Jules she/her@A_bee @IanMoore3000 I oversimplified a bit, it's not quite as direct as you lose everything for protesting. It's more the consequences of being arrested, and successive governments have made more and more forms of protest an arrestable offence. I'm assuming you're not in the UK for the following explanation, stop me if you are. If you're arrested and detained overnight you miss work the next day, and in an insecure job or zero hour contract that's the end of your job, & you can't pay your rent
@A_bee @IanMoore3000 this is how the media successfully span a lot of the pre-pandemic environmental protests and just a bunch of out of touch middle class trust fund kids and cost them a lot of public support. they weren't entirely wrong - it's easier to get arrested if you know you're not going to lose your income and housing as a result.
@A_bee @IanMoore3000 but beyond getting fired for missing work at short notice, in some areas being arrested affects your future job prospects. if you want to work with children or vulnerable adults eg learning disabled people you need a DBS check every few years which brings up your arrest record, and a lot of organisations look very unfavourably on that. A lot of the public sector (ie where a lot of left leaning potential protestors work) like education or healthcare requires DBS checks
@A_bee @IanMoore3000 9then some professional bodies eg the UK medical register go "above and beyond" and just suspend people for getting involved in protest https://www.bmj.com/content/385/bmj.q940)
@A_bee @IanMoore3000 then when it comes to adoption a lot of things disqualify you from being eligible to adopt children, (one of which is having a history of mental illness, which often comes as a horrible shock to queer couples looking to adopt in the UK). While in theory an arrest record for non-sexual offences isn't supposed to disqualify you, in practice it's looked upon very unfavourably
@A_bee @IanMoore3000 and if there are already any concerns about the welfare of your children, which are obviously justified in the case of abuse or neglect but can also be due to poor living conditions as a result of poverty, an arrest record raises the chances they'll be taken into the care system.
@A_bee @IanMoore3000 Also our government has been drifting steadily rightwards for the last decade so now everyone not born in Britain is basically here on sufferance and gets deported as soon as they put a foot out of line, which discourages people who aren't British citizens from protesting https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-66756841
@A_bee @IanMoore3000 (#MarcusDecker is still facing deportation btw https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-deportation-of-a-peaceful-climate-activist)
