It's time to legislate acceptable behavior

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the videotape of the riot in the wee hours of last Sunday in East Liverpool is a soliloquy on hooliganism.
The tape shows a crowd of youngish men swarming outside the University Nite Club in the 400 block of Broadway Street, trading punches, being knocked to the ground and mouthing off to police.
According to Capt. Norm Curtis, officers from East Liverpool and several surrounding communities were called about 1:20 a.m. Sunday when 300 people spilled out of the club. It isn't clear what triggered the melee, but there is speculation that it may have been Round 2 of the near-riot at the Eastwood Expo Center in Niles.
That episode erupted shortly before 1 a.m. April 9 when patrons at a rap concert's after-party began fighting inside the Center Stage Bar and Grille. The bar is adjacent to the expo center.
The thugs continued fighting in the parking lot after the lounge was evacuated.
Several shots were fired into the crowd gathered outside. A police officer was injured.
Youngstown connection
It's more than a stone's throw from Niles to East Liverpool, but what's noteworthy is that the two men who were arrested in Niles and the three in East Liverpool were all from Youngstown.
The city where crime is a cottage industry is now exporting its product to surrounding communities. It isn't an exaggeration to say that the communities adjacent to Youngstown find themselves being invaded by social misfits.
And as the weather grows warmer, episodes such as the ones in Niles and East Liverpool will become more commonplace. Unless something is done -- urgently.
But what?
The answer can be found in a New York Times story published in April. Written by reporter Sarah Lyall and bearing a "Birmingham, England," dateline, the story, which appeared in The Plain Dealer, was headlined, "Britons using array of laws to evict 'neighbors from hell.'"
The article focused on a series of measures enacted by the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair since 1999 to address "what is widely seen as an erosion of civilized norms in this once-polite country." One of the tools available to the courts is an "anti-social behavior order."
"In the last four years, some 1,600 Britons have been served such orders as part of an aggressive effort by the state to police behavior that would once have been the purview of families or neighborhoods -- everything from truancy and vandalism to drunken brawling on the street," Lyall wrote.
Her description of what is occurring in a nation that gave the world a raised pinkie when drinking tea from a bone china cup fits Youngstown like the white glove that's still used to check for dust in London's posh hotels.
Truancy? One of the highest rates in Ohio. Vandalism? You dare not leave your doors and windows open at night or when you're away, and you certainly can't leave your bicycle or even expensive plants on the front porch. Drunken brawling on the street? The arrests of Youngstown men in Niles and East Liverpool say it all.
Big Brother?
If the "anti-social behavior order" and other measures now in effect in Britain seem too much like Big Brother watching, so what?
A crackdown is the answer to Youngstown's crime epidemic. Mayor George M. McKelvey and members of city council are fooling themselves if they think that building the Taj Mahal of sports arenas will be the city's saving grace. It won't.
Why? Because with the all the publicity surrounding the riot in East Liverpool and the near-riot in Niles, the suburbanites who have the money to spend on entertainment now have seen Youngstown's ambassadors in action. If these individuals aren't afraid of breaking the law in communities they are visiting, imagine their behavior when they are on their home turf.
Here's a paragraph from the New York Times story regarding what is taking place in Britain today:
& quot;Reasons cited for the rise in anti-social behavior include the breakdown of traditional families, a decline in old habits of deference and respect and, in the view of many in government, the emergence of a social security-dependent [welfare] culture that promotes a feeling of entitlement but not of responsibility."
The sign of true political leadership is to speak honestly about the erosion of society in your community.
It's time for law-abiding citizens to take back the streets and their neighborhoods.