[northfifeduckling]

My fear is that the West and probably many other parts of the world, too, has lost a big part of a generation which decided that society has nothing to offer. Mainstream society has not much to offer to them than goods they can not afford unless you go criminal, no jobs, no sense of purpose. So there is the culture inside the culture - for them it is alright to be violent and criminal, to do and sell drugs. For a lot of them this is all they know. Normally our worlds don't mix much. We can't save them - if we are lucky we can make an impact with our own children and others we know - but I fear that those kids are truly lost. Normally noone cares - only if things get out of control.

[tizaala]

If only people had to pass exams in parenting before they were allowed to have kids, a sterilising pill before pubity that was only reversible after passing with honours.

And what would the curriculum be? And how would you pass? Who decides who gets the pill?

The Daily Mail?

 

The curriculum : the ability to Love ,care for and cherrish a child (government issue)
All kids to be given this pill untill the test child is a ''responsible'' teenager.

What makes you think I read the Mail?....not far enough right for me...

[pikilily]

''Youths are angry - everybody is angry - we are all losing faith in the system that keeps us safe from each other (anarchy)''

Isnt this perhaps WHY this is happening. No faith = no sense of being= no sense of responsibility.

What right have they got to be angry, the world does not owe them a living, the teenage boys that got slaughtered in the trenches in  ww1 had a right to be angry. The teenage Jews that were gassed in ww2 had a right to be angry. Our boys getting their legs blown off in Afghanistan have a right to be angry.

and all your examples had a beleif in something to fight for, a sense of community, belonging, faith and Faith. They had/have lives and communities worth fighting for..... perhaps these kids in our seiged cities have no life worth fighting for, nothing for them to hold on to, no community to have faith in!!

These worthless pieces of crap have forfeited any rights they might have had , stop making excuses for them , they made the choice between right and wrong.

I am sorry, but NO-ONE is 'worthless peice of crap'. Do you know all of them them? their circumstances? backgrounds? their life-story? When you do, come back and say that again with a voice of real knowledge and authority!!!!! and by the way, where are they all to pick up this magical understanding of right and wrong! As someone else said our whole society is corrupt, theiving, fraudulant, gossipping, grabbing...these are the fine examples for these kids to learn from, NOT!!

Picture this; a TV programme a few weeks ago about children in poverty, in this country; a 11 yr old boy who gets bullied at school because he has to wear his older sister's hand-me-down blouse to school (off white with breast darts) and a pair of trousers that dont reach down to his socks. His special birthday treat was to get his hair cut. They had NO xmas, because the father was struggling to pay the heating bills. This father was trying his best, he couldnt work, the mum had died! Now, is that right or wrong. Its our society that has allowed this...and IF that father was to steal clothes from a shop for his sons..or food for them to eat. Or does he let his kids suffer.. How clear is the right and wrong, now! .......that little boy was an absolute star, he was articulate, he still had dreams, he wanted to be someone, to make the world a better place.

Our society's theft of his dreams is the Crime, and yeh, we will probably all pay for it!

Ps.  forgot to say the people who have to pay for this mess to be cleared up  have a right to be angry.
 and the people who have to pay to keep the bastards in jail have a right to be angry.  OH dear, thats all of us!

Oh lordy, i sound very liberal and huggy huggy. I just want to add that my Kids were brought up with a lot of tough love, and a huge dollop of grounding in understanding the, sometimes harsh, consequences of their actions. My son is an Environmental Advisor, and my daughter is well on her way to being a Psychologist. But most of all I am so very proud of their compassion, thoughfulness, dignity and respect for others. I beleive that these are the qualities, and life skills that the aforementioned marauders have never experienced!
Emma T

[jaykay]

What do we all need, after food and shelter?

To be loved? To have some sort of status? To have some control over our lives? To feel safe?

Now try to imagine you didn't matter to anyone, your parents were struggling too much themselves to take much notice of you, you're considered worthless and laughed at if you don't wear the right gear, there are bullies all round and the only way to stay safe is to keep in with them and do as they tell you.... Not an easy world to learn to do the right thing in. The ones who are poor but honest are the ones who have an intact family I suspect.

I'm not condoning the violence at all.  However, I do think it's easy for those of us 40+ to say 'well we never had designer trainers and Blackberries'. No, I didn't either but neither did everyone around me and so I could take my place in my little bit of society still. And i knew that if I worked hard I could go to University (grants still in those days) and/or would get a decent job. And i had parents who, though poor, cared and taught me properly (including being walloped when required).

There need to be good jobs for everyone and strong sanctions and support for the Police, for wrongdoing.

[deepinthewoods]

i have seen, with my own eyes, a 12 yr old boy cookin up a crack pipe for his uncle mother and father,(cos he was the best at it) ive seen a yardie in bristol rockin up a kilo of coke and his kids goin out and sellin it, its all they know and its all theyll ever know. the places where i saw this s**t were not nice. dirty blankets for beds, hookers in and out for £10 rocks, junkies with blood all over em, ulcerated and amputated legs. guns £50, ammo, a bit more expensive. no jobs no adequate housing no future nothing. this is not hard to find in this country, in every city, most towns and some villages, you can find them.
this is the legacy of previous governments. and the kids, their parents and probably the parents parents have nothing, so nothing to lose.
i heard hazel bleary on the radio earlier, saying, these kids need to realise they will get a criminal record and that will seriously affect there chances of employment. how out of touch can an mp be, these kids probably have records already, theres no jobs, there is no chance of employment. one 'rioter' was interviewed saying 'im gonna keep looting till i get caught', why, why the hell not. 

you may have gathered,i had a somewhat misspent youth.

[robert waddell]

how come it is the fault of previous goverments       what job could they do that is going to pay more than they can make with drugs

[deepinthewoods]

well it must be the fault of previous governments, cos this one hasnt been in long enough to have affected 3 generations.

what job could they do. none.
i have met very very few rich drug dealers, its a myth, the street dealers are paying for their own habits. the people making the money are a long long way up the chain. i think ive said this b4 but the british army is only in afghanistan for one reason, to insure the heroin crop.

[robert waddell]

so what did the fourth generation do          have you been on the drugs     the British army are not there to secure the herion but the opposite if your statement were true the nhs would be getting there opiate's for free

[waterhouse]

The reason why the blackberry became the device of choice for big corporates was that they could control the messaging servers (which did not need to be in the country where the devices were) and messaging was encrypted.  Indeed the Financial Services Agency, despite being an incompetent bunch of nincompoops, eventually realised that taping dealer phone calls was not the whole solution when the dealers had mobile phones.  Thus such people may now only have phones, such as the blackberry, where their employers can monitor their phone calls.

China, the Gulf states and some others then realised that phones were operating in their countries which could not be tapped.  About a year ago several such countries announced that the BB would be banned unless RIM handed over encryption keys.  RIM (the manufacturer) declined in public but the BB still works so who knows?

[deepinthewoods]

robert, a packet of cocodamol, costs a quid, in the chemist, britain isnt the biggest market for heroin russia is. do sum research if u dont believe me
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/russia/110725/russia-afghanistan-heroin-addiction

have i been on the drugs. no not for some years now.

u can get a blackberry on a contract at £12/month, my daughter wanted one. not now!!!

[pikilily]

So, are we agreed, that life can be tough, that the governments can be out of touch with the common man and woman?  If each of us on this forum were to take two kids and say ''Here, look.... look what you can do. Look at who you could be, how life can be! Look at what you can do for your world.'' Show them what we have, materially, socially, and personally... and  and how we have acheived our dreams and goals, that would be over 9,000 kids who may be inspired to think differently!!

Emma T the Idealist

[deepinthewoods]

absolutely agreed, i have done exactly that. most particularly for the kid i mentioned earlier.
now that just leaves 250000 to go.

[pikilily]

  Go DITW 
ET x

[jaykay]

Well I'm trying to do it for the 170 in my care (Headteacher of a tiny rural secondary school) but truthfully they're not the immensely troubled ones, unlike the kids in my previous inner-city school, though mine need help like all kids. Very hard, wherever, to overcome family/peer influence.

[knightquest]

These people are NOT rioting. What is going on is targetted, planned theft. A throw of stones or petrol bombs at the police is an added bonus for the misunderstood??!!?? youths that are doing these things.

Today in Birmingham, two of the people arrested were university graduates and another works in a primary school!

The reason that the young lad mentioned earlier was a star was because he knew that his father had nothing and accepted that he would have to go without. These people who are commiting these crimes don't know what going without means.

The act of bringing back national service isn't to bully or shout at people, it is to give them self respect and the ability to achieve positive goals and to work for what you want instead of having it instantly as is the case now.

There are plenty of good young people out there and I sincerely belive that single parents can do a good job of raising kids. However it is easier with two parents assuming that both are pulling in the right direction.

Ian