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UK: Criminalising headwear

01 March 2005

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In May 2005 Kent's Bluewater shopping centre banned the wearing of hooded tops and baseball caps as part of a crackdown on anti-social behaviour. This blanket measure comes in response to some shoppers expressing discomfort at children being able to hide their face from the 400 CCTV cameras operating in the complex. The Children's Society has called for a boycott of the shopping centre, denouncing the ban as "blatant discrimination based on stereotypes and prejudices that only fuels fear". Further, they said there is the ludicrous situation of "a shopping centre banning people who wear the items of clothing they sell at the centre."

The use of headwear has already been banned and criminalised through the use of anti-social behaviour orders (Asbos). These are easily attainable civil orders which ban and individual from carrying out a certain act or being in a certain area. If breached an adult recipient could face a maximum penalty of five years in prison, and a child a detention training order lasting up to two years.

In an extraordinary statement, on 22 May, Lord Stevens, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, called for extra punishments for young criminals found to have worn hooded tops. Writing in The News of the World he claimed, "hoodies, if used to hide identity in a crime, are as much a criminal tool as a mask...both should lead to extra legal punishment."

BBC News 13/05/05; News of the World 22/5/05

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