A Waste of Everyone's Time Pt.2

The troops (of Swanvale Halt's disaffected youth) were out in force on Wednesday evening and I said Evening Prayer to the accompaniment of whoops and cheers and loud music from the churchyard. On the way out I did mention to them that this wasn't the right place for such celebrations because of the surrounding flats, but I didn't hold out much hope of my remonstrances having any effect. I didn't positively tell them to move on, because once defiance has been offered that's my arsenal exhausted, apart from excommunication which I fear holds few terrors.

I came past the church yesterday and cleared up the mass of detritus in the churchyard: fifteen or so teenagers can leave a lot of trash behind them. Among the remains was a somewhat rusty bicycle; I left that behind, and also delayed clearing up the broken glass until today, when I was formally at work and had my church keys with me. The bicycle had gone, and looking at the CCTV I was intrigued to see a man in a beanie hat come and wheel it away. What was the story there? Was it not in fact stolen as I assumed, but actually belonged to one of the children and then retrieved by their father?

We've been through this cycle (of behaviour, not the bicycle) many times before, and I don't want it to happen again. Groups of youngsters congregate, increase, drink and smoke weed, and it escalates into problems for local residents and the businesses. The answer is to make the churchyard a less comfortable place for them to gather, and the only way to do so while preserving its friendliness to other people is for the police to swing by every now and again. I filled in a report online and pointed this out, and the reply was swift and polite, though not that helpful: the police have a set routine of patrols to monitor anti-social behaviour, and these can't be altered until it's clear that there is a pattern of behaviour in a particular spot. From the point of view of thinly-spread police resources this makes sense, but such an inflexible approach does feel a bit like saying 'We can't act to forestall a problem until we can prove there's a problem'. 

Having said that, there was noone around yesterday evening, nor tonight. So perhaps the youngsters really have gone somewhere else!