March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Research in Portland says teens alienated when moved

PORTLAND — A British researcher says the police practice of moving teens away from public places alienates young people and could fuel the sort of resentment that leads to youth violence.

Loretta Lees, a British professor studying Portland’s youth, says city authorities may be marginalizing young people by trying to keep large groups of teens from congregating on downtown streets.

She also has an idea why.

“Basically, what [city officials] want is money and young kids don’t have money,” Lees says. “They want tourists and they want adults and they don’t want these people to be interrupted by kids.”

Lees has likened it to segregation based on age, and calls the recent construction of a skate park on Marginal Way an effort to consign them to the outskirts of town.

Portland Police Chief Michael Chitwood didn’t welcome the findings of Lees’ research.

“She should stay in England and do it there,” he said, adding that teens are only asked to move when they gather to block business entrances or create disturbances.

Sandra Thompson, 19, offered an example of the frustration that Lees said is caused by constant orders to move away from a public area.

“It annoys the hell out of me,” she said. “I’m a very nice person. Why don’t they leave us alone and see if we’re upright people?”

The annoyance created by displacing teens could be an example of the type of aggravation that led to recent school shootings carried out by students across the country, she said.

“A lot of people have been saying these high school killings are part and parcel of this,” said Lees.

Lees, whose research is funded by the Royal Geographical Society, is chairwoman of her geography department’s “cities research group” at Kings College at the University of London.

She has visited Portland a few times to interview youth downtown and plans to do so again in a few weeks. She hopes to finish her project in August and plans to give Portland and city officials a summary.

Chitwood said police are only responding to complaints from the business community that young people were intimidating patrons, fighting them and not letting them pass.

“We said that if you don’t have any business here, we’re not going to allow you to congregate, we’re not going to allow you to block the community,” he said.


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