A Standing Ovation for Rhys Jones

I must confess I get a bit depressed when I hear of a minutes silence for this or that. We have a silence for the millions who died in both world wars. That is appropriate. So much loss on such a massive scale.

I am impressed with the parents of Rhys Jones, Melanie and Steve, and indeed his primary school classmates. Rhys's parents asked not for a minutes silence for his death, but for applause for his for his life. Very moving and very right. Rhys's normal seat at Goodison park remained empty. (See the Sunday Times here)

Meanwhile his classmates have set up their own tribute site, here. It is also very moving.

It is good though to see a bit of British grit, the Dunkirk spirit showing through though.

This must be such a sad time for them all.

May Rhys Jones rest in peace whilst his killers are brought to justice.

Yet more youth crime

I was very saddened to hear that a 21 year old described as having learning difficulties, Brent Martin, was beaten so badly in Sunderland on Thursday that he died of his injuries today.

The police have arrested a number of people, a woman of 21 and three youths, two aged 17 and one 16.

There is no doubt that this is a horrible crime. Clearly for a small number of youths, something is going very very wrong.

As a society we need to do something, though passing more laws is probably not the answer.

The BBC has this on the attack and this on the death of Brent Martin.

Youth Crime, and the murder of Rhys Jones

You expect murders from time to time. You even expect children to be murdered (usually by family) from time to time. However we are going through the most awful spate of murders of children by children, with the 11 year old Rhys Jones being the latest victim. (See the BBC here)

It is truly sad to see so much young life thrown away, by children, who when (or perhaps if) caught will also spend years in prison.

As if to underline this shocking state of affairs, youths are also attacking and killing others too. Sophie Lancaster (21) and her boyfriend Robert Maltby were walking in a local park in Stubbylee park in Bacup, Rossendale when they were set on by a gang of youths between 15 and 17. Sophie died in hospital whilst Robert was seriously injured. (See BBC here).

Clearly something is going seriously wrong. Youth violence is on the rise, both on young people and on everyone else.

Killing childhood

According to a report by the Children's Society children are being smothered too much and not being allowed out to play and explore on their own. This results in child development problems and the inability to build deep friendships.

I remember as I child roaming far and wide and at all times of day in Beirut, where I grew up. I also did the same when we came back to the UK, at first in Croydon.

Parents it seems are worried about the safety of their children. In many ways I think this worry is misplaced. The likelihood of a child being abducted is no greater now than it was 30 or 40 years ago. Clearly there is real no danger there.

Where there may be of course is what may be regarded as general bullying, robbery and such like that seldom appears on either officially recorded crime, or the British Crime survey which excludes the young as victims.

Clearly we have two problems here, one is that fear is in one case beyond reality, whilst there is a huge crime wave in youth on youth crime which is is not being dealt with. We need to deal with this as it is killing childhood.

The BBC has this.

David Cameron is Dead Right!

David Cameron gave a speech today in which he discussed social responsibility and how the state is infantalising society by treating everyone like children. It has some interesting ideas. (The BBC has this)

At it's core is the idea that individuals should not ask what the country can do for them but what they can do for the country (now where have I heard that idea before) because the tendency to assume the state can fix all ills has caused ever increasing amounts of legislation and the state pocking its nose further and further into peoples live.

The effect of all this is that many people leave too many things up to the state which is then not able to provide.

What I found most interesting is that whilst Labour were casting scorn on the ideas as mere "fluff" the Sun has clearly taken on board Cameron's message. (Not that I take that much notice of the Sun), in its leader here.

The Sun says:

DAVID Cameron is dead right.

British society has become pathetically hooked on the State.

Police officers no longer collar villains to avoid form-filling. Teachers can’t discipline yob pupils for fear of reprisals. Kids run amok on our streets and public transport because no one will stop them.

And it’s always “the Government’s fault”.

Britain is Great because of its people. We have always been a stubborn bunch who get the job done. We have never been a nation of handwringers. Nor have we turned our back on those in need.

Every single one of us has a duty. A duty to say what’s right and what’s wrong.

JFK said “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

He was right then. And Cameron is right now.

Clearly the message resonates with people, who instinctively feel it is correct. Good. It is.

Drugs education funding to be cut?

It seems that according to this item on the BBC's website that funding for drug education in schools and amongst excluded pupils is to be cut.

Apparently government says drug use is down. Well it maybe but that is not the point. Class A drug use isn't and there are still far to many young people using drugs.

As people know to well the drug use itself is not half as big a problem to the community as the things associated with it like anti social behaviour, and leaving drug paraphernalia lying about in children's play areas. What is more continuing drug use causes crime, and log term problems for the individual. In that context this seems to be a false economy. We all know that part of the reason for people becoming involved in drugs is peer pressure. It seems to follow that if drug use is going down, we are doing something right and need to keep it going down.

We also know that our prisons are full to over bursting point with criminals with drug problems. Clearly if we are going to solve these problems more money needs to be invested in drug education and rehabilitation not less.

I suspect the real reason for the cuts is that this government is having trouble managing its budgets despite the vast increases in tax that we have had over the years.

Innovative Youth Crime measure. Apparently Prison Works!

Well, according to this article here on the local BBC news website, Arun District council sent some 11 to 15 year olds to Lewis prison which is an adult prison. They were for the most part involved in low level anti social behavior. They spent there time being shown around, being searched, seeing the exercise yard and hearing from inmates.

Apparently they did not like it, and the message has sunk in. What is more they are likely to circulate it to their friends. Reports so far are good.

I have been there myself as a delivery driver (when I was at University) and I can tell you it is a grim place. I certainly would not want to go there!

I'd like to say well done to the council for the scheme. I wonder what other innovative schemes there are out there to help children get back on the straight and narrow?

All those stabbings

You can't have missed news of the recent spate of stabbings particularly of Adam Regis, who's uncle is John Regis, not that having a famous uncle makes your murder any less acceptable than anyone elses.

We clearly have a problem with violent crime amongst our youth, and what is more, it seems on the increase.

I listened with interest to Sunday's BBC Radio 4's The World this Weekend, ( 4 minutes and 47 seconds in) which featured an interview with Shaun Bailey, a fellow of the Centre for Policy Studies. have to say it was fascinating stuff.

Shaun is an interesting chap. For a start he grew up on a crime ridden estate but avoided crime. You can learn more about him by reading this.

He was asked if family breakdown was important in youth violence. His answer? Massively. Children spend far too much time away from their families. There is a nationalisation and centralisation of child care. You can't administer a hug from Westminster. (even if it is only as far as North Kensington so what chance has the North East got?)

I have to say he was compelling. On the other hand the MP for the next door constituency, Lyn Brown seemed to blame the disparity between the rich and the poor, and in particular in London. I can't say I found her compelling at all, primarily because Shaun Bailey comes from one of the richest areas in the country where there has always been a massive disparity in wealth and youth crime is not getting any better.

Stop bashing Fathers!

Much has been made of the Conservative party's line on family breakdown, youth crime and social justice.

The way the media reports it, and some of the language used in this article on the Conservative party website (here), is unfortunate in that it seems to lay the blame for family breakup solely on fathers. This is not the case. Family breakdown can be caused by either partner. Furthermore fathers who have left, or possibly been forced out of the family home can be denied access to their children by mothers, sometimes in the face of court orders requiring that the mother allow access.

That said what we do need to be concerned about is the number of family breakdowns and preventing where possible, that happening. In the past we as a society and indeed the family courts have worked on the basis that children need their mother. In fact there is increasing evidence that children also need their father. The only way to achieve both is of course to keep the family together.

The Centre for Social Justice has just published an interesting report on family breakdown and it's links to social dysfunction, and rather more interestingly observations on schemes in other countries to tackle family breakdown. The report is here.

We do need to make it clear that marriage is the best environment in which to bring up children. We need to support marriage in all sorts of ways. It is clear from Iain Duncan Smith's report that there are in fact things which government can and should do both to encourage marriage and to keep marriages together happily.

The conclusion of the report is also interesting. It says:

Punitive measures to curb anti-social behaviour and youth crime will, like purely economic measures to combat poverty, fail to address the cultural drivers of the problems. Family circumstances in general and family breakdown in particular have tended to be neglected dimensions in policy initiatives which are preventative in their focus. We need policies which implicitly assume the worth of long term domestic stability and which therefore support and encourage healthy marriage as the relationship most likely to deliver that social good. We are not treating marriage like a magic bullet: the Social Justice Policy Group is tackling debt, educational failure, addiction and economic dependency, all of which lead to family breakdown, and establish the cycle of deprivation.

We believe that unless we try now to understand how important stable families are to reducing crime and particularly youth crime, we risk making young people the target. It is the child who grows up in a broken home with an absent father involved in crime who is most likely to commit crime themselves - and become a father himself at a very young age. Unchecked, the cycle looks set to continue and to multiply in its effects. Just threatening to lock young people up will not break the cycle. Of course criminals need to face penalties for their actions but we desperately need to deal with the reasons why they are committing crime in the first place. Otherwise we move from being "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" to being "tough on headlines, soft on the causes of the headline."

For further articles on family police see here.

Home Office in crisis again. Can it get any worse?

Well, we have had all sorts of bad news about the Home Office in recent days. For example they are now in a panic over prison places, or rather the lack of them, (see here) that has now led to a man convicted of downloading child pornography getting off with out a prison sentence (See the BBC's article here). It seems that sentences are being set by the number of prison places.

A man who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a teenager has been released on bail. The judge said that last week he would have sent him straight to jail.

We now have the Rod Morgan, head of the Youth Justice Board resigning because the system is being "swamped" by minor offenders who would not have ended up in prison in the first place before 1997.

Why are we in this situation? Well, in short Labour have been talking very tough on crime, and sentencing but have not provided the prison places to back up the rhetoric. Whether or not the policy is a good one is another matter. If you want to send more people to prison for longer you do need more places.

Government has had advance notice of this looming crisis for years. However there is also a real problem in our system is that there is no time and space to rehabilitate people, particularly young offenders. We can't afford to have 10 year olds locked up in prison and not rehabilitated moving on to a life of crime. This is just very wrong and wasteful of future tax payers money.

We also have worsening crime figures as well. You are apparently more likely to be a victim of crime this year than last, the first rise since 1995. (See the BBC's article here)

Can it get worse? I think it can, we will have to wait and see.

Hugging Hoodies! Part III, Tough love and the Mendacity of John Reid

On November the 2nd, David Cameron gave a speech to the Annual Convention of the Youth Justice Board in Cardiff. His speech is here.

John Reid wrote a comment piece in yesterdays Sunday Telegraph. It reminded me of why I wanted to throw metaphorical bricks at the TV during the 2005 general election. He just misrepresents everyone elses policies and statements. That garbage article is here.

In David Cameron's speech he talked of tough love rather than sentimental love and laid out some very startling facts. On the other hand Comrade Reid said things like:

"Tackling crime is a priority for any government. Of course we need to understand why crime occurs, and tackle the causes. But anyone who thinks that tackling crime, including youth crime, can be delivered by more love and hugs alone is wide of the mark."

Who was supposed to have said anything of the sort? has this man read any of Cameron's speeches on the subject? He is all in favour of banging people up when they have committed a crime. He has said so many times, including in the above speech.

Reid then concludes:

"The dividing line between David Cameron and me now seems clear. Tough love with Labour or "just love" with the Tories: an important dividing line for the coming year in parliament. With respect to David's Notting Hill Set, I think I know who is more in tune with the vast majority of the British people."

Hmm..

What did Cameron say about love?

"But I also said that to build a safe and civilised society for the long-term, we have to look at what goes on inside the boundaries, within the pale.

We have to show a lot more love.

By that I don't mean sentimental, childish love which sees no wrong in anyone.

I mean tough love - love that values people, and therefore demands high standards from them.

Love that respects people - and so expects a lot from them.

And that's the job of society."

So there is Reid again mendaciously misrepresenting David Cameron's position.

However, here are some stats lifted from David Cameron's speech which ought to make you think and indeed concern you.

Of the criminals in young offender institutions:

• 85 per cent of them have mental health issues.
• Half of them spent time in care or under social service supervision as a child.
• Over half of them are addicted to drugs or alcohol.
• 40 per cent of boys suffered violence at home.
• A third of girls suffered sexual abuse.

Well, if that is not shocking enough to make you think we need a multi pronged approach, there is this series of statistics on the implementation of the The Criminal Justice Act of 2000, after six years.

• 110 of its provisions are not in force.
• 39 have been, or are being, repealed altogether.
• 17 were repealed before they ever came into force.

laughable isn't it. So when Dr John "Comrade" Reid says he will be tough on crime, what he actually means is that Labour will pass more laws they will probably fail to enforce.

You can read other articles from this blog on hugging hoodies, or youth crime at this link.

Hugging Hoodies! Part II

Yesterday David Cameron leader of the Conservative party gave two speeches, one on social justice, and the other on the criminal justice system. (See links for transcripts of each.)

In the social justice speech David highlighted the need to look at the causes of the problems as well as the need to enforce the law. We do not have prisons of infinite size, so we might as well look at dealing with why people end up there as well as putting people in prison when we need to.

Iain Duncan Smith set up the Center for Social Justice because state agencies do not have all the answers and frequently can make matters worse. The reason for this is inflexibility. Too often a solution is thought to work, and that ends up being the only solution.

In reality there are many solutions which play their part in helping, for example the Army Cadet Force was set up after the Napoleonic wars to keep young boys off the streets and give them something to do. Others get involved in boxing or other sports.

Some are in need of far more specialised and intense care, such as those helped by Kids Company. The fact is there are an awful lot of different sorts of young people out there, in need of all sorts of help, education and interaction. The state does run quite a lot of these services directly, such as education and the Army Cadets. However it can't run and do everything, it is not light enough on its feet to adapt and change to new challenges. The Social entrepreneurs are.

But let us not get the wrong idea, this does not mean being soft on criminals, far from it. It does mean adapting the police force to local issues, making them more locally accountable rather than less.

Lastly, of course the vacuous Guardian reading and indeed in the case of Polly Toynbee, writing classes don't seem to be able to handle a Conservative party that does not live up to there silly stereotypes. As an example see Polly's drivel here.

There is a daft idea that the Conservative party is only interested in self interest and the rich. That is wrong. If that were true we would have been against the abolition of Slavery rather than pushing that through, against universal education, and indeed against all the other projects that have been aimed at helping people better themselves. We just don't believe in helping people to be poor. We believe in helping people when they need help, but above all helping people to help themselves.

Hugging Hoodies!

Today David Cameron, leader of the Conservative party is to give a speech on Social justice. In it he is roughly going to indicate that we need to understand young people more. I do not have the transcript of what he is going to say, but when I get it I will comment further. I will however make the following observations:

Young people have dressed differently since the 50's, and young yobs do no more than wear what young non yobs wear. It is called "street culture". Today it is hoodies, in the 70's it was safety pins.

We are building an irrational fear of young people which is becoming a self fulfilling prophecy as it always seems to have done. Speeches about hoodies directed at the Daily Mail reading classes go down well, but do nothing to help with the problem.

Having a "war on hoodies" makes as much sense as "the war on terror" (See my previous article). We need to be more imaginative.

We also need to make sure the Police don't sit around filling in forms until enough pressure builds that they go and apply for an ASBO banning someone from doing something which is illegal, but getting out there and preventing them doing it in the first place, or just arresting them for it when they do.

Where I live, we don't get much youth trouble, it is after all a medium sized village in the country. However, some people do get worried about the "youth". I don't. I wave at them, say hello, generally acknowledge them and give them a bit of respect. They reciprocate that, so I do not get any problems, and if I tell them they are doing something wrong they are more likely to listen.

Respect works both ways.