19-year-old man shot in Stockwell last night

[KeyboardJockey]

Except most of the evidence shows that people need several times in and out of rehab before they finally "get" it. Changing is hard, it involves re wiring neural pathways, reliving primary relationships in a different way, re-living emotional experiences and dealing with them differently. This doesn't happen over night, it doesn't happen on first go (or even 2nd or 3rd).

Of course some people won't change, but we have to give them chances.

Agree there. But we must never lose sight of the fact that some people no matter what you do will still behave badly to others.

I also agree that there should be second or third chances however for purposes of public safety maybe the second or third chances should be given in a place of safety for both the offender and the public at large.

 

[KeyboardJockey]

I just don't buy this. I manage to walk down the street without demanding "respeck" from everyone. I managed, both when I was younger, and had no money at all, and since, not to start fights with people for "looking at me funny" etc etc.

None of my friends act like this. Or ever did. Rich or poor.

You don't *have* to spend all your time worrying about how much you've got, or how much anyone else has got. It isn't compulsory. Some people are like that, others aren't.

It would seem to me that this touchy, ever ready to resort to savage violence, attitude is very disproportionately concentrated in certain areas and certain cultures.

So long as everyone has a roof over their heads and enough to eat etc, what does it matter what some rich people have got? There have always been rich people.

Some people have got over-large egos and equate "respect" with "fear". They enjoy the power-trip of a reputation for nastiness and violence. That is their choice - most people are not like that.

Giles..

I can certainly agree with you on some points but disagree with you on others.

 

[Blagsta]

I just don't buy this. I manage to walk down the street without demanding "respeck" from everyone. I managed, both when I was younger, and had no money at all, and since, not to start fights with people for "looking at me funny" etc etc.

None of my friends act like this. Or ever did. Rich or poor.

You don't *have* to spend all your time worrying about how much you've got, or how much anyone else has got. It isn't compulsory. Some people are like that, others aren't.

It would seem to me that this touchy, ever ready to resort to savage violence, attitude is very disproportionately concentrated in certain areas and certain cultures.

So long as everyone has a roof over their heads and enough to eat etc, what does it matter what some rich people have got? There have always been rich people.

Some people have got over-large egos and equate "respect" with "fear". They enjoy the power-trip of a reputation for nastiness and violence. That is their choice - most people are not like that.

Giles..

you've completely missed all the stuff about emotional regulation - our emotional responses are not always subject to choice!

 

[Giles]

you've completely missed all the stuff about emotional regulation - our emotional responses are not always subject to choice!

That's because we are not animals. We have choices.

I can choose to go out and smash the bloke walking past over the head with a metal bar and steal his phone and his money, or I can choose not to.

Everyone knows that hurting people and stealing stuff is wrong.

If you are a sane adult human being you are responsible for your actions.

Giles..

 

[co-op]

It would seem to me that this touchy, ever ready to resort to savage violence, attitude is very disproportionately concentrated in certain areas and certain cultures.

..

It does seem to be concentrated in certain social groups - typically those found at the bottom of the social hierarchy. You can see this even on these boards, why just in one weeks worth of posting in December I have found these quotes; there is the random and completely disproportionate resort to violence, eg:

There is no way that I would have my car fitted with any kind of speed governor. If someone tried to force me to have one fitted I would be entitled to kill them.

(posted; 13-12-2007, 18:07)


Or how about the complete disregard for law or the property rights of others, and the demand for emotionally gratifying revenge rather than rationally-satisfying restitution and proper regulation of social behaviour.

My car got towed away a couple of years ago because my residents permit expired by one day whilst I was away.

The c**ts wouldn't back down and it cost me £200.

A week later I got some car body filler and some Araldite and methodically gummed up around a dozen of the local pay and display machines and then took down loads of the "no parking" signs off of the posts with a drill screwdriver and a socket wrench and binned them all.

Just so I felt I had got my revenge. Certainly cost them more than £200, I would say.

Giles..

(posted: 20-12-2007)



Or how about the facile egotism that means that members of these excluded groups are often acting in a complete social vacuum; there is absolutely no regard for anybody else, but a childish demand that they get what they want, regardless of the wider consequences.

I don't care a jot. It made me feel better, and in the end, that's all that matters.

Giles..

(posted; december 2007)

All of your posts on this thread have been thoroughly permeated with a smug and narcissistic self-congratulatory wonder at how utterly super you and your behaviour are. Yet you routinely brag about your right to inflict violence on others and on public property and how this is because you are entirely entitled to do anything that makes you feel "better". You'd do better to just grow up. Your absence of self-awareness is absolutely stunning.

 

[Blagsta]

That's because we are not animals. We have choices.

I can choose to go out and smash the bloke walking past over the head with a metal bar and steal his phone and his money, or I can choose not to.

Everyone knows that hurting people and stealing stuff is wrong.

If you are a sane adult human being you are responsible for your actions.

Giles..

This is not what people are like though. We are animals, we do have impulses. Our rational brains are built on and from our more animal brains. We can't have choice without emotion. Some people have great difficulty regulating their emotional impulses due to negelct and abuse as a child. It's not a choice - the stress response as an infant affects brain development. It's a fascinating subject, you should do some reading.

 

[Giles]

It does seem to be concentrated in certain social groups - typically those found at the bottom of the social hierarchy. You can see this even on these boards, why just in one weeks worth of posting in December I have found these quotes; there is the random and completely disproportionate resort to violence, eg:



(posted; 13-12-2007, 18:07)


Or how about the complete disregard for law or the property rights of others, and the demand for emotionally gratifying revenge rather than rationally-satisfying restitution and proper regulation of social behaviour.



(posted: 20-12-2007)



Or how about the facile egotism that means that members of these excluded groups are often acting in a complete social vacuum; there is absolutely no regard for anybody else, but a childish demand that they get what they want, regardless of the wider consequences.



(posted; december 2007)

All of your posts on this thread have been thoroughly permeated with a smug and narcissistic self-congratulatory wonder at how utterly super you and your behaviour are. Yet you routinely brag about your right to inflict violence on others and on public property and how this is because you are entirely entitled to do anything that makes you feel "better". You'd do better to just grow up. Your absence of self-awareness is absolutely stunning.

I don't need to grow up. I am fine. All people have to do is not bother me with petty rules.

Giles..

 

[Blagsta]

I don't need to grow up. I am fine. All people have to do is not bother me with petty rules.

Giles..

You seem to have some problems controlling your emotional impulses Giles...

 

[co-op]

I don't need to grow up. I am fine. All people have to do is not bother me with petty rules.

Giles..

*response disappears into irony vortex*

 

[Mind]

Giles you are wasting your time.
Some people would rather first come up with a solution that fits their world view, and after that twist the facts to fit in with them.

I have heard too many of these arguments before, and even fell for them briefly, usually in lectures from left-wing "socially-conscious" white people who want to tell us blacks how their right-wing or wealthy enemies are our enemies too. (Obviously we wouldn't know any of this unless they held our hands and showed us the way).

There is a virtually identical thread here 16yr old boy shot dead in Stockwell
The only difference is the age of the dead boy. Haven't we heard all these arguments before? Aren't we tired of the same old "It's society's fault" bullshit?

It is because the lives of young black men are cheap in this country that people like Blagsta think it is better that we let out their murderers to kill and kill again until after their 5th or 6th time (but with lots of patience and understanding on our part) when they will become good citizens. For them it doesn't matter how many victims lives are destroyed as long as this one soul comes good.

The fact is the vast majority of crime is committed when people think there is a good chance they will get away with it. If the costs of the crime are high enough, people won't commit them.
It is then up to society to define how high is too high?

For you and I and most people, jail time and all the associated costs means loss of job, reputation, self-esteem, future life plans, probably a car, mortgage, family and friends as well.

These kids have nothing to lose. To paraphrase Chris Rock, if you live in a horrible old council block, a new jail isn't that bad.
Furthermore, they even gain status among their peers for the bad behaviour and as long as that is where they get their status from,giving them easy money or helping them find the sort of employment which the good kids will happily do and the bad kids sneer at is a waste of time.

I wonder what part youth-tailored consumerism and its constant slick message that more is more plays in all this.

I suspect very little.
The consumerism merely tells you what is cool to have today for your peer group. It doesn't tell you to stab someone for their mobile.
The real reason is probably closer to what turns middle and upper class kids into bullies - BECAUSE THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT. You find that once you challenge a bully, they stop harassing you and go pick on someone who won't fight back.

What is to blame is that kids today see people getting away with this behaviour. They see their poor teachers ride home on the bus, while the older students who went into crime and drug dealing come back to their old schools in flashy BMWs and Gold Alloys with lots of bling, saying "join us and you'll have all this too!"

The kids learn that crime pays,that the teachers are talking bullshit (after all they're riding on the bus what do they know) and the vicious circle continues.

Teach kids that crime doesn't pay, make prison a shameful thing to happen to someone. Visibly humiliate the pieces of shit who go to our schools and encourage the innocent ones into a respect and bling culture and the situation will sort itself out. It doesn't require more money, more police, more "awareness training and initiatives" or+ more hugs and kisses.

And for anyone who is still inclined to take an opposite view, can I just say
Beware of those whose response when you point out their proposed solution isn't working is a stronger dose of that solution.
I'm sure most of us here don't believe that the key to solving drugs crime is further criminalisation which is all that is being proposed or done. Use that to look at Blagsta's argument again -that the reason why patience and understanding isn't working is because we need more patience and understanding.

If the answer is more of something then explain why with the toughest gun control laws this country has ever had shootings and gun murders in our inner cities are increasing?

If the answer is more money and more rehabilitation programs, explain why with an 11 year old labour government that has spent BILLIONS on "the causes of crime" rather than on prison places, yet our prison population is getting bigger and this type of violent crime is not even headline news anymoreanymore?

Spare me.

 

[shygirl]

There is an amazing amount of evidence that the wider the wealth divide in your society, the greater the amount of crime (both property crime and violent crime).

Exactly what the pathway to violent behaviour is in any individual case is (a) almost impossible to define, and (b) pretty much irrelevant. The choice you have is either - narrow social wealth divisions and get a safer or "kinder" society with higher social capital (more trust in strangers, less violence, more communal events, more solidarity), or widen social divisions and get the reverse.

Basically, do we want our streets to be more like those in Denmark, or do we want them to be more like those in the USA? For me it's a no-brainer.

But the wider point is that you can stick in as many CCTV cameras as you like, you can spend your entire tax budget on prisons and policemen and incarcerate 10% of your young working class men (as they do in the States), dooming them to a pointless and unproductive life that also breeds a prison-mentality that walks straight back on to our streets the minute these boys are back outside. You can blame rap, a glamour-culture etc etc etc - but if you actually want to make our streets and homes safer places, you have to build MEANINGFUL social solidarity. And that does not come about by politicians mewing about "community values" or silly adverts asking you to turn your ipod down on the bus. It comes about from the genuine sharing of resources more equally and the absolutely profound respect that sharing embodies.

Everything else is window-dressing.

Excellent!

 

[Blagsta]

Giles you are wasting your time.
Some people would rather first come up with a solution that fits their world view, and after that twist the facts to fit in with them.

<rest of rambling nonsense snipped>

You could look at the evidence for what I say then get back to me. Construct an argument against attachment theory, the findings on cortisol and brain development, the work of Damasio, Schore et al and then I may take you seriously.

Until then? pfffffft

 

[Mind]

I think my low post count should indicate that I have neither the time nor the energy to start debating your pseudo-intellectual drivel.

Usually when people are unable to defend their reasoning, they run and hide behind somebody else's dusty and long-forgotten thesis or text book proving that they've clearly lost the argument.

I have a friend whose answer in this situation is "Have you read **insert obscure book here**?" and once the other person says "No" he then goes "Well then there's no point debating with you. Is there?"

It is one of the easiest escape routes for the windbag who doesn't like being challenged.

 

[Blagsta]

So no actual content to your disagreement then? No surprise really after all some people would rather first come up with a solution that fits their world view, and after that twist the facts to fit in with them.

 

[d.a.s.h]

Co-op: You mentioned Wilkinson's book 'Mind the Gap' and his conclusions on the situation in the USA. I have been looking at county-level figures from this website:

http://censtats.census.gov/usa/usa.shtml

. . . and so far the biggest correlate I'm finding with the homicide rate is the proportion of single-parent households.

 

[co-op]

I have heard too many of these arguments before, and even fell for them briefly, usually in lectures from left-wing "socially-conscious" white people who want to tell us blacks how their right-wing or wealthy enemies are our enemies too. (Obviously we wouldn't know any of this unless they held our hands and showed us the way).

Cute racism Mind. I don't know the skin colour of any of the posters on this thread apart from myself and editor or the skin colour of the victim. Your desperate attempt to shoe-horn it in as a subject is pathetic. "Us" blacks? Gimme a break. You haven't got a clue where I'm coming from you fucking chancer. TBH when I read this kind of crap on a bulletin board, I tend to assume you are an elderly white woman living in a gated community in Bournemouth and having a bit of fun. I know it gets dull. Maybe you could take up a hobby? Voluntary work?

The only difference is the age of the dead boy. Haven't we heard all these arguments before? Aren't we tired of the same old "It's society's fault" bullshit?

It is because the lives of young black men are cheap in this country that people like Blagsta think it is better that we let out their murderers to kill and kill again until after their 5th or 6th time (but with lots of patience and understanding on our part) when they will become good citizens. For them it doesn't matter how many victims lives are destroyed as long as this one soul comes good.

The fact is the vast majority of crime is committed when people think there is a good chance they will get away with it. If the costs of the crime are high enough, people won't commit them.
It is then up to society to define how high is too high?

For you and I and most people, jail time and all the associated costs means loss of job, reputation, self-esteem, future life plans, probably a car, mortgage, family and friends as well

These kids have nothing to lose. To paraphrase Chris Rock, if you live in a horrible old council block, a new jail isn't that bad.
Furthermore, they even gain status among their peers for the bad behaviour and as long as that is where they get their status from,giving them easy money or helping them find the sort of employment which the good kids will happily do and the bad kids sneer at is a waste of time.

I suspect very little.
The consumerism merely tells you what is cool to have today for your peer group. It doesn't tell you to stab someone for their mobile.
The real reason is probably closer to what turns middle and upper class kids into bullies - BECAUSE THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT. You find that once you challenge a bully, they stop harassing you and go pick on someone who won't fight back.

What is to blame is that kids today see people getting away with this behaviour. They see their poor teachers ride home on the bus, while the older students who went into crime and drug dealing come back to their old schools in flashy BMWs and Gold Alloys with lots of bling, saying "join us and you'll have all this too!"

The kids learn that crime pays,that the teachers are talking bullshit (after all they're riding on the bus what do they know) and the vicious circle continues.

Teach kids that crime doesn't pay, make prison a shameful thing to happen to someone. Visibly humiliate the pieces of shit who go to our schools and encourage the innocent ones into a respect and bling culture and the situation will sort itself out. It doesn't require more money, more police, more "awareness training and initiatives" or+ more hugs and kisses.

And for anyone who is still inclined to take an opposite view, can I just say
Beware of those whose response when you point out their proposed solution isn't working is a stronger dose of that solution.
I'm sure most of us here don't believe that the key to solving drugs crime is further criminalisation which is all that is being proposed or done. Use that to look at Blagsta's argument again -that the reason why patience and understanding isn't working is because we need more patience and understanding.

If the answer is more of something then explain why with the toughest gun control laws this country has ever had shootings and gun murders in our inner cities are increasing?

If the answer is more money and more rehabilitation programs, explain why with an 11 year old labour government that has spent BILLIONS on "the causes of crime" rather than on prison places, yet our prison population is getting bigger and this type of violent crime is not even headline news anymoreanymore?

Spare me.

And this is just utterly incoherent (good rant though).

"It's not societies fault!", you cry (implication - we need 'more individual responsibility') - and then say "these kids have nothing to lose" (implication - it's not their fault)

"Increase the punishments & make prison worse!!" you shrill (implication - punishment 'works') - and then say "If the answer is more of something then explain why with the toughest gun control laws this country has ever had shootings and gun murders in our inner cities are increasing?" (implication - penal solutions fail - thanks, we know that already).

Etc etc - I really can't be bothered to take this apart more systematically, tbh I think it's junk.

What is REALLY interesting about it is the extreme frothing moralism that runs all the way through it - first on one side of an argument and then on the other. This is why the subject is so hard to debate intelligently, there is always somebody who wants to go off on one.

I wonder Mind, how you explain health inequalities in social classes? Probably you don't give a shit because it doesn't give you an opportunity to do your tired old schtick. But if you want to try understanding how inequality affects humans, you might want to look at them.



ps are you american? - "...teachers are talking bullshit (after all they're riding on the bus what do they know)"
I mean "riding on the bus"? Either you are cutting and pasting from a US site who you are an elderly white lady in a gated community in Florida not Bournemouth.

 

[Badgers]

Spare me.

Very good post....

Possibly a little idealistic but good nonetheless.

Maybe we need to take a small step back before stepping forward? Nobody wants more prisons (apart from greedy scum) but you can't just switch on the hugs and expect everything to drop into place. Nobody wants more CCTV but if you asked Neville and Doreen Lawrence they may tell you different?

 

[co-op]

Nobody wants more CCTV but if you asked Neville and Doreen Lawrence they may tell you different?

CCTV would have been of no use whatsoever in saving their son's life. It is occasionally useful in obtaining convictions after the event; no great consolation to murder victims.

 

[Badgers]

CCTV would have been of no use whatsoever in saving their son's life. It is occasionally useful in obtaining convictions after the event; no great consolation to murder victims.

Were the killers not convicted then?

Have I been under a rock?

 

[co-op]

Were the killers not convicted then?

Have I been under a rock?

My point is that I'd like to live somewhere where I don't get murdered at the bus-stop, not somewhere where, if I do, the killers get sent to prison. I'd guess there's a fairly robust generalisation of that personal perspective to the wider population.

 

[Badgers]

Idealism will not solve problems overnight my friend.
Everyone would love that world but it can't happen in a lifetime (IMO), let alone a thread/post/opinion/statement.

I live on Myatts Field estate and like it here, but it would benefit from CCTV.

Sorry

 

[co-op]

Idealism will not solve problems overnight my friend.
Everyone would love that world but it can't happen in a lifetime (IMO), let alone a thread/post/opinion/statement.

I live on Myatts Field estate and like it here, but it would benefit from CCTV.

Sorry

I live on an estate here in Stockwell, my idealism is tempered with a healthy dose of realism, believe me. I just made the point that CCTV doesn't protect individual victims, it increases the chance of punishment for the perpetrators (so long as the crime is severe enough for the police to be bothered to trawl through the footage). You can argue that in the long run punishment = fewer victims, but I'd argue the evidence doesn't support you.

CCTV has mushroomed in the last 20 years and I don't think our streets are safer as a result. They've become a bit like those signs in certain pubs saying things like "Using, buying or selling drugs in this pub is strictly forbidden" - it kind of means you could score in there if you wanted. When I see a CCTV camera pointing at me now I don't think "hey great, I'm safe", I think "oh-oh". There's a lot to debate in this whole subject but frightening people off our streets doesn't make them (ie the streets) safer.

 

[Badgers]

I live on an estate here in Stockwell, my idealism is tempered with a healthy dose of realism, believe me. I just made the point that CCTV doesn't protect individual victims, it increases the chance of punishment for the perpetrators (so long as the crime is severe enough for the police to be bothered to trawl through the footage). You can argue that in the long run punishment = fewer victims, but I'd argue the evidence doesn't support you.

No disagreement from me.

I think that education should be this country's number one priority. We need to do some major rethinking but everyone is so overstretched that minor tweaks to policy's seem to be all we can achieve right now.

CCTV and more policemen strolling about would make a difference. If a difference was made then we can focus on major more steps forward.

I wonder if I should hide that fact that I would like to see government (not military) service brought in? Maybe not......

 

[Blagsta]

you can't just switch on the hugs and expect everything to drop into place.

Who's advocating that?

 

[Badgers]

Who's advocating that?

David Cameron

 

[Giles]

Cute racism Mind. I don't know the skin colour of any of the posters on this thread apart from myself and editor or the skin colour of the victim. Your desperate attempt to shoe-horn it in as a subject is pathetic. "Us" blacks? Gimme a break. You haven't got a clue where I'm coming from you fucking chancer. TBH when I read this kind of crap on a bulletin board, I tend to assume you are an elderly white woman living in a gated community in Bournemouth and having a bit of fun. I know it gets dull. Maybe you could take up a hobby? Voluntary work?




And this is just utterly incoherent (good rant though).

"It's not societies fault!", you cry (implication - we need 'more individual responsibility') - and then say "these kids have nothing to lose" (implication - it's not their fault)

"Increase the punishments & make prison worse!!" you shrill (implication - punishment 'works') - and then say "If the answer is more of something then explain why with the toughest gun control laws this country has ever had shootings and gun murders in our inner cities are increasing?" (implication - penal solutions fail - thanks, we know that already).

Etc etc - I really can't be bothered to take this apart more systematically, tbh I think it's junk.

What is REALLY interesting about it is the extreme frothing moralism that runs all the way through it - first on one side of an argument and then on the other. This is why the subject is so hard to debate intelligently, there is always somebody who wants to go off on one.

I wonder Mind, how you explain health inequalities in social classes? Probably you don't give a shit because it doesn't give you an opportunity to do your tired old schtick. But if you want to try understanding how inequality affects humans, you might want to look at them.



ps are you american? - "...teachers are talking bullshit (after all they're riding on the bus what do they know)"
I mean "riding on the bus"? Either you are cutting and pasting from a US site who you are an elderly white lady in a gated community in Florida not Bournemouth.

You are always going to have inequality, though, aren't you? And in a city, you are always going to be living pretty close to people with both more and less than you have.

People need to learn to accept their lot in life. For ever comparing yourself to those better off than you obviously will make you unhappy.

You don't HAVE to spend your time worrying about what things someone up the road has got.

People do this because they are shallow and have nothing better to do or think about.

I don't have a particularly flash car, or mobile phone. Am I embarrassed when people see me in my car, or using my phone? No, because I honestly don't care.

Do I make myself ill worrying about how someone else has a better house, a plasma telly, or whatever? No, I don't.

Maybe schools should teach people to me more accepting of who and where they are?

Giles..

 

[Loupylou]

There is some evidence for psychopathological behaviour that allows for totally uncaring and unfeeling violence towards other humans having a genetic basis. I'd make two points about that. Firstly, even proponents of the 'genetic psychopath' thesis agree that it's extremely rare (less than one in a thousand seems to be agreed). So it's not an important factor in social policy as far as I am concerned. Secondly, there is also tons of evidence that environment still plays a massive role in these kind of 'psychopathic' crimes (ie ones which demonstrate 'feelinglessness' or bizarrely disproportionate over-reactions). Just the fact that they tend to happen disproportionately more amongst the poor gives us a bit of a heads up on that.

There are plenty in Senior Management.

 

[Loupylou]

Idealism will not solve problems overnight my friend.
Everyone would love that world but it can't happen in a lifetime (IMO), let alone a thread/post/opinion/statement.

I live on Myatts Field estate and like it here, but it would benefit from CCTV.

Sorry

It's got more CCTV cameras than any other housing estate in Britain.

they didn't work for a year after being installed even tho we were paying for them in our rent.

 

[Bob]

BBC: Police have released the name of a teenager murdered in south London.

Nicholas Clarke, 19, was shot dead on the Myatts Field Estate in Stockwell in the early hours of Saturday.

He was taken to hospital where he later died. A post-mortem examination gave cause of death as a gunshot wound to the head.

Detectives are still trying to establish a motive behind the killing of Mr Clarke, from Chryssell Road in Oval, south London.

Detectives are appealing for witnesses or anyone with information to contact them.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7304200.stm

BBC's geography slightly weak here - they've placed Myatts North in Stockwell & Chryssell road in Oval - they're only about 150 metres from eachother.

 

[editor]

BBC news reports that a 16 year old and 17 year old have been arrested today for the murder.