My wife worked for many years in our village primary school and she thinks that she can also pin point how and when things changed. The teachers were told that instead of sitting the children down to learn and be disciplined, the staff were encouraged to be more friendly and more like the children. No shouting at them if they misbehaved, they were not to assert their authority but to reason with them. I had the head teacher come to my house one evening to apologise for giving the slipper to my son. She explained that he had repeatedly been told to sit properly on his chair and not kneel on it. The order was ignored, he fell through the back of it, and in the end they had to saw the back off the chair to get him out. He of course had not mentioned it when he arrived home because he knew that he would get no sympathy from us, and the teacher would be backed up. What a change though in the following years. Parents turning up at the school to complain that the little dears were not being looked after properly because they arrived home with grazed knees having fallen over at playtime. Children sent to the school clearly unwell, yet the parents could not be contacted as they put their jobs ahead of the kids. These sort of things were happening in a quiet countryside area, not an inner city area where I imagine the problems to be worse.
I think there have been a lot of generalizations on many posts about just who these rioters are. In all probability we are talking about a mixed bunch of people. Some of whom may have a gratuitous love of violence for its own sake, others are in search of excitement and adventure, others may be using the situation for plunder and theft - some may think that they are politically motivated and others are just drawn along with the crowd. what you can say however is that when a large group of people of this sort comes together then a different dynamic takes over, which is far more than the accumulation of the individual members - leading often to excesses of violent behaviour not possible for individuals. Those of us who are older may remember aspects of this mob dynamic - like for example at football matches in the early 70s. Do you remember some of the songs from those days from the Rookery. Things about kicking heads in, not having many going home or the infamous one about Harry Roberts being our friend - reputedly a killer of coppers ? Did any of us sing along then ? In those days of more stable families, caning in schools etc. it was not uncommon to see 1,000 or so Millwall fans trashing a town centre or two. What has changed however is that in those days it did not get the media reportage it does now. In todays World they are more armed, orchestrate everything on mobile phones - and get maximum publicity. To those of you blaming the sponging society I can only say that English Cities have had a yob culture for longer than the welfare state has existed. Would you like to go back to the levels of criminality of the Victorian City? Even in the 18th Century Henry Fielding (Writer of Tom Jones and Magistrate in London) lamented that for Englishmen below a certain standing, heavy alcohol abuse and physical violence went hand in hand. However, I digress. I was amazed to see that stories about the violence in London have appeared in successive editions of nearly all German newspapers with headlines like 'England fest in Handen von Chaoten', England firmly in the hands of hooligans. The reverse never occurs. Last year water cannons had to be used to control Hamburg SV. fans at St. Pauli. Coaches full of Moenchengladbach fans were bombarded with stones, bottles and iron bars outside of the Rhein Energie Stadium in Cologne, and the torching of areas like Schanzenviertel (Hamburg) and Kreuzburg (Berlin) after 1st of May demonstrations is almost routine. Yet in Britain nothing is reported about these and the German papers also give these occurences a relatively low profile. As a result such things remain relatively localized here without the chain effect so common in England. Unfortunately we now have the situation where the whole Nation is talking about them, which is exactly what they want, and exactly what the so called football fans of the 70s could only have dreamt of.
Exactly - even though it's a fairly well established truism that the ability to reason is not generally present in children until 10/11 years old. Now we even have a situation where we actually have to discuss with them what they want to learn, not what we believe they should be taught; we're not allowed to use red pen when marking in case it offends them; we're not allowed to reprimand them for not doing homework because they may have 'issues' at home - we can't even ask them to correct their homework where needed! We have to accept their version of events regarding playground trouble even when we know they are lying, because accusing them of lying may traumatise them and bring on a law suit. And don't start me on the need to teach 8 year-olds proper toilet habits and how to clean their teeth The list is endless..... The lunatics have definitely taken over the asylum
Everything you say Cologne, OFH , Bolton and others are probably mainly true - but how do we get back to a more "normal" world. Or as some suggest was it never that normal. Do we in Britain tend to overplay our troubles - we certainly dislike the continental approach of making laws they ignore whole good old Brits if we pass a law feel it should be obeyed. Even in Ireland a week or two ago the attitude was yes we know what the law says on this or that (eg dogs on the beach) but we wont pay any attention to it. Our press certainly doe snot help by shouting it all from the roof tops.
Cologne, you make some good points with a well constructed post. I would have hoped that society would have moved on a bit since the 18th century or even the 1970s, but seemingly not. Can we blame modern technology for some of the trouble? Apart from the way it is used there is also the peer pressure to have the latest bit of kit. With 24 hour news programs on TV in most countries there is pressure for the stations to fill their time and they will grab anything that they can see as a story. Interestingly enough French news was full of economic news this week, with UK troubles taking second place.
A good post, Cologne. Our media once provided an approximation to the truth. Now they provide only things they think will grab attention, rarely substantiated by thorough research. We have problems without a doubt, but the scale of them is not vastly different from other times or other places. As for the idea that all parents and all teachers have abandoned any notion of disciplining children, it simply isn't true. Some have, but then some always did.
I know this is going to go down badly but although I agree that the riots are absolutely terrible and are a disgrace with the government raising the age to go to uni, then cutting the youth section of society by 95% meaning all the youth centres shut, then cutting the police force and public sector jobs making larger unemployment, while cutting benefits, I can see how people thought they were getting trapped and isolated by this government. Just to make it clear though I still think was a disgrace
Golden boy - it does not go down badly at all - your points probably all help point to contributors to the riots. As you say they are still a disgrace but these are still valid factors which we can ignore or deny but not make go away. Until we as a society learn what is needed in the modern world to bring up children in the absence of a "universal" stay at home parent there will be a percentage - albeit maybe small who are being failed. As you say no excuse and many were just wanton vandals but all views well thought out are good
How does that explain the teaching assistant that has been convicted of theft, or the daughter of a millionaire, or the 11 year old? - what are the excuses for them? We cannot go on trying to find excuses to match the situation of a particular criminal and then use that as justification...they are criminals full stop, so please stop making excuses. What is important now is how they are now handled - there is no point sending the teaching assistant to jail or kicking him out of his house as it will just drive him into more crime. We need a comprehensive community programme that fits many of the situations - so the teaching assistant should be made to work in the community at week-ends and school holidays for a number of years and if he fails to turn up he gets daily fine...for the non-working chavs, then it should be full time community work (with their mobile phones taken away) linked to their benefits, throw in some compulsary basic education and a tag at night to keep them indoors - if they do not turn up, then no benefits.
W_Y - your examples are probably those that sit neatly in the straighforward "criminal" category - which in these riots probably DOES cover 90+% and your suggested punishments seem very sensible. However surely nobody is denying that "parenting and education" of kids has fallen away over the last generation and needs attention to see what we can do to prevent an increase in the numbers of youngsters who have no feeling of belonging in our society
Some years back a youngster in our village was caught smashing the glass in the notice board. The Parish Council repaired it and after some discussion decided that the £35 bill should be given to the parents and leave them to sort out their son. The parents suggested that they would not pay as it was the fault of the Parish Council for using glass that could be broken. Only after the village bobby went and talked to them about taking the lad to a juvenile court where he would be ordered to pay for the damage and have a record for a number of years did they change their attitude. Just an individual case, but it shows me that there is no one solution that fits all cases. I do believe however that where a person causes damage they should be made to pay for it. If it is a child without money then that should fall on the parents. If it is an out of work adult then community schemes should be an option with minimum wage earnings that are then used to pay off the outstanding sum.
I think the punishment for the majority of these people needs to be community based. There really is no point sending them to prison - or in a lot of cases, a youth offenders institute - as the re-offending rate is pretty shocking, and they may just well become 'careeer criminals'. The worst offenders, yes, punish harshly to the full extent available. For the most though, I would make them clean up and rebuild the area (which means they will also learn a trade). I would make them run the community centres that they are complaining have closed. Make them work 10 hour shifts, while having no telephone on them. I would also have them tagged and have a curfew - home by 6/7pm.
I know it sounds a bit vindictive but I would also have them wear bright orange jackets with "offender" on the back to help shame them
Thats what I'd suggested before, either on here or in the Nest! I thought a High-Vis jacket, but suggested "Rioter" on it... but since, have thought it might be a bit counter-productive and may cause a bit of trouble! You could say they deserve it, but I think it should be rehabilitation as well as punishment, and if they get too much abuse, it could cause them to react!
I think there may be some kudos in a labelled jacket for minds as warped as these. Mankinis are the only answer - not pretty, but I'm sure they wouldn't offend again.
