Could you confirm your postcode, please - not sure that medication is available on the NHS in your area ... now if you'd been in Wales ...Barking_Mad said:
Targetting children as "anti-social" before they are even born!
- Thread starter In Bloom
- Start date
XerxesVargas
formerly MrMalcontent
portman said:
Thats exactly it. Its not a class issue - of course the manifestation of Blairs solution in inherhently class based - but an issue of bad parenting.
Wouldn't some kind of compulsory "parenting" classes to go along with the ante-natal classes be the best way forward. Not sure how to make it complusory - but that would at least address all people who are having kids, as opposed to the kids of "anti-social" parents. Also when the health visitor comes to see you once your kids is born - that is another great opportunity to assess and offer people help with their parenting skill.
Of course, all this requires staff that doesn't exist and money they won't give. Though it makes a nice headline and leader in the fascist supporting Mail and the newspaper of hearts The Daily Express.
sparkling
Proper country now
detective-boy said:
Agree with this. In my experience first as working in a behaviour support team and later in a yot you can see the children coming up who are going to cause problems. You can see their lives and experiences are leading them to a one way street of police intervention, courts and secure units and prisons etc. Only today I heard of a young boy (Tommy) I've known since he was 4 he should have been almost 18 now had been in a fight got stabbed and bled to death.
We all knew this boy at four would have problems because his parents, both of them had numerous problems such as domestic violence, drugs and both parents had been in trouble with the law. I remember the boy told me when he was four he wanted to grow up to be a policeman so he could let his dad out of jail. Nothing was done till he was criminal age of responsibility and then of course it was mostly punitive and anyway it was all rather too late by then.
We knew what the prognosis was for that lad and although many tried we all failed to save him. I don't know what the answer is but early intervention where there are clear indicators of risk surely could help rather than ignoring the situation till like Tommy it is too late.
JHE
.
I share your sadness - but what is this "early intervention" that could have saved Tommy? Really, who are the relevant people to 'intervene', what form would their 'intervention' take and what makes you think it would do the trick?sparkling said:Agree with this. In my experience first as working in a behaviour support team and later in a yot you can see the children coming up who are going to cause problems. You can see their lives and experiences are leading them to a one way street of police intervention, courts and secure units and prisons etc. Only today I heard of a young boy (Tommy) I've known since he was 4 he should have been almost 18 now had been in a fight got stabbed and bled to death.
We all knew this boy at four would have problems because his parents, both of them had numerous problems such as domestic violence, drugs and both parents had been in trouble with the law. I remember the boy told me when he was four he wanted to grow up to be a policeman so he could let his dad out of jail. Nothing was done till he was criminal age of responsibility and then of course it was mostly punitive and anyway it was all rather too late by then.
We knew what the prognosis was for that lad and although many tried we all failed to save him. I don't know what the answer is but early intervention where there are clear indicators of risk surely could help rather than ignoring the situation till like Tommy it is too late.
sparkling
Proper country now
JHE said:
If I knew all the answers to those problems life would be sweet.
I only know that the kind of work I am involved in now which is Restorative Justice Family Group Conferencing we try to provide the professionals who can offer advice and guidance and get the family to make their own plan to address whichever crisis is occurring. We don't try to tell them what needs to change or what is wrong. Tommy's Mum could and did tell us the problems of living with domestic violence and that her own lack of edcation and aspiration at school had partly led her to where she was. At that time she wanted a better life for her boys. She did not want them to follow Dad. However as they grew older and more unmanageable she struggled and eventually I would say she gave up.
I expect that 10 years ago she could have told people exactly what kind of support she needed and instead of her constantly being fobbed off by social services (you can manage) and schools (he has been excluded again) local agencies might have come together with the family to make a plan that would address the risk indicators and importantly been based realistically within the culture and practicalities of that particular family.
tangentlama
Nameless voices crying
I tell what is a fucking mockery. It is knowing what my friend went through.
After leaving her ABUSIVE partner, after enduring nearly 18 months of deteriorating behaviour after their child was born on his part, his descent into alcholism, and of course, she left him immediately when he became violent towards her.
5 years later, and on a brief visit, he beat up their child for dropping a piece of envelope from the child's birthday card.
2 years after that he beat her up, actually, tried to murder her, suffocating her and trying to break her arm. She was, surprise surprise, too ill to attend the court hearing which came up around a week after the attack. She was, surprise surprise, too frightened to even go to hospital, in case her son was taken into care, since her parents lived nearly 100 miles away.
The perp, well he got a £200 pound fine, and a caution. Nothing more.
Finding out later that his own father had beaten both him and his sister throughout their childhood, with that sister now suffering from bi-polar disorder and schizophrenia with paranoid delusions and violent tendencies.
So tell me Blair. My friend was a beautiful, happy, vibrant, confident young woman when this happened. When she needed support, the law gave this man a £200 fine.
In order to keep him away from her, she has to go to a solicitor to get an injunction - she suffers from panic attacks constantly when she thinks about it what has happened. Her sister tells her that taking out an injunction might make him worse - that he might break it anyway, and hurt her permanently because of his mental state. What can be done? Fuck all, I tell you.
The child doesn't care if he never sees his father again, but feels great pity for him, knowing his upbringing. What's even worse, is my friend's sister, who is a psychiatrist, will tell you that this bloke-with-violent-tendencies cannot help it, being conditioned into dealing with people like this.
Blairs options are not the answer here.
Automatic injunction via police with as little stress as possible for murderous and violent men is the answer. Maybe some psychological therapy not for the victim, but for the perp.
The victims will be mostly fine, if there's an easy way to keep the agressors/drunks/druffies away.
But Blair's response? Take HER benefit away, because of this idiot she left? Put HER child in care, because of this lunatic who doesn't know how to be around children or women? How about prosecuting his parents, for their behaviour, or their parents? Well actually, his mother was adopted, after spending the first few years of her life in state-care, being given up by her mother, who was unmarried at the time.
While we're about it, perhaps Blair would like to bring back forced adoption for unmarried mothers, and some other really draconic and cruel ways of teaching women, like throwing women into mental institutions after being abandoned by men whilst pregnant.
If the Government really wants to prevent deliquency, then it needs to change the style of teaching in it's schools where there is high truancy/behavioural problems. Simply turning them into 'Arts and Drama Colleges' isn't going to help the demographic of children from homes with no books in them, whose parents were also failed by the education system.
Perhaps opening up these schools as community centres might be a start, to persuade the parents back to education, so they can help their young ones, and foster a more constructive attitude to education.
How about putting some money into YOUTH CLUBS.
There are simply NO YOUTH CLUBS in all the areas that need support and guidance for their teenage population.
After leaving her ABUSIVE partner, after enduring nearly 18 months of deteriorating behaviour after their child was born on his part, his descent into alcholism, and of course, she left him immediately when he became violent towards her.
5 years later, and on a brief visit, he beat up their child for dropping a piece of envelope from the child's birthday card.
2 years after that he beat her up, actually, tried to murder her, suffocating her and trying to break her arm. She was, surprise surprise, too ill to attend the court hearing which came up around a week after the attack. She was, surprise surprise, too frightened to even go to hospital, in case her son was taken into care, since her parents lived nearly 100 miles away.
The perp, well he got a £200 pound fine, and a caution. Nothing more.
Finding out later that his own father had beaten both him and his sister throughout their childhood, with that sister now suffering from bi-polar disorder and schizophrenia with paranoid delusions and violent tendencies.
So tell me Blair. My friend was a beautiful, happy, vibrant, confident young woman when this happened. When she needed support, the law gave this man a £200 fine.
In order to keep him away from her, she has to go to a solicitor to get an injunction - she suffers from panic attacks constantly when she thinks about it what has happened. Her sister tells her that taking out an injunction might make him worse - that he might break it anyway, and hurt her permanently because of his mental state. What can be done? Fuck all, I tell you.
The child doesn't care if he never sees his father again, but feels great pity for him, knowing his upbringing. What's even worse, is my friend's sister, who is a psychiatrist, will tell you that this bloke-with-violent-tendencies cannot help it, being conditioned into dealing with people like this.
Blairs options are not the answer here.
Automatic injunction via police with as little stress as possible for murderous and violent men is the answer. Maybe some psychological therapy not for the victim, but for the perp.
The victims will be mostly fine, if there's an easy way to keep the agressors/drunks/druffies away.
But Blair's response? Take HER benefit away, because of this idiot she left? Put HER child in care, because of this lunatic who doesn't know how to be around children or women? How about prosecuting his parents, for their behaviour, or their parents? Well actually, his mother was adopted, after spending the first few years of her life in state-care, being given up by her mother, who was unmarried at the time.
While we're about it, perhaps Blair would like to bring back forced adoption for unmarried mothers, and some other really draconic and cruel ways of teaching women, like throwing women into mental institutions after being abandoned by men whilst pregnant.
If the Government really wants to prevent deliquency, then it needs to change the style of teaching in it's schools where there is high truancy/behavioural problems. Simply turning them into 'Arts and Drama Colleges' isn't going to help the demographic of children from homes with no books in them, whose parents were also failed by the education system.
Perhaps opening up these schools as community centres might be a start, to persuade the parents back to education, so they can help their young ones, and foster a more constructive attitude to education.
How about putting some money into YOUTH CLUBS.
There are simply NO YOUTH CLUBS in all the areas that need support and guidance for their teenage population.
Hawkeye Pearce
We're your friends man...
This just seems like another excercise in headline grabbing to me. Blair is desperate to attain a "legacy" for himself. His foreign policy is regarded by all shades of opinion in this country as being wholly owned by the White House. So he returns to something he knows will get him a good headline in the tabloids. Honestly, there has been so many initiatives, projects, announcements, directives and new laws since blair came into power that it is bloody hard to keep track of them all. The key thing to remember about Blair is that he is driven by a desire for good press when making these announcements, which may explain why most of them either go unenforced or make no sense whatsoever. On the issue itself it would be great if the government directed more resources towards poorer communities but i don't think that they are going to do that. What will happen is more ridiculous initiatives like sending parents of truanting kids to jail
and more pious lectures on responsibility by blairs ministers.
and more pious lectures on responsibility by blairs ministers.If this was in the UK in the last fifteen years, that cannot be accurate as it stands. A court case within 2 weeks could not have been a contested trial. It may have been a plea of guilty, and, if it was, the sentence suggests that it was significantly less than attempted murder. Your friends absence would not normally have made any difference to this - if it had been important and she was unwell the case would have been deferred.tangentlama said:
As it happens, Tony Bliar has changed the law in a significant number of ways to improve the chances of the evidence of an intimidated victim being heard and to improve the chances of convictions in cases like this. It's not perfect by any means but it is significantly better than it was.
The criminal law is NOT intended as a social service. It cannot, and does not, work as the answer to this sort of problem. The law did it's bit (albeit not particularly well it would seem), the question is what did the rest of the system do.
That has always been the case. In fact, a number of Bliar pieces of legislation (not least ASBOs) have REDUCED the need for victims to take out their own injunctions and have very significantly strengthened the law in this area. So much so that people (on other threads) complain about the erosion of liberties and living in a police state. There will, however, always be a limit to what can be done without the assistance of the victim - only a person with evidence can give that evidence to a court. Protective injunctions will only work if the victim assists in enforcing them (e.g. by reporting breaches).
I agree that there is more to be done in making the criminal justice system more victim friendly ... but it is wrong to blame Bliar for all the problems - in this area his reforms have actually improved things significantly.
Kaka Tim
Half Arsed and Slapdash till I Die
They're could be some merit in the scheme - i.e if we could indentify that an unborn child would grow up to be a war-mongering, decietful, authoritarin shit bag than we could make sure the little bastard never ever got into a postion where he could wield power over other people.
Seriously - this is fucking scary, we're going to end up with a national data base listing an individuals (or their childrens!) propensitry to anti-social behaviour - with redlighted offenders carted of to 'Blair Camp' for re-education or something.
'The community health clinic has alerted us that Ms X is pregnant - she's single, lives in a council flat, gets pissed at the weekend and wears a shell suit - dispatch the social services special ops unit immediately!'
Seriously - this is fucking scary, we're going to end up with a national data base listing an individuals (or their childrens!) propensitry to anti-social behaviour - with redlighted offenders carted of to 'Blair Camp' for re-education or something.
'The community health clinic has alerted us that Ms X is pregnant - she's single, lives in a council flat, gets pissed at the weekend and wears a shell suit - dispatch the social services special ops unit immediately!'
Totally agree and this;
The next step will be compulsory sterilisation of the parents
is sadly somthing that i for one would not find suprising given left wing governments ( ie canada 1950s etc ) history of eugenics. Please if any members of muslim terrorists groups visit these boards do us all a favour and head down to labours next party conference.. just for the fresh seaside air and fruit machines of course
The next step will be compulsory sterilisation of the parents
is sadly somthing that i for one would not find suprising given left wing governments ( ie canada 1950s etc ) history of eugenics. Please if any members of muslim terrorists groups visit these boards do us all a favour and head down to labours next party conference.. just for the fresh seaside air and fruit machines of course
pissed i agree with larry o
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
This is the latest manifestation of Blair's obsession with the "crime disease" philosophy. The idea that poverty causes crime, therefore crime is a disease anyone can catch, and not a moral failure on the part of the criminal.
It's an idea that fails to explain why the majority of poor people don't commit crimes. It fails to explain how the turn of the Twentieth Century, when widespread poverty of a type unheard of today ran rampant, coincided with the lowest crime levels in recorded history.
All these efforts to diagnose and inoculate future-criminals before the "disease" manifests are inherently Orwellian. (Although addressing academic failure couldn't hurt.) It also has the nasty side-effect of giving criminals the perfect excuse to escape personal responsibility. "I'm not bad, I'm ill."
Unless we want to end up in a Minority Report nightmare-world, we'd be better occupied providing effective rehabilitation for proven criminals instead of tagging people at birth. We should help disadvantaged children because they deserve a better life, not because they're going to swipe our wallet in 12 years time.
It's an idea that fails to explain why the majority of poor people don't commit crimes. It fails to explain how the turn of the Twentieth Century, when widespread poverty of a type unheard of today ran rampant, coincided with the lowest crime levels in recorded history.
All these efforts to diagnose and inoculate future-criminals before the "disease" manifests are inherently Orwellian. (Although addressing academic failure couldn't hurt.) It also has the nasty side-effect of giving criminals the perfect excuse to escape personal responsibility. "I'm not bad, I'm ill."
Unless we want to end up in a Minority Report nightmare-world, we'd be better occupied providing effective rehabilitation for proven criminals instead of tagging people at birth. We should help disadvantaged children because they deserve a better life, not because they're going to swipe our wallet in 12 years time.
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
i have to admit when i heard this report on the radio this morning all i could think of was victorians measuring heads to predict members of te criminal classes!
If any actual help was provided I'm not sure I'd be too bothered about why.Azrael said:
I agree with some of whats been said already. It's a class issue, just because the outward manifestation of class inequality has changed a lot of people can't see this, I mean in general not just in U75 world.
The poorest people in Britain are used as factory fodder and unthinking consumers. To fill this role, this section of the woking class doesn't need to be educated too much, they don't need to be listened to because they don't have a coherant voice and because of the way they look and act it's easy to villify them e.g the chav.
Treat people like dirt, the lowest of the low and the natual reaction is they will behave that way. Why should you give a toss about society if all around you are people who have more money and power and status than you do? And why engage in a society that only wants to use you for cheap labour and sell you shit you don't need, you will never have any controll over your life if you play by the rules.
It's easy for the state to indintify a sub section of a class it has created in the first place. What Blair is doing is seeking to tinker with the superstructure of class society with a bit of social engineering. Make those members of the working class who arnet quite behaving in the way capitalism wants them to a little more dosile, a little easier to exploit.
A little less carrot, a little more stick. You could say.
The poorest people in Britain are used as factory fodder and unthinking consumers. To fill this role, this section of the woking class doesn't need to be educated too much, they don't need to be listened to because they don't have a coherant voice and because of the way they look and act it's easy to villify them e.g the chav.
Treat people like dirt, the lowest of the low and the natual reaction is they will behave that way. Why should you give a toss about society if all around you are people who have more money and power and status than you do? And why engage in a society that only wants to use you for cheap labour and sell you shit you don't need, you will never have any controll over your life if you play by the rules.
It's easy for the state to indintify a sub section of a class it has created in the first place. What Blair is doing is seeking to tinker with the superstructure of class society with a bit of social engineering. Make those members of the working class who arnet quite behaving in the way capitalism wants them to a little more dosile, a little easier to exploit.
A little less carrot, a little more stick. You could say.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
I would, because it dictates what type of help is offered. Help primarily designed to give people a better life is going to take a different form to help that treats people as criminals in the making.detective-boy said:
The second type, bases as it is on an inherently authoritarian ideology, is going to come with sanctions the first will not. (Just witness Blair's proposed measures!)
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
This is exactly the sort of thing that Blair loves to read, and it's turning this country into a police state.Patty said:
Chavs are not vilified because they wear three-stripes and like bling, they're vilified because they're work-shy, aggressive, anti-social little fuckers, and the blame for that rests squarely on their Burberry-capped heads, not society.
It doesn't matter a tinker's cuss that people around you have more material goods, envy absolutely does not justify thuggery. Besides, chav victims are usually other members of the working class. Suggesting that envy automatically drives working class to crime is a damn sight more patronising than condemning chavs.
I don't doubt that Blair and the other ex-leftie revisionists in the LP are familiar with such an analisys. How is that turning this country in to a police state? Force feeding the social norms that are needed to keep people exploitable is whats turning this country in to something resembling a police state.Azrael said:
Chavs, it's a term coined by rich kids to ridicule working class youth who though lack of a decent education and oppotunities have become disafected. An emerging under class strata of the working class, almost like untouchables in a post industrial capitalist society. Also the chronic lack of an independent working class political movement is a part of the problem.
I like the term work shy, it really exposes people for the conservative minded pent up middle englanders they really are. Why the hell should anyone have to put with working for min wage making stuff that no one really needs to make some one else even richer?
As for the agression and "anti social behavior" it's unchanelled anger. Of course other working class people are often the victims of this, I'm not saying that anti social behavior is a good thing. Just that Blairs solution is no solution at all.
Call me ultra left but material inequality and the envy it causes, or the lack of respect for society is one of the main causes of crime. Given the right circumstances it could also be one of driving forces behind actually smashing this inhumane system and changing society for the better.
An excellent post.There is so much Hypocrisy on these boards it is unbeliveable wc kids on street corners bad wc kids who grow up to supply me with drugs good.
Hawkeye Pearce
We're your friends man...
Patty said:
Fine sentiments. I totally agree.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
You are Julie Burchill and I claim my five pounds.Patty said:
Honest working class people despise chav delinquents the most; working class comunities suffer most at their hands. Using material inequality to excuse people who take pleasure in making life a misery for others is beneath all contempt, and cutting through the Wolfie Smith bullshit is as far from middle Englander as a bloody Anarchist Bookfair.
Are you also one of those people who uses Marxist theories of communal wealth distribution to excuse trousering the contents of a local convienience store? If not, why are you defending people who leech off others? It's not some abstract capitalist class who suffer, it's the hard-working, decent people you claim to champion.
Kaka Tim
Half Arsed and Slapdash till I Die
Azrael said:
What do you know about what 'honest working class people' think or feel?
Your analysis reeks of victorian notions of the 'deserving poor' (the hard working, cap doffing, well behaved ones) - who are held up to the poor as a model which if they dont subscribe to they will be punished (then work houses, now, it would seem, the 'we know whats good for you' act).
Yes its working class poeple who suffer most from anti-social behaviour and dysfunctional communities. And they will also suffer most from empowering the state to dictate how they live their lives and bring up their children.
The State should not interevene in people personal and family lives unless it is clearly an emergency. Yes - this means we will still have a society where you get people being feckless, criminal and anti-social and where children are neglected and - in the worst cases - suffer serious abuse.
But the alternative is the cops and social workers in your living room and kitchen. Where you have a 21st centuary version of wee willy winky checking on the bedtimes of the junior underclass. Where housing, health and education services are co-opted into policing the poor to ensure they conform to a model of how people should behave- a model dreamt up by politicians, which they often dont subscribe to themselves and which serves the interests of the running of public service institutions and not individuals themselves.
And of course this scheme will not be directed at middle england - it will be directed against their ill informed, biggotted notion of the urban poor. Personally I think people who pack off their kids to boarding school at the age of 8 are just as guilty of neglect and abuse as the semi-mythical Chavista Benefit Botherers beloved of the Daily Mail - and half the people on these boards.
I live in social housing, I have kid who go to the local school and have often found myself on benefits.
I dont consider myself to be a malaign influence on society - but a 'Family Support Out reach Unit' ('Our advisors will be visting your home for to acertain the nature of the support you need. Please make sure you are in. Faliure to do so could result in withdrawl of benefits and/or eviction from your home') - might well think otherwise.
I smoke pot - and occasinally take other recreational drugs (tic),
I sometimes take my daughter on a day out when she should be at school (tic),
I have criminal record (tic - from 20 years ago, but it'll all be going on their database)
I have done some cash in hand whilst signing on (tic - as has pretty much eveyone who's ever signed on).
I have rent arrears (tic)
I have seperated from my daughers mother (tic) ...
However there is plenty of fresh fruit and veg in the fridge so I'll probably pass the family diet test.
The way to deal with the (exagerated) problems of low-income urban areas is to empower people to take over their own lives and communites whilst providing properly resourced, community based public service and housing- not sending in Comrade Blairs Social Worker SWAT team.
Azrael said:
Kaka's said much of what I might have on the first point. All I'll say is the fact that communities are turning in on themselves is no reason to roll over and take the state's prescribed solution.
If it's all down to individuals and their choices then why does this effect working class people much more than those better off? Why arne't the kids who go to the best schools and have university and the comfy carrea all sewn up for them turning out as "chavs" such numbers?
Defending those who leech off others? Like over paid politicians, company exects who award themselves six figure bonuses, multi million/billionare tax dodgers, banks and credit companies who just love to keep people in an interest paying debt rut the men and women of the CBI?
Your myopic view of hard-working decent people just shows youve brought in to the myth sold by political parties, police and Daily Mail type rags.
the turning in on theirselfs in poorer communities was a tactic used by aparthied south africa.but i agree with all thats been said.in my road there are three single parent families which i was one and the children of our families have grown up not be hooligans or vandals most have found jobs or gone on to higher education .so to say that children of certain families will be a problem is just nu labour bollocks
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Maybe because I've heard more anti-chav rants from them than anyone else, while I witness my area go down the toilet at the hands of juvenile thugs.Kaka Tim said:
Bollocks. It reeks of refusing to make excuses for people making life a misery for their neighbours.
You've missed something that's rather important: I'm completely against these proposals.
Whoooops!
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Where exactly am I defending "over paid politicians, company exects who award themselves six figure bonuses, multi million/billionare tax dodgers, banks and credit companies who just love to keep people in an interest paying debt rut the men and women of the CBI"? The things I spend a lot of my time here railing against.Patty said:
Straw man bullshit.
If we're talking myopia, blaming class for every human ill takes some beating. You might have noticed chavs tend not to lack for disposable income. That, in schools, they make life a misery for "poor" kids not tarted out in three stripes and ASBOs. That many come from middle class homes. Or that many of those chaps who have it "all sew up" turn to white collar crime.
Chavism is a criminal sub-culture, a particularly obnoxious one at that, and has about as much to do with your mythical class struggle as the warts on Marx's fundament.
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