Wearing a Hoodie Doesn’t Make a Youth a Criminal
The hoodie is an enormously practical garment. A sweathshirt with an attached hood to cover the head, often, but not always, with a zipper. They’ve been around since the 1980s, generally worn by the younger generation.
In the United States they are associated with hip-hop culture. In Australia they are more associated with surfers. But in the United Kingdom the term Hoodies is used to describe a problem group of young people, generally working class boys, who are often considered threatening for wearing them.
Many UK shopping centers have taken the decision to ban the wearing of hoodies. This is because of the way that hoodies have been associated with crime and the wearers trying to hide their identities. But a garment doesn’t make someone a criminal.
The media really loves this type of labeling. There is hardly a day when we don’t hear reports in the media of hoodie wearing youths allegedly involved in some sort of criminal activity. The police routinely deal with calls from the public reporting nothing more than a group of hoodie wearing young people gathering at a bus stop.
Statistics have shown that more than 50% of stories about teenage boys in the UK national press and regional newspapers involve crime. These reports use various terms to describe the young boys involved, often as ‘yobs’ or ‘thugs’ and commonly these days as ‘hoodies’. The only reports in which teenage boys receive sympathetic coverage is if they have died.
This media stereotyping, partially based upon an item of clothing, is having a damaging effect on boys growing up in the UK. They are now fearful of one another and many think that adults were frightened of them.
Is this a new phenomenon? Of course not. In the fifties there were teddy boys. The 1960s brought the mods and rockers. In the seventies skin-heads. Each had their own signature form of dress.
So is there a simple answer to stop this growing trend to demonise our young people because of a garment of clothing? Less surveillance would help but that would not go down well in many areas of Britain. The UK is fast becoming a surveillance state with more cameras per head of population than any other European country.
But hoodies themselves (the garments that is) are not evil. In fact they are practical and stylish. Vans hoodies,for example, are ideal for anybody. Perhaps that is another way to address the problem. Encourage more older people to start wearing them, perhaps with some Rip Curl Tshirts and Vans Shoes trainers. Cool.
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