THE VOTE: Should we name and shame kids with asbos online?

GORDON Brown is planning to name and shame, on the internet, people who have anti-social behaviour orders against them. Is he bang out of order, or is it about time we took a harder line?

As part of a renewed focus on law and order, the Prime Minister has announced that unruly youths (for all this appears to refer to teenagers) will have their misdeeds publicised via leafleting and online.

Previous Government initiatives to publicly hold up those guilty of anti-social behaviour have been attacked by defendants' lawyers and civil liberties campaigners.

But Mr Brown is no liberal softie, oh no, and he used his latest Downing Street podcast, timed the day after Mischief Night, to insist that local communities had a "right to know".

"I'm proud of our record, but I will never be satisfied while a single British pensioner hesitates about going out, or a couple think twice before heading into the town centre for a meal," he insisted.

"So this week I will set out plans to publicise the names and details of those people subject to anti-social behaviour orders and other orders, using photographs, public leaflets and online.

"The consequences for committing anti-social behaviour should be clear."

Mr Brown said he was renewing the Government's focus on crime in the weeks ahead as he promised to "make life better for the mainstream majority".

But by mainstream majority, does he mean NIMBY, Cameron-cheering Middle England whose votes the Labour Party desperately craves to cling on to power. And do asbos exist to get people used to the arbitary exercise of power without due process.

And why target teenagers, or “yobs” to use the downmarket media's beloved vernacular? After all, sex offenders still enjoy anonymity, and we are still a world away from other classes of rogues' galleries being put up online and sanctioned by the Government.

With cached internet pages, once any info about a person is posted online, it never disappears completely. There is no date a conviction is spent in the e-world and you are never allowed to forget.

Is it fair to brand, in this way, a young tearaway, who may have, a year or so down the line, atoned for their misdeeds - or even joined the Young Conservatives? In theory, such public castigation could affect their employability and other relationships for the rest of their lives.

Or shouldn't these feral monsters have thought of all that when they were giving people in their neighbourhoods the heebiejeebies in their hoodies, smashing up bus stops, driving quad bikes around, drinking cider in the park and thoughtlessly playing music late.

Will they see it as a hall of fame, rather than a hall of shame?

And what about the 13-year-old served an order banning him from using the word "grass" anywhere in England or Wales for six years? A Clackmannanshire man who was banned from shouting at his television. An 18-year-old from Swindon who was banned from playing football in the street. The Somerset man who was banned from having a rooster and the Dolly Parton fan from Leeds who was banned from playing music in her home.

Perhaps you think the people in charge, parents, authorities, teachers, politicians should be named and shamed for failing to set the young people of this fair isle any boundaries?

Or is it, in fact, simply the Daily Mail's fault? Is the whole notion of asbos just another bit of spin without substance and is Gordon Brown clutching at straws (Straw's what? ed).

Go on! Vote on the Homepage.