Estate 'fenced off' from trouble

Estate 'fenced off' from trouble

news.bbc.co.uk

A two-metre high perimeter fence will be put up around tower blocks on a troubled estate in Grimsby to keep out troublemakers.

It is part of a £2.1m investment to regenerate the appearance of East Marsh and improve security.

Residents said they welcomed the move because the estate had been blighted by outsiders coming in and committing crime, including drug dealing.

People living there will get through the fence via secure access points.

(visit the link for the full news article)

well, public segregated prison camps.

Coming soon to your neighbourhood, upon popular demand by your neighbours... CCTV monitored entry gates to get to your home. All in the name of stopping crime.

As much as it will stop a certain amount of crime, there are already those living in that area (or any similar area) that may already be criminals and covertly carrying out 'illegal' activities.

"The flats have got no security as such until those fences go up."

Uummm, what about the police force? have they got something else better to do?
There are millions of other houses and housing estates that have very similar problems. Almost any doorstep could be used for a number of various different activities.

Is this 'fencing in' going to extend to all areas? will we spend most of our day showing/using ID to get in and out of areas just to go to work or do the shopping or go to the cinema?

Is the prison state more of a reality than ever before?

news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

I think the gate idea will become more popular in areas that experiencing an influx of crime. People have a natural instinct to protect themselves and their families from predators.

In the Atlanta area we have plenty of crime and virtually every apartment complex is gated. I do not see it as an act furthered by the government, as quite frankly I don't think our (U.S.) govenment cares if the populace is riddled with crime. In fact as far as they are concerned its a good thing, keeps people from focusing on other issues.

Its just an old concept being recycled. Gated communities (stone walls) have been used for centuries. In some cases it looks like its time has again come!
Zindo

I think if the residents want it then it should be so, i know a lot of places where i live need this, these criminals dont care about communities anymore just money and power which is killing our kids, build the walls and lock them out see how long they survive without victims, i know it can look controversial, so ill tell you something, 2 yrs ago i was nearly carjacked by a bunch of 14 yr olds, im a big fells but against a group of a dozen or more there is no chance, the police where called and as a result my next door neighbor had a crude nail bomb put on his car because they thought he had called them, luckily they where seen doing it and disaster prevented, if we had a wall then i would still live in my dream home, instead i live in a box.

Everyone has the right to live without fear, sadly the police are powerless now in some areas, esp when to concentrate on one area leaves another open to the same thing.

Originally posted by ZindoDoone
Its just an old concept being recycled. Gated communities (stone walls) have been used for centuries. In some cases it looks like its time has again come!
Zindo

Exactly. No one's ever lived in or known anyone who's lived in a gated community? Or an apartment building with a doorman? I don't see at all what is prison state-ish about this.

[edit on 6-5-2008 by sc2099]

Problem is this is not addressing the problem of crime, they can build all the walls they want it won't stop crime.

All it really does is create profit for someone while the real causes of crime (poverty, unemployment, homelessness, alienation, private property, capitalism, media, the prison system etc...etc...) continue.

And then the irony is the real criminals are the ones 'protecting' and watching you. Business as usual.

Crime, the most obvious symptom of social crisis, took 30 years to double in Britain (from 1 million incidents in 1950 to 2.2 million in 1979). However, between 1979 and 1992 the crime rate more than doubled, exceeding the 5 million mark in 1992. These 13 years were marked by a government firmly committed to the "free market" and "individual responsibility." It was entirely predictable that the social disruption, atomisation of individuals, and increased poverty caused by freeing capitalism from social controls would rip society apart and increase criminal activity. Also unsurprisingly (from an anarchist viewpoint), under these pro-market governments we also saw a reduction in civil liberties, increased state centralisation, and the destruction of local government. As Malatesta put it, the classical liberalism which these governments represented could have had no other effect, for "the government's powers of repression must perforce increase as free competition results in more discord and inequality." [Anarchy, p. 46]

We should also point out that prisons have numerous negative affects on society as well as often re-enforcing criminal (i.e. anti-social) behaviour. Kropotkin originated the accurate description of prisons as "Universities of Crime" wherein the first-time criminal learns new techniques and have adapt to the prevailing ethical standards within them. Hence, prisons would have the effect of increasing the criminal tendencies of those sent there and so prove to be counter-productive. In addition, prisons do not affect the social conditions which promote many forms of crime.

Source

"It would seem that the amount of destructiveness to be found in individuals is proportionate to the amount to which expansiveness of life is curtailed. By this we do not refer to individual frustrations of this or that instinctive desire but to the thwarting of the whole of life, the blockage of spontaneity of the growth and expression of man's sensuous, emotional, and intellectual capacities. Life has an inner dynamism of its own; it tends to grow, to be expressed, to be lived . . . the drive for life and the drive for destruction are not mutually interdependent factors but are in a reversed interdependence. The more the drive towards life is thwarted, the stronger is the drive towards destruction; the more life is realised, the less is the strength of destructiveness. Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life. Those individual and social conditions that make for suppression of life produce the passion for destruction that forms, so to speak, the reservoir from which particular hostile tendencies -- either against others or against oneself -- are nourished" Eric Fromm The Fear of Freedom, p. 158

Bail out the basement while there's holes in the roof...

Every apartment complex I lived in while in Phoenix was a gated community.

The gate had a card scanner, or you could punch in a code to gain access.

As far as I am concerned it wasn't effective since the code was supplied to guests, pizza delivery men, utility companies, and who knows?

People got burgled anyway, and my next door neighbor had her car stolen while it was on the property.

I thought you guys invented the fence? The original idea was much more complicated in the day, remember the Moat?
en.wikipedia.org...