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Crime fuelled by boredom…the Government’s fault or the parents’ responsibility?
Theft, handling stolen goods, burglary, fraud, criminal damage…can ASBOs really be the new craze amongst the youth of today?
Although crimes committed by young people seems to be decreasing slowly over time, the severity and the number of young offenders being convicted has more than doubled over the last decade.
So who is not doing their job right…the government or the parents of these juvenile delinquents?
The Home Office believe that the following are reasons why the youth turn to crime;
* Troubled home life
* Poor attainment at school, truancy and school exclusion
* Drug or alcohol misuse and mental illness
* Deprivation such as poor housing or homelessness
* Peer group pressure
So they have recognised what they think is causing the problems, but what are they actually doing to stop it? Do programs such as Sure Start and Connexions actually make a difference or are young people just not interested?
The age at which a child can be responsible for criminal activity is currently 10 in England and Wales (one of the lowest in Europe) and ASBOs are no longer viewed as a negative entity but have been described as a ‘badge of honour’!
So are governments powerful enough or does this action for change have to start in the home? Are parents simply not as strict as they should be?
After visiting Leicester to do a consultation with Katie and Yvonne last week and actually visiting a deprived area where the children are a key problem, it is hard to see any way that this problem could be resolved, even though the whole community including youths themselves are hoping for change.
Posted on 23/01/08 in Children and young people 2
Comments
i think that this matter could be argued either way, it quite possibly down to the parents and the way that they bring up and discipline their children. If the children are not having a good example set by their parents on how to behave, they are not going to behave ina responsible manner. Also if they are not disciplined properly at home, their bad behaviour will just continue. But then also does the government do enough to help these children, do asbos really have any affect on them? i think that the government also need to re-think their strategiesfor dealing with these children. The matter can b argued either way, and a compromise needs to b found.
21/04 at 22:03 from rachael baldwin
i think that people are too quick to blame children, they must have got their examples from somewhere?? behaviour is learnt from the people that set the exapmles. i think that their needs to be more police on the street to stop this anti-social behaviour, if there was a larger police presence, this would surely put children off acting in such awful ways in their local community.
21/04 at 22:12 from michelle blakey
