General Chat

Violent street crime especially knife crime amongst youths is on the increase, this week alone a teenage was glassed in a bakers and and security guard was stabbed to death after throwing some youths out a shop he was guarding.
Bearing in mind that corporal and capital punishment will never return to this country beacuse the politicians and European law won't ever let them...So what can we do?
Is it parenting?
Is it peer preasure?
Is it lack of suitable custodial sentancing?
Should be ban all sale of knives to the under 25's
Should police have full stop and search powers and use of portable metal detectors.
Police suggest searching school pupils entering and leaving schools to ensure knives are'nt be being carried.
Is that the right way to go?
why is so many of our youngsters go off the rails?
Should the civil liberties of the innocent outway those of thhe people who carry weapons?
Debate and ideas welcome...but please no arguments or personal slanging matches

I agree with you Heather, our town is crawling with CCTV but we still have numerous assults where the culprits are never caught

OK, well...

Bans dont work. As in guns, drugs, explosives, whatever...and there are enough laws already in place to cover the carrying of knives in public, so no new ones are going to make the slightest bit of difference.

More stop and search powers aren't going to make any difference either, apart from making sections of the community feel even more isolated than they already are.

Its a culture thing...like the Glasgow razor gangs of the 60's. They were effectively dealt with using methods that wouldn't be allowed now.

So you can do all those things...metal detectors, bans, stop and search, etc - it won't make a blind bit of difference.

Society needs to change, and parenting is the only way to do it.

But you try telling a parent what he or she should be doing..........and see the reaction you get.

Only other answer is for the communities to start and tackle it themselves - by not turning a blind eye, by not accepting community wardens, by having elected police chiefs with local accountability and by getting rid of the pink and fluffy bleeding heart excuses for human beings.

Just my opinion of course, lol

I would advocate that kids cannot leave school until 21. If they do not wish to do a degree then off to national service with them until they're 21.

I would implant all young girls with the contraceptive 5 year implant.

I would advocate parenting lessons for all. It would obviously benefit some more than others but there are no perfect parents out there so I'm sure everyone would learn something.

xx

Hi Colin

My son was mugged three times:

1. By steamers on train - has photographic memory, court case won.

2. Outside granddad's house - identified person, now on 'wanted' list.

3. Now nearly 6', deep voice told person to ... off, they ran! Police praise him.

I've always told him to just hand over anything, a life is worth more than a mobile phone, ...


I know the threads about teenagers being off the rails but my OH was assaualted by a man approx 40 in well known burger bar - foul language in his face, prodded and poked, man walked away then came back gave him shove, pushed him over.

No CCTV cameras working, no-one defended him. More to this but it's not just teenagers.

Sorry, quite calm, just had bad news about my bro who has catastrophic head injury.

i think parenting plays a huge part in it colin.a lot of parents don't seem to care less where their children are, or what they are doing.

they seem to lack any sort of respect for anything or anyone and alot of that comes from their home life.i was brought up with manners and respect for other people.

the ones that say well they are from rough areas and there isn't anything for them to do...to me thats a load of bull. i came from one of those so called tough, rough places and grew up on a council estate and i never got in trouble with the police or beat people up etc etc.. the parents need to start looking at themselves instead of trying to place the blame onto everyone else.

Good points Eldrick and as you say we cant use the methods that worked previously, so what can we do we cant continue to allow young people ruining their own and other peoples lives and Heather national service is an idea but should the professional military services we have be lumbered with putting our kids on the straight and narrow.
Fuzzy Bear I too grew up in a rough inner city area but we had discipline installed into us by parents and school and crime was rare. As Eldrick pointed out bans and laws havent worked so short of national curfews on young people what the heck can we do?

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What we shouldn't do is visit the sins of the few on the many.

National service is not an option - why should my son lose the chance of an apprenticeship just because some little thug from wherever is a little thug? Same argument against keeping them in school - plus who's going ot pay for it...? Few taxpayers with a bigger burden...?

Culture has to change. New laws and draconian measures dont work, or they only work for a very short time.

I agree with most of Eldrick's post. We need more police - where I live we have a CSO who comes over a few hours in the week on a bike and never at night time. The police haven't the manpower to come out here when a crime has been committed for a day or two.

And parents need to accept more responsibility for their childrens actions. A teenage killer doesn't turn from an angelic choirboy into a murderer over night.

well for starters, just carrying a knife should carry a mandatory sentence of three months in a young offenders institute, or prison if older. If caught again carrying a knife, one year in jail with no time off for good behaviour

Agree National Service is not an option, I was a member of the armed services and I was a professional...why should I share my right to wear unform, for which I worked and grafted ruddy hard, with low life. So how do we change our culture, it cant be easy, can it? if so why the heck havent the politicians done it?

Ann its just been on the radio (which actually promted the thread) to say that sentancing guidelines are expected to be relaxed for people found in public with knives...this cant be sending out the right message?

Heres my theory on that one then, lol

Politicians dont have the will to change it because of one word...consumerism. Big business pays for politics...consumerism pays for big business. A politician would be doing himself out of a job by tackling it, heaven forbid.

So, all their waking hours, the little munchkins are force fed a diet of consumerism. Drink pepsi and you can fly, buy a macrabbit flame burnt ratburger, dress like Bekham, watch total dross on TV (eastender, corry, big brother, etc)

What escape is there for the kids that can't aspire to this life?

Hang around street corners and join gangs, bow to peer pressure and become the anti-consumer.

With no prospects and nothing to see beyond tomorrow..........what have they got to lose?

I'm not sure that deterrant prison sentences work. How can the threat of something work to stop things like the killing of Jimmy Mizen where the murderer must have so hated filled and hopeless to have killed in such a random act?

This is getting very interesting and relevant. If we are to believe what Eldrick says (and I stress I am not disagreeing with it at all) How come the vast majority of kids are ok (lets face it there are thousands serving in the police, fire, ambulance services as well as our three armed services). You get two kids from the same background and one turns out good the other bad....is is parenting or perhaps just in human nature

Society has created or developed a new underclass in recent years - the whole mentality has to change. Kids need not to feel marginalised but relevant. It's when they feel excluded that they get the sense of fraternity and importance within a gang mentality.

No, I think it's just the route that any particular kid is tempted down, whether it stems from poor parenting, peer pressure, poor achievement, poor self value, sibling competition, whatever.

Some kids are more susceptible to things than others...I dont think there is a catch all reason. For me, anyone who can escape the luridity of the false world propagated by TV, the media and playstations stands a decent chance.

Those who succumb or are allowed to succumb stand to lose big style.

Some ideas seem potty though...one local one was to put local thugs into a 'boxing school' run by a retired professional boxer to teach fitness and discipline...it turned out fitter kids who knew how to fight properly!

no matter how good the parent is life out side the family enclosure for the young teen can be hard with the amount of gangs about it doesn`t seem much different to when i was young (long time ago)