This is an observation not an opinion – the reaction of most folk on here (who i assume are reasonable human beings) is the fear of escalation and its this fear that allows the behaviour to develop. These elements of society are not stupid they understand how far they can push the public/police etc. The only answer is not to live in an area that has these issues but for most people thats not a reality.

I can see it now…

“Mr Globalti from number 7 asked me to have a word with you all…”

Quick! Smudge your house on Google street veiw before its too late!

we had an anti-loitering order on the square I used to live which meant groups of a certain size weren’t allowed to congregate.

is this in England? I know locations can be “indicted” in the US and that ASBOs could be placed on individual people but I’ve never heard of that before.

yep in London. It was in place before I moved there – I think as a result of some previous troubles. there’s a small park in the middle of the square. there was also a ‘troubling’ family maxing out the benefit system which would have got a Daily Mail journo frothing at the loins. they got evicted!
I imagine that direct action was related to some of the wealthy residents of the square.

Anti-social behaviour act 2003 Part 4 Dispersal of groups etc

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/38/part/4

This happened to me a few years ago. Escalated from a few kids sitting on the garden wall to a rope swing in the tree opposite to massive gang of 15-16 year olds getting drunk, abusive and causing damage to cars (£00’s to repair) etc. (that you could never pin on any one individual). The Mrs was at her wits end and I was working away. Next door’s lad was in the group too. One night he was firing some kind of BB gun out the window at all his mates whilst they were dodging around my car, and I lost it, went outside and threatened to kick the sh!t out of every last one of em, proper angry Anderson. Good as gold after that, never saw em for the last 4 years living there.

A colleague of mine had a problem with yoofs gathering outside the fence at the back of his garden in their hot hatches, revving, playing music and pulling stunts. Repeated calls to the Police did nothing so one day at the beach he filled a bag with nice round pebbles then the following Saturday night he settled down in his front garden with a beer and a powerful catapault and began launching pebbles right over the house. It didn’t take long to get the trajectory right and to hear the first loud clack of stone on metal. A couple more and there was a sudden commotion, shouting, engines revving, doors slamming and the entire group disappeared up the road, never to return.

Not in the same league as some of that but I live in a quiet culdesac with a nice green area in front. Trouble was that the green area had two trees which unfortunately were the perfect width apart for them to be used as goalposts. I had no issue with kids on the green, in fact I encouraged it. But when they started kicking balls at the ‘goal’ and it his my window so hard it woke my baby up and bounced back without them having to retrieve it I got annoyed.

Simple solution. After manning up and talking to a couple of the parents and they didn’t really make any difference. I walked out and cut the tree down. The stump is still there now 8yrs later. Cut it to length intentionally that you wouldn’t use it as a post as you would hurt yourself on it. No more balls bouncing off my window but kids still play on the green.

I know its vandalism or whatever, but I was going to end up vandalising some kid if it didn’t stop so I saw it as lesser of two evils.

This is an observation not an opinion – the reaction of most folk on here (who i assume are reasonable human beings) is the fear of escalation and its this fear that allows the behaviour to develop.
About 4 years ago after maintaining a set of jump trails for 15 years I asked some teenagers to stop kicking the lips of the jumps. I had a spade with me to repair the jumps and although I didn’t wave it about one of the lads phoned his old man and said I was threatening to hit them or some such bolx. About 5 minutes later a car drove up and 3 men got out reeking of alcohol and beat the sh1t out of me with a spade they had brought with them. So yeah – it does happen.
Jump trails were never ridden by anyone after that, they’re mounds of grass now.

Yep that can happen – as I said it was not an opinion and nor would I ever recommend anyone take a stand if it’s not in there nature. In respect to your incident I would have got the police involved and hopefully the law would deal with the issue.