybe it was being out in the country when everything was shut by 8pm - the last bus was 5.30pm - that made the difference from you urban types.

Jumpers for goalposts, and all that.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

We'd be bored before then so wanted to go home. Maybe it was being out in the country when everything was shut by 8pm - the last bus was 5.30pm - that made the difference from you urban types.

Jumpers for goalposts, and all that.

I move back to London 'til I was maybe 17

 

[Gramsci]

I thought there already had been a Dispersal Order in central Brixton. This would be to renew it for six months.

What I dont like is that non criminal and criminal acts get put together. There are already laws against drug dealing on the street. To put this together with "groups of youths congregating" and "street drinking" is wrong.

Its also means that the Police, instead of dealing with drug dealing, can just order people to move on. Its easier for them. This (as several posters have pointed out) will just push the problem elsewhere.

 

[IC3D]

maybe if they sold weed in coffee shops they wouldn't have to become criminalised and hostile so young and groups of teenagers would be just that.

 

[Gramsci]

True. Decriminalisation is the only answer to the drug dealing problem. It would take it out of the hands of organised crime.

 

[fortyplus]

True. Decriminalisation is the only answer to the drug dealing problem. It would take it out of the hands of organised crime.

I have just been reminded that tomorrow is the deadline for submission of evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee's current enquiry into drugs policy. Individuals as well as organisations can submit evidence

http://www.parliament.uk/business/c...ome-affairs-committee/news/drugs-call-for-ev/

 

[Winot]

True. Decriminalisation is the only answer to the drug dealing problem. It would take it out of the hands of organised crime.

I must be tired - read this as "Decimalisation is the only answer to the drug dealing problem".

 

[editor]

SLP article about a new dispersal zone in central Brixton and along Coldharbour Lane...
http://www.crystalpalace-today.co.u...ift Brixton dealers, drinkers, dispersal zone,

 

[story]

“Hundreds of my constituents call me about these men shouting ‘skunk, weed’ to them.

“I’m so glad the police have decided do something about this terrible problem.”