Are we alienating teenagers?

Are we a nation of people who stereotype young people without even thinking of the sort of impact that may be having on them?

Here is a poster from the Northamptonshire Police that is on the door or our local Co-op.

While saying please take your hats and hoods off before entering, it is clearly stating that young white males with baseball caps are not welcome.

And the inference of this is that,if you are young and wearing a hoodie or a baseball cap, you are trouble. How can this be right? How can it help police/young people relations and what is the purpose, if not just to alienate and aggravate a whole section of society.

How can we be so short-sighted that we cannot see that impact this may have. As Pliny the Elder said, “what we do to our children, they will do to society.” So we alienate them, they feel alienated and because they feel alienated they hit out at the very society that shunned them and since they feel they do not belong, they should therefore not abide to the society’s norms and values. Thus they go off in gangs and make there own rules and norms. Do I need to say any more?

Oh and here is a picture of my two children, blatantly breaking the rules to prove a point.

What do you think, are posters like this necessary, or just plain victimisation?