It is unlikely that the streets which will be monitored are leafy, middle class suburbs. It is also unlikely that children being driven home from scout meetings, riding lessons, elocution lessons and the like will be picked up. It will be the streets of housing estates, where amenities are at a minimum and so-called loutish behaviour is the norm. These are the streets and children that Jack Straw is paying so much attention to. Children are at the forefront of many new attempts to control society.
Children provide a perfect excuse to intervene in the lives of many people.
Panic after panic has been created about children's activities. Virtually every childhood activity has been criminalised. It is as if growing up is now a criminal act. Of course, the real threat to children and what's really in their way are precisely the controls and curfews that Straw is proposing. Whatever his reasons, this will make sure everybody else grows up as uptight and fun-hating as Jack Straw.