Law In Action - 21st Century Style

According to the BBC two girls were given Fixed Penalty tickets for chalking on the pavement. There's two Offences Brought To Justice for the Home Office stats, and two Sanction Detections for the police to claim.
But what's this? The Mayor, no less, has intervened, and the police have graciously agreed to drop the tickets. How nice of them.
That's the face of Law and Order in 2007:- a ridiculously heavy-handed intervention by the police, driven by the target culture, and an extra-judicial resolution once the papers got interested.
If your kids are into hopscotch, you'd better tell them to pack it in and take up video games if they want to avoid an ASBO.