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There has been a spate of coverage of this hot topic both in the press and on T.V. recently in England. After the 18th death due to stabbing in our nation's capital this year alone, people are starting to (finally) direct their attention to dealing with street crime.
Interestingly, kife crime (and thank god it is only just knife crime by the way, the stringent police control on activated guns is very effective in keeping them away from your average street thug) is now the number 1 metropolitan police priority (the Met is the London police force); supplanting terrorism.
The papers are rife with terrifying relations of very recent stabbing incidents. One of the reasons this epidemic of knife fatalaties has been so hard-hitting to our nation's hearts is that the victims have all been young. Ben Kinsella, a 16 year old, and brother of a semi-famous soap starlet was chased by a group of black teenagers and murdered in a frenzy of stabs.
Firstly, the symptoms of the current problem are not only that we are looking at massive reported stabbing figures (somewhere in the region of 5000 every 3 months); I think most British people will accept my the sentiment that there is a growing culture of disrespect, especially amongst younger people towards older people. Another symptom is that our schools are becoming more and more dangerous, with expensive private schools being some of the only educational facilities where a parent can be relatively certain their child will be allowed to pursue an education unimpeded by violence and peer pressure to be anti-social.
Now the reason for this post is purely to sate my curiosity. I have been enjoying talking through solutions to this worrying issue with my mum and brother; having spent some time at my house. We came up with a lot of interesting things to talk about, inspired by the programs we were watching on tv. I assume that, if I open this up to TL, some more interesting discussions can come about. Note, I would really appreciate if people just gave any sort of opinion. You don't have to be a learned social worker or accomplished sociological philosophy professor ITT.
I think the current situation in England isn't anywhere near as dire as a multitude of far less economically secure and stable countries; but this is an issue which reaches all walks of life in England. No matter where you are you will be near an estaste where there could potentially be guys running around with knives.
So the issue is; how does a society tackle this problem? There have been lots of suggestions made by people I have talked to and observed in the paper and on T.V.; and which I have made myself, and here are some choice ones to talk about (in no significant order):
- Lack of strong male role models in the family or in the media (particularly for ethnicities other than white)
- Availability of drink and drugs
- Lack of education in parenting
- Police too lenient/ bureaucratic
- 'Arms racing' with rival post-code gangs (your postcode is a handful of streets) for safety
- Education being dissatisfying, teachers being underqualified and easily disrespectable
- Not enough vocational schooling- too much focus on academics and non-physical subjects
- Lack of work ethic from families living on the dole (welfare) through generations. Lack of ambition or desire to contribute to society
- Peer pressure, 'urban culture'
- Overly bureaucratic, molly-coddling society. Too many rights for misbehaving children?
- Focus in schools on the slower and less capable children. The old system, with normal schools and grammar schools, would segregate the clever kids before they could be dragged down and weighed down by the less clever ones. That system was deleted awhile ago...and people wonder whether it should be brought back, and schools should be given new means to deal with those few troublesome children in class
There are surely more issues. Now as to the solutions, perhaps it would be good to decide which is the most important reason why the younger generations are more violent, disrespectful and directly, conspicuosly violent in society.
In my book, trouble starts at the home. But, regardless of the quality of a parent, their child has a huge chance of 'going bad' if they mix with the wrong people. Because, spending a hell of a lot more time with friends than with parents, inevitably kids will be drawn into the worlds of their friends. The availability of alcohol to kids is an important issue, but is it really 'tackleable'? Unless you basically outlaw offlicences, and tail every single man who buys drinks when there are youths waiting outside; is there really an effective way of controlling this?
I think that the dual-edged sword one should use in dealing with these issues is to increase funding for schools, and modify the curriculum. To bring back grammar schools, and make it possible to enter the grammar stream at any age due to good results in your school exams, and tackle social issues like parenting and drugs education; on the one hand, and to become tougher and more streamlined as a police force on the other.
I think that there should be a clear dividing line between restraining dangerous individuals from damaging innocent people; and preventing those individuals from becoming dangerous. I think the police should do the first job, and the government the second.
So, any opinions?
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1. Big block of text.
2. Big block of text continued.
3. Opinions?
4. ????
5. Profit.
In all seriousness though, it's all down to education.
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well the thoroughness and length of my OP is designed to be inversely proportional to the size of most of my OP's.
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On July 08 2008 06:31 Thrill wrote:
1. Big block of text.
2. Big block of text continued.
3. Opinions?
4. ????
5. Profit.
In all seriousness though, it's all down to education.
Purge 2008! I'm gonna think of a response to this thread, but I don't have one yet. I lived in England earlier this year for university for a term and I'm aware of the issue of child gangs, but I don't know the best way to combat it. If you ask me it all begins at home with the parents, but we have nothing to this extent in America as far as youngsters go. I would say parent education, but that's not going to help the current mess, only mold a better future.
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Well yes. I definitely agree. I think that, right now, there are many children who really deserve the attention of the police more than the government and social workers, but hopefully the situation can be swerved around, and the smallest possible amount of people are actually too far gone to be shown the merits of cooperating peacefully in society.
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Those CCTV and cameras are sure paying off for you brits. I wish the poor people of the USA could afford CCTV watching our every step.
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I don't know most of the facts, but since you specifically asked for it, I will give you my opinion anyway. I think the problem is vastly exaggerated by the media. The numbers are still low and there is no knife murderer around every corner. Sure, the proportion of youngsters with bad education, social 'problems' or disrespect towards the older generation is growing, just as children seem to age faster and faster, mentally. I grant you that. But I think it's a constant progress which has been going on for centuries, basically and it hasn't been exploding during the last year or so. It's just that media has found a hot topic and the result of that is always the same.
There might be a temporary accumulation of such incidents as you described, but they are probably just a result of the media coverage, with people jumping the bandwagon. It will go away and the topic will be forgotten again.
That the whole western world is drifting away from the mind of enlightenment, _that_ is a dangerous trend which has been going on for 80 years and which causes such tendencies that you describe. But that's a much deeper problem and will never be adressed by anybody.
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On July 08 2008 06:49 anotak wrote:
Those CCTV and cameras are sure paying off for you brits. I wish the poor people of the USA could afford CCTV watching our every step.
Why in the world would you want to bring 1984 upon yourself.
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My first reply was really a flirt with the whole purge thing - which is kind of relevant in this thread as it's a "cleaning up the streets" parallell.
As for whether or not i agree - yes, education is key and schools need to improve across the board. Certain aspects of the educational system in the UK are more flawed than in other european countries which leaves room for improvement - Jamie Oliver mentiones just one of these - food. ^^
Other points in the OP i disagree with. Some of the 'suggestions' listed are trolling in my eyes, and the finishing point regarding more power to the police i'm completely against.
This isn't really a topic that's very easy to discuss - choose one of the points you made and i'll happily give my inputs.
Rename the topic "The balance between freedom and safety taken to the streets" where we discuss how to balance the scale and how much extra authority from government/police we should allow as opposed to what can be built up from education and wellfare.
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these are just things that I've observed ppl talking about on TV (the daily politics, that 4 part show on street crime where they interview important people to the issue, random discussion shows and like radio like bbc4). I am asking for your opinions for any ways to deal with these issues, and then hopefully there will develop people on one side and people on another, at which point a productive debate can occur; hopefully enlightening everyone to new and interesting takes on the issue.
And by the way, your point, thrill, about freedom and safety doesn't really apply to this. This isn't about giving more authority to the police; more about how it should redirect its focus. This post is more about how to deal with the problems before they actually arise; because to be honest dealing with crims is definitely less debatable a topic. Sentencing crims isn't, on the other hand; so I didn't want to have the topic purely about dealing with parental issues etc. There is a lot to talk about on this topic imo.
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if everybody had a gun in britain we wouldn't have these knife stabbings
the irony of the above statement is that its true in more ways than one
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well if you are making that statement for humour then lol  . Because it's very true xD. But if you are serious...
wow lol well that's never gonna happen. The problems are more street crime orientated, less burglaries and things in the home. There are big groups of teenagers and young people on street corners, frightening people and beating them up; and gangs having running battles in their estates as well as incursions into affluent areas to cause mayhem and destruction. Do you think it would be legal to run out into the street and open up on them with a 12 gauge, even in your country?
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United States43566 Posts
I went to a grammar school in a highly middle class area so I have very little experience with all that stuff. However what your conclusion seems to be is that you should separate the good children from the bad to stop the bad ones corrupting the good. If you keep all the good ones together then there will be no bad influences and they'll all grow up to be model citizens. In theory it sounds good and I expect it'd work. The phrase one bad apple can spoil the barrel springs to mind. The problem is that this isn't apples. These are children. You're willing to write off a portion of the nations youth in order to prevent their taint spreading to the rest of them. And the worst part about that is you're using an intelligence based exam to do it.
The clever kids go to the grammar school where they are shielded from the problems of the world and bad influences and grow up to be perfect citizens.
The ones who don't work or cause problems go to secondary moderns which are basically day care for the under 16s. Society writes them off simply because they were brought up poorly and acted out at school. Maybe their problem was an abusive father who taught them it is acceptable to hit people. Who knows. Who cares. They'll drop out at 16, end up turning to crime, go to prison and be in and out for the rest of their life.
The stupid kids go to the secondary moderns and can't get a good education because society has written them off. Sucks for them because they didn't actually do anything wrong. You just chose the grammar school to be the method of selection. Best case scenario they get a menial low skill job at 16 and stick with it for the next 50 years. Worst case scenario they hit back at society and spend the rest of their life in and out of jail.
Sound about right?
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the stringent police control on activated guns is very effective in keeping them away from your average street thug
This is going to be a gun control debate isn't it? I can already predict what they will say...
This is clear evidence that GUN CONTROL DOESN'T WORK! Look at this: you ban guns and stabbings go up sky high! See laws don't help against criminals because they won't obey them. If you take away guns all you're doing is making them use knives while innocent law-abiding citizens can't even make use of a gun to defend themselves! Had the girl who got chased down by that gang carried a gun with her, she would have easily fended them off. As a witty mockery of gun control I am going to propose that next knives get banned! After all, knives are used to kill people. If people did not have knives then no violence would ever happen. Who cares if knives have other uses? Let me make my clever debate-winning analogy!
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Well no that's not at all my opinion Kwark. If you seriously want to hear it rather than insult me then for the record, as I did latently express, I believe that the top cream of society should be skimmed off and cultivated, and the bottom shit should be dealt with in a way that will be sympathetic but also expedient for the people in the middle. I also believe very strongly that vocational schooling is the way forward for most people who will in reality end up quitting school at 16 and going on to grind 9-5's.
The point of this discussion is: how to deal with the supposedly bad apples in society. So it would be pretty counterproductive to focus on how to make sure that clever people get the best start in life. Truly brilliant people will prevail regardless. I agree that competence should be encouraged and focused on in schools; but children aren't getting stabbed in the street because really clever kids can't get more latin text books (at least i hope not).
I really think the curriculum needs to change in SO many ways. And one of the most important ways, is allowing students to focus on those vocational and physical subjects.
I do most certainly NOT advocate simply leaving children by the wayside; as that is one of the biggest causes of the problems we have. But then again, I do not agree with allowing the bottom 5% to adversely affect the other 95%'s progress disproportionately.
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On July 08 2008 07:43 Hippopotamus wrote: Show nested quote +the stringent police control on activated guns is very effective in keeping them away from your average street thug This is going to be a gun control debate isn't it? I can already predict what they will say... This is clear evidence that GUN CONTROL DOESN'T WORK! Look at this: you ban guns and stabbings go up sky high! See laws don't help against criminals because they won't obey them. If you take away guns all you're doing is making them use knives while innocent law-abiding citizens can't even make use of a gun to defend themselves! Had the girl who got chased down by that gang carried a gun with her, she would have easily fended them off. As a witty mockery of gun control I am going to propose that next knives get banned! After all, knives are used to kill people. If people did not have knives then no violence would ever happen. Who cares if knives have other uses? Let me make my clever debate-winning analogy!
Yes but we don't have school massacres by the barrell full, and it's harder to stab 10 innocent victims than shoot them with an uzi. Also, the amount of people who actually die from stabwounds is SO much lower than the amount that die from gunshots that it hurts (literally).
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kids realise alcohol and fucking around is fun and cheap
kids realise you can fuck around and drink alcohol all your life and the government with give you greater support and funding than it will a straight-edge worker who toils his whole life. you can live off the dole infinitely, get housing benefit, other support benefit, child benefit, etc etc etc.
kids grow up fucking around and drinking
= the townie generation of today
kids have kids
= the chav generation of today
thats basically what we have right now.
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On July 08 2008 07:52 HamerD wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2008 07:43 Hippopotamus wrote: the stringent police control on activated guns is very effective in keeping them away from your average street thug This is going to be a gun control debate isn't it? I can already predict what they will say... This is clear evidence that GUN CONTROL DOESN'T WORK! Look at this: you ban guns and stabbings go up sky high! See laws don't help against criminals because they won't obey them. If you take away guns all you're doing is making them use knives while innocent law-abiding citizens can't even make use of a gun to defend themselves! Had the girl who got chased down by that gang carried a gun with her, she would have easily fended them off. As a witty mockery of gun control I am going to propose that next knives get banned! After all, knives are used to kill people. If people did not have knives then no violence would ever happen. Who cares if knives have other uses? Let me make my clever debate-winning analogy! Yes but we don't have school massacres by the barrell full, and it's harder to stab 10 innocent victims than shoot them with an uzi. Also, the amount of people who actually die from stabwounds is SO much lower than the amount that die from gunshots that it hurts (literally).
wtf, gun law debate belongs in USA and not the UK.
gun prohibitions works in UK, doesn't work in USA. /end
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Do all poorer people in england get access to education? Just wanna know
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education is mandatory for all, infact they will pay you to go and jail you if you dont
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EPT
