What if a honest young/old adault wants to shop longer then picking up a milk carten? I hope your family is not assaulted like mine. It is extremely disturbing to hear a high pitch sound every where I go and at the house. I believe a neighbor (high tech guy) maybe assaulting my house. Forget about a few (1.3) unrulely teen. Everyone should check out a site called "Hornblasters.com" and watch an owner of a horn company assault our local community while he laughs and videos tapes the assaults. Ft. Lauderdale (Florida) police should arrest Hornblasters owner for his assaults that are well documented on the internet.

anti-social-behaviour.co.uk

“Mosquito” has been badged as a revolutionary new device that has been specifically designed to disperse groups of teenagers from loitering in areas that they are not wanted.
With an effective range of between fifteen and twenty meters, the field trials have shown that teenagers are acutely aware of the Mosquito and usually move away from the area within just a couple of minutes. I looked into this great idea for an instant cure for a “youth anti social issue”

It seems that there is a medical phenomenon known as presbycusis or age related hearing loss which, is the loss of hearing that gradually occurs in most individuals as they grow older. Hearing loss is a common disorder associated with ageing. About 30-35 percent of adults between the ages of 65 and 75 years have a hearing loss. It is estimated that 40-50 percent of people 75 and older have a hearing loss.
According to The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, this begins after the age of 20 but is usually significant only in persons over 65. It first affects the highest frequencies (18 to 20 kHz) notably in those who have turned 20 years of age.
It is possible to generate this high frequency sound that is audible only to teenagers.

The Mosquito is essentially a sounder unit that emits a very high (ultra-sonic). The longer someone is exposed to the sound, the more annoying it becomes. Teenagers are acutely aware of the Mosquito and usually move away from the area within just a couple of minutes.

Sainsburys are amongst Several big retail companies actively using the device and somerfield too are contemplating following. Indeed this week at the ACPO conference it is believed that ACPO themselves will endorse this as a great step in combating Anti social behaviour.

But the Anti social youth make up 1.3 % of the youth population so is this unit blanketing and tarring all youth with the same brush. What about the young mum on her way into the shops to get a pint of milk, The law abiding trainee mechanic and the two college students aren’t all these affected too. I think it is established that this measure is effective but does it breach Human rights. Does this justify the use of such a tool and will it not just move the problem small percentage of youth into the dark alley where they can cause more alarm to the public. Should these companies not be looking at community unification and working with police and local communities in trying to find alternative places and funding for youth projects. Its well known that these companies thrive well in the communities where their shops are situated.

I wont be advising anyone to purchase one of these and will be watching closely to see if a young person will be challenging the human rights issue.

Ian Whiteway

If sorting these scum out affects other people of the same age who are not a problem to the community I am in all honesty not that bothered.

Why? Well because I know that soon people will be arming themselves and taking to the streets to rid the area of these trouble makers and I would rather your child was annoyed by a noise than hit by a baseball bat.

These teenagers have gone to far and society is turning against them, anything that can help halt this before I find somebody else breaking into my car will help save a life.
Times have changed, if those changes haven’t reached you yet, brace yourselves.

“Surely the world is crying out for a handheld, multigenerational version of the Mosquito that can, with a few recalibrations, be used to disperse whatever undesirables exist within one’s immediate environment.”

- but does no-one else feel that this really is the thin end of the wedge, the slippery slope?

e.g.

“…the police and local authorities are becoming increasingly alive to the possibilities offered by the system, which could be fitted in any trouble spots and switched on when suspicious hooded elements begin to gather.”

I accept there’s no point in arguing with the science behind the device: if someone wanted to drive away wheelchair users one could put in lots of steps, or uneven paving to drive away the infirm - it’s just that there’s little demand for driving away these people. However, once the mindset of “we can design systems arbitrarily to prevent certain types of people doing things” becomes embedded in the authorities’ thinking, frankly, civil liberties have had it. (In part that’s what this very website is about.)

I’m becoming increasingly hardened against the idea behind the Mosquito. Deliberately causing discomfort to law-abiding people in a public place (i.e. on the pavement) is very different to just having classical music playing on a railway platform to “drive kids away” as has been previously tried.

Roll on a teenager suing the shopkeeper for hearing damage, I say.

A lot of small shops in Britain rely on younger people buying things, even if it’s only snacks on their way to or back from school or college. Adults are more likely to have cars, hence more likely to drive to a supermarket to shop. So if a small shop really wants to install a system such as this, they may well find that a lot of their important customers are driven away.

The best thing you & your friends could do would be to boycott any shop which installs such a system. Or go in wearing headphones or earmuffs to drown out the sound… or if you want a nice electronics project, build a noise-cancelling system that plays back the same frequency that the Mosquito broadcasts, but in antiphase so it cancels out exactly.

Thanks

Helene