Grayling: Take yobs' mobile phones

Shadow Home Secretary and MP for Epsom and Ewell Chris Grayling proposes giving police the power to confiscate and keep for one month mobile phones belonging to vandals and others who behave in an anti-social manner. The move is just one part of a whole selection of new powers the Conservatives want to give the police, following the realisation that ASBOs have little positive effect in society.

Take yobs' mobile phones? Most people are more worried about their knives.
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This will, he says, "go to the heart of what matters to a Nokia generation of young people" and serve to disrupt gang activity and make a point to those committing offences of this type.

Have you ever heard such a load of rubbish in your entire life? Yobs who have just had their phone taken away are going to do one thing - go straight out and get a new one. It costs £20 for a brand new Nokia 2610 in Argos - you'd only have to do one mugging to afford one of them and you'd still have change for a portion of chips on the way home, just to make sure you've got something to tell your grandchildren about in the future. Then you just meet up with one of your crew members, spend five minutes copying the numbers for all yo' bredren (you're not getting Bluetooth for twenty quid) and you is proper back in business bruv.

"In areas where there is a genuine gang culture, such a step could also give police an additional tool to disrupt gang activity," says Mr. Grayling, who also suggests that juvenile offenders have their bicycles taken away. So, if you live in London or anywhere else that suffers from a high level of petty crime, expect to get your bike nicked twice a day instead of twice a week as soon as the Tories are in power.