Kick crime into touch

[Array]

Kick crime into touch <Subject line added by moderator (Copyright)--->

What does that mean? It appears on a billboard in some episodes of Marcella, a British Netflix series.

 

[bennymix]

I see the phrase in a British newspaper:
Football youngsters kick crime into touch

Football youngsters kick crime into touch

Apparently the measures are to reduce youth crime.
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From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English kick something into touch[entry]

British English informal to stop a plan or project before it is completed A hitch resulted in the deal being kicked firmly into touch. → kick

Examples from the Corpus
kick something into touch• He would always kick it back into play whereas Lukic, more often than not, would kick it into touch.• When a penalty is kicked directly into touch the same team will have the throw-in.

 

[dojibear]

One of the BE definitions of the noun "touch" is "the area outside the touchlines, beyond which the ball is out of play".

So if you are playing soccer, and a player kicks the ball completely off the field (stopping the game),
- a BE speaker says "he kicked the ball into touch"
- an AE speaker says "he kicked the ball out of bounds"

The billboard is using a metaphor: you are a soccer player, and should "kick crime out of the game".

 

[Barque]

So if you are playing soccer,

I believe it's more a rugby term, though it could be used in soccer too.