Young offenders who would have been issued with Anti-Social Behaviour Orders will have to serve time performing street dance, the Home Office have announced.
‘Everyone knows that street dance prevents the young from getting involved in crime,’ said Home Secretary Theresa May, ‘which is why any young person found behaving badly will now be forced to join a hip-hop crew and learn to lay down some moves.’
Young offenders will be expected to stay in the system until they can demonstrate a fully choreographed routine to be judged by the local community. ‘Before they leave, I want to see these kids krumping, grinding and performing a backspring flic-flac,’ said Mrs May, ‘I like to see it as a short sharp body pop.’
The Home Secretary also announced that the police are to be issued with the power to impose ‘on-the-spot moonwalks’ whereby troublesome kids would have to spend the rest of the day gliding backwards.
‘This is an important addition to police powers,’ said Sir Hugh Orde, President of the Association of Chief Police Officers, ‘pilot studies clearly show that young people are much less likely to commit a crime while moonwalking. And even if they do, it makes it so much easier for the police to catch them.’
Meanwhile, repeat offenders may have their movements more severely limited by the imposition of a ‘robot dance’. ‘These kids need to learn some discipline,’ said the Home Secretary, ‘and if that means restricting them to only moving one small part of their body at a time then so be it.’
However, critics have been quick to point out that many young offenders have already started incorporating the dance moves into their mindless acts of vandalism. ‘I doesn't affect me,’ said one, ‘I can smash twenty windows while spinning on my head. If anything, it helps.’
The street dance initiative is seen as just the beginning, with plans to phase out Young Offender Institutes altogether and replace them with Her Majesty’s Prisons of Performing Arts.
‘I very much hope that the introduction of Stage Borstals will serve as a deterrent to these kids,’ said Mrs May, ‘they might not think anything about coming up before a judge, but none of them will want to perform ‘Over the Rainbow’ for Andrew Lloyd Webber.’
