Many thanks for your comments to Richard Passmore via facebook. I was encouraged by your response to the ASBO’d certificate.
I have to say that your comments/reflections re ASBO’s had occured to me in the development of the idea and i did consciously go ahead with the certificate ‘as is’ for a few reasons.
Firstly I wanted to get reaction – to create the debate and make people think – those who are like yourself and understand that we are not necessarily saying ASBO’s don’t work (even though the jury is out in terms of some of the research – see my comments below) are likely to forgive us and think of the greater good – those who don’t understand are likely to engage in debate with us and at that point we can share our perspective and underline the concern about stigmatising young people (see Richard’s comment). I think advertisers are using this ploy all the time – satire does seem to work well.
Secondly I wanted to capitalize on the ‘dark’ idea that some would see ASBO as a ‘badge of honour’ by turning it into a ‘light’ idea – eg we want to honour young people by naming them as Alright Sensational Beautiful Original – I think they will get it and it is unlikely that it will undermine the ‘ASBO campaign’ – we will monitor reaction to check as you make a good point and we don’t want to seriously undermine authentic protection for anyone
Thirdly – I want to keep the overall debate about the usefulness of personally humiliating people with ASBO’s alive – if we genuinely believe that many of the social ills that young people engage in are a outcome of nurture rather than nature – why don’t we chose to publically humilate our systems as well as individuals? (perhaps this is another idea for FYT!!) My personal view (not an FYT position) is that the power that the police and legal systems had in ‘injunctions’ was enough to deal with protecting people and that the ASBO is more rooted in naming and shaming individuals – as it follows a political pattern that has been evolving in education and many human services (league tables etc) over the last 10 years – it seems to me to be most unhelpful to tag a label on individuals who are already believing the wrong things about themselves. I think there are many other more positive ways that the government could choose to use to make families and communities safer and feel more supported – without resorting to the use of personal and systemic humiliation.
Do hope this helps – your comment are very helpful thanks and you have made me wonder if we should say some of this publically – however I do want to keep debate going!
shalom – dave wiles (CEO – Frontier youth Trust)
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