Scare tactics deplored

RECENTLY while talking to a friend outside a shopping centre in Cork I heard an extremely high-pitched noise being emitted in pulses.

My friend explained that the noise was a ‘silent ringtone’ — a frequency that can be heard only by people under 25.

Apparently it is used to keep young people away.

If someone used a device that emitted noise that, say, only black people could hear, for the purpose of driving them away, there would be a public outcry. Yet we were regarded as a threat for no other reason than that we were young, and this seems to be seen as perfectly OK. In this instance, isn’t it rather hypocritical that while young people’s custom is welcome, the shopping centre nonetheless treats them as a threat to be kept at bay?

Jessica Lauren

12 St Barrahanes Ave

Castletownshend

Co Cork