A policeman in the UK has been attacked by a mob of 30 youths after he asked one of them to pick up litter she had dropped. Do you think the UK is becoming a violent society? One social commentator speaking to Newshour says bad behaviour is out of control. But another crime expert blames just media hype. What do you think?
19
Jul
08
RSS feed
I think that society in general are becoming more nasty…On the bus, i was on…the driver was anxious. rude and pure nasty….
Dennis
Syracuse, New York
I think the world is becoming more violent. There are some people who just can’t handle even the thought of chaos. When there is chaos in a young person’s life they might be able to turn to the world for hope, but when the world tells you, sorry, nothing but chaos and hopelessness out here as well the next step is mania. The very thought of consequences goes out the window. The payoff? A temporary fix not much different than any drug. They don’t have to feel the same for a few minutes. They feel exilerated, energized, rising from their depression, if only for a moment, their anger as fuel, and so this addiction continues.
In the new Batman movie ‘The Dark Knight’ Alfred, the butler explains, “Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.” The Joker didn’t become who he was overnight. He viewed a world in constant chaos at home, on the television, and in the streets. So it is with our world.
Is British society becoming nasty?
YE! Is your ‘DRUG’ getting nestier ?
The apples, how far falling from your trees?
YE! Your guide-lines, how it will deal with it?
(your dilemma is the democratisation of abstract ideal)
These is side effect.
No ‘BAND-AIDE’ mentality for remedy.com
Only political will – now you humour me, I might be fickle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GOOD OLD EUROPEANS CIVILISATION !
(I would hate you to go- just like PLUTO)
bjay connotation with accent. hu
I think a problem which effects a minority of society is being used as an example to argue that society is disintergrating.
It is a sad fact that if you look at the victims of fatal knife crime (e.g the 21 teenagers killed in the capital this year) the majority at black and are young males. This is not to say that their deaths are not tragic, but as one londoner I interviewed about the murder of Fredrick Moodey (21st teenager killed)
“it is part of living in london” ” if you are not involved in gangs then you will be fine).
The story of ben kinsella has sparked a recent media frenzie since he was not normal… namely white, not involved in gangs, and apparently not invovled in the fight which lead to his early death.
I think that society as a whole is no nastier than it ever has been… a few years ago the focus was on gun crime, at the moment it is focused on knives.
Generally people are polite and nice… i have been commuteing into london for 3 weeks, and have only met one rude person ( a press officer who sounded like she had had a bad day)
All the bus drivers i have met have been very polite and generally nice considering the bad traffic on the M40
Does anybody know when the idea came to dominate that all the adults would go one way in the morning and all the children would go another so that where the children were they were the majority?
No sane hunter gatherer would let five teenage boys go off on their own much less 30. Neither would our ancestors of 150 years ago have tolerated anything that could possibly called a ‘mob’ of teens. Just for starters it would have been open season for the press gangs and they’d all be in her majesty’s service. The thought of gathering two thousand loosely supervised teens in one place every day would have been regarded as insanity. We call it high school.
I am of the odd belief that the proper ratio for teens to adults in direct and authoritative supervision is about five to one and should not be exceeded. Troublesome teens could require one to one supervision by a ‘master’ in the trades sense.
Idle hands tend the devils work.
It is media hype. You just have to read Charles Dickens to find that youth then was the ‘worst ever’. When I was at school many years ago we were the worst ever, too. Strangely enough, I don’t find people, young or old, anything other than a mixed bunch.
People have always liked to moan. It is that old old guilty pleasure – the one you recognise when someone says to you ‘ Isn’t it awful…have you heard what happened to so and so….’
And it sells newspapers.
Cheers!
@ Steve-b
I realize there as lots of crime in Victoria ages, but did people get murdered for their shoes or jackets back then? Some guy in Washington, DC got shot in the head AFTER he handed over his wallet.
@ Hannah:
most of the bus drivers i have encountered–have
been very nice…..
if you take a look in centro website:
http://www.centro.org
Dennis
Syracuse, New York
@ Steve- It’s a shame that he didn’t have a handgun. Then he could have been shot in the head and the thief would have his wallet and two guns. Of course the victim could have prevented that situation by simply carrying an armed, loaded and ready to fire weapon in his hand whenever he is outside.
The problem with that is a theif willing to shoot you could just shoot from cover and then take what he wanted. So the real solution is for citizens to carry armed, loaded, guns at all times they are outdoors and pre-emptively shoot anyone who appears to be taking cover. It would also be a good idea to shoot anyone who is loitering in plain sight as they might be waiting to trigger an IED.
Simply shoot everyone else you see.
It works in Iraq.
Steve –
The answer to that is yes.
The poverty in Victorian, Edwardian times was far worse than it is today. And people who were in poverty were victims of crime – as is today. Houses in ‘posh’ areas were still burgled, pick pockets roamed as they do today. The difference was the punishment for the crime. As you can see with today and yesteryear, nothing much has changed.
To the OP:
Has Britain become nastier? The answer to that is no. I have been on this Earth for 46 years – I remember the Mods and Rockers of the 60s, my brothers were a part of that. I remember the teddy-boys walking around the local town. I remember the punks and the Mod revival.
What seems to be the case here is that the copper asked someone to pick up some trash and got attacked – what you don’t tell us is the real circumstances for the attack – I am in no way condoning the attack, far from it.
Who do I blame? There is a simple answer to that too, I blame both the parents of the kids, the government who has taken away just about all parental rights to discipline their kids and the arrogance of the establishment thinking that when this is done kids will just react toward authority in a passive manner.
Steve B was right in saying that it is media hype. They are now concentrating on knife crime and will do so until they are told to shut up. I am one for not silencing the real press, but Murdock’s press does need to be put on a short leash for a while, just to show him and them that they are responsible for what they write.
This is not unique to the British society. About a week or two ago police officers came to a guy who was complained by one of his colleagues for assault. The police could not effect the arrest because a gang of young men threatened to kill one of the police if their friend was touched. Police in Liberia do not have arms. This is just an example of what happen on a daily basis in a country emerging from 14 years of senseless civil war. Violence is almost becoming a part of young people life.
I traveled to London and Bath without incident recently. I walked around at all different times of the day and night. People were quite friendly with the exception of the snobby hostess at the restaurant in the British Museum and the crude lorry driver, but that can happen anywhere. Perfectly civil place.
@Pangolin-California, really funny and interesting post. Lol
The difference is that there’s media hype in the UK, telling you to be scared, whereas in the US, it’s underreported. There are more murders in say Chicago, Newark, and say maybe Detroit per year than in all of the UK. There are areas in many major cities where you can’t wear a certain color shirt and walk out alive, due to a color being of a particular gang, and if you walk into other territory, you’ll get whacked by the rival of that color. Yet you don’t hear much about it, there are no TV news reports saying “if you wear a red tshirt and go to every corner of town, you won’t come out alive.” Yet it seems like the UK is going bananas over several stabbings, one of which included an actor from a Harry Potter movie.
I still don’t believe that in Victorian times, someone got killed over shoes. I’m sure they had their shoes stolen, but didn’t kill the person. Stole their jacket, but didn’t kill them. I think the reason why the Jack the Ripper murders were so famous, was that it was so rare, though I’m sure there was probably even more property crime back then, given the metropolitan police forces were only created I believe in the mid 1800s anyways?
@ Will
Yes, I do agree that it’s the parents fault, but I think kids today are worse than they used to be, because parents have not been parenting, when they used to parent a bit more, and had the ability to discipline their kids when they did something wrong. Now it’s “Connor, if you don’t stop playing with matches and gasoline, I will make you have take a time out!” rather than smacking the kid and telling him to never do it again because he could burn himself and the house down. I think people are more and more relying on the state to raise their kids because of several reasons, the main ones are, the parents these days are self absorbed narcissists, so don’t care about what their kids do because they only care about themselves, and then the PC, no discipline, “Connor, if you don’t behave, you’ll have to take a time out!” wuss discipline that’s going on, where kids grow up to be monsters.
My cousin returned from China recently, and he said that they will be worse than us because the kids are so spoiled over there in the middle classes due to the one child policy, and I believe the grandparents tend to do the raising of the kids, so he says, so Connors over there gets gifts and no discpline from grandparents.
Steve – you had the Bow Street Runners, and if you could afford to have police then you had them.
Seriously, people were killed over a loaf of bread. If you had shoes you were on a good one, so yes, people were killed over their shoes. The comprehension about the Victorian era is well misunderstood in other countries. Yes, Britain did grow and was hight of Empire while she was queen, but the society that lived in the country was not like you see on Mary Poppins – even though the classical right want you to believe that, and that the 50s were a great time.
Kids didn’t get much schooling and were up chimneys and down mines as soon as they could work, like about 5/6 years of age.
Britain now has the PC brigade to blame – the ‘We’re all middle-class’ – that simply isn’t the case. To be honest, if I had to say, I would bet that the middle-class in the UK is the most hated class. Where you see these crimes is mostly in what is called, but never admitted to, the under-class of British society.
And that you can thank Thatcher for.
It’s a shame that he didn’t have a handgun. Then he could have been shot in the head and the thief would have his wallet and two guns.
———————————————————————————————–
——— This is utterly without merit at very least, or worse.
A family member died in a violent crime. That’s the shame and the stain and it’s been tens of thousands of years global history and counting.
The thread seems to be a hot button leader. Random criminal behavior can never be fully prevented. Real issues requiring leadership, ingenuity, and cooperation can be tackled and solved which reduce the criminal imperative.
hi guys,
i do not think its only in Britain.if we look at most part of Asia,Africa and South America there is so much violence in every persons heart.currently there is no peace in the world and everyone is after each other.
but yes i do think that in Britain things have changed.
not only Britain but other European countries have changed their ‘Peaceful’profile into ‘Violent’profile.
But Africa is still the most Violent continent in the world according to me.
Thank You
Abhinav
I severly doubt that Britian is more violent than it was in the past or you wouldn’t have time to create such a fuss over a subculture of knife carrying yahoos. If you looked at these lads (and lasses) closely you might find that they were severly underemployed and requiring some job experience and the guidance of a strong hand.
In California we have the California Conservation Corps. which, though underfunded, absorbs a chunk of these people and puts them to labor which the majority of the society supports. (disclosure: my sister and brother-in-law met in the CCC’s and both have risen to medium mucky muck status)
I am sure Britian doesn’t lack for conservation projects that could benefit by the application of some hard labor. The CCC is like a compost pile transforming some bad smelling material into sweet, fluffy and valuable addition to the soil of society.
Will – thanks for your comments about Victorian times : I agree
Steve – things were really bad. people died by the bucketload. However, I think there was a different mindset. Life was so cheap in Victorian times that murder or violence of any kind was not such a stark event. For instance, in Nicholas Nickleby (to return to my facvourite author ) Dickens was launching a campaign against the common practice of farming out unwanted children to ‘boarding schools’ where you would not likely ever see them again because they would die of neglect, starvation and abuse and be buried in the local churchyard. There are churchyards in the North of England stuffed with poor waifs.
Or again, the cheapness of life is illustrated by the drink epidemic. ‘Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence. clean straw for nothing’ , as many a sign outside pubs had it. No-one cared. The poor were a nuisance in peacetime and cannon fodder in war. They stank, they spoilt the view of the Royal Opera House and they were expendable.
On the other side of the picture were some notable highlights in architecture, industry, literature, art and poetry, exploration and music.
I won’t go on, but I think we have a much more balanced society today.
My dad’s generation grew up with the great depression and ww2, I grew up with the threat of neucular war and vietnam, my kids are growing up with the certainty that we are turning their world into a cesspool. They are much more certain of their future than we were and it ain’t pretty.
At school one day when I was twelve I was playing tennis during break with three friends and the game was so exciting we carried on playing after the bell had rung and everyone was back in class. We each got a traditional and powerful six of the best from the headmaster. My backside was every colour of the rainbow for weeks.
Funny thing is, we never played tennis during school hours again, so the punishment worked.
I’m not too keen on personal anecdotes on the internet and sometimes on accessing this site I think I’ve wandered into an old ladies’ tea party by mistake with the endless tales of family life and pets and studies and ailments and the exchanging of recipes and the sprinkling of smileys and exclamation marks all over the place. But I brought the story up to illustrate a point:
*These days that headmaster would be had up on charges of assault.
*And the police don’t interrogate suspects anymore, they “interview” them.
*And the police is not a force anymore, it is a “service.”
*And, horror of horrors, the very thought of capital punishment is enough to make people faint.
If you continually prove to people that their actions will have no consequences or only the mildest possible consequences then obviously you are encouraging unhinged behaviour.
Obsessive lefty psychologists, educators and lawmakers are to blame for the state of affairs in which the criminal is shown far more concern for his or her “rights” than the victim. They have done tremendous damage to society, not only in Britain but all over the planet. It is practically irreversible.
I wouldn’t ask whether Britain is becoming “nasty.” I would ask whether it is becoming “unhinged.” The answer, of course, is “yes.” It is only the extent of the damage that is debatable.
@ will… bow street runners were more 18th century than victorians… they were gradually eradicated by Peels police reforms…. (no formal police in the uk pre peel) but you were right in the sense that people did get mugged for bread.
You could be executed for stealing a hankie chief !
Just my history thrupence
At school one day when I was twelve I was playing tennis during break with three friends and the game was so exciting we carried on playing after the bell had rung and everyone was back in class. We each got a traditional and powerful six of the best from the headmaster. My backside was every colour of the rainbow for weeks.
Remarkable. I wouldn’t be too sure that you were better off for the treatment. Some people express deep anger in unusual ways. You don’t ever feel that some other party should be beaten, tortured or perhaps summarily killed without trial do you? You don’t find yourself in agreement with the Bush administration perhaps.
A person who marked a child like that would get at least a year now and would be put on a child sex offenders registry. We treat dogs better and you could ruin a good horse doing that. But you advocate that kind of treatment for children.
This topic seems British if not entirely. I am doing a lot of reading on this blog. I am really amused by the exchanges amongst posters. It is good thing to unveil odd in a given society. It is a beginning that will lead to the advancement of new policies which will eventually correct these pitfalls in british society.
This is the oldest question in the history of society.
I’ve skimmed through the comments but didn’t see – or missed – any remark on one significant aspect of this story about the mob attacking the police, an aspect that probably renders it fairly unrepresentative of British society.
The clues were all there to anybody who wanted to put them together. Where the attack took place: Croydon, in south London. The conduct of the girl who picked up the litter and threw it down again (the product of a youth sub-culture that disregards consequences, lacks personal discipline, and is instinctively hostile to authority). And the predisposition that could cause a mob to instantly form in response to police officers attempting to enforce the law (and preserve a clean environment for the entire local community).
The ‘Great Unsaid’ in all of this is that the mob in question was black and the disorder they engaged in amounted to a mini-race riot by younger members of a community who reflexively distrust, and even hate, the police. This was perfectly obvious to me when I first heard the story (stereotyping? yes!).
On a broader note: there is something disturbing in how this fact – which is significant for interpreting the story – has been edited out of most news reports, to the extent that the question at the head of this thread can ask if the incident is in some way typical or representative of Britain as a whole. Is it unfair to describe this as an instance of media dishonesty (and pretty futile dishonesty at that, since plenty of people in Britain would have immediately deduced the identity of the attackers from the other details that were reported).
@ Victork13, i never been to Britain but i have read a lot on news about mob actions and no time statistics shows that the mobsters were all black. My point is, your scapegoatism that mob on police is extraneous and unbritish founders at the abyss. I hope that this topic will not take a racial approach. Black people are decent people who have rights too.
@Sheikh Kafumba: we’re not talking about mob violence generally. We’re talking about the action of a particular mob that was used as a peg to hang some general questions about British society as a whole.
Nobody is being scapegoated. Certain facts, though, are being pointed out. Different communities in Britain have, to a significan extent, different patterns of crime. That’s another fact. Those patterns reflect race, culture and class differences. These differences are universal and to be found in any society. The gun violence that can be found in a country like Jamaica, for example, has become established in Britain by way of…the Jamaican community here. That, by the way, is not a point about race, but about culture, since other black communities in Britain are not involved in gun crime.
Similarly there are criminal activities that are more characteristic of a sub-set of the white working class. For example, if you were ever to read that three generations of one family have died following a collision with a stolen car (the driver of which walked away without a scratch) that was being pursued by the police you can be pretty sure that the driver is going to be white, male and aged 16-25. And Middle class crime has its own typical forms. etc.
But your objection is, presumably, to my stating simple facts about a story, facts about race and cultural attitudes (virulent hatred of the police), even though those facts have a bearing on whether the story in question can be extrapolated to all of Britain. You, like several others, have an interesting notion of ‘debate.’
There has always been a battle between good and evil ever since the Earth was created. As much as Lucifer influenced Adam and Eve he is still trying to bring us all down to hell with him. It may seem that things are getting worse and indeed they are, but we must remember that as Gods children he will not let us fail. We must turn to Him, draw close to Him and put our faith in Him. Look into your soul and ask yourself if you know why you are here and where will you go after mortal death. There IS a better place beyond this life and if you look earnestly for the truth you WILL find it. This will bring comfort to you and your family in a troubled world.
Pangolin- California July 20, 2008 at 10:11 am,
Quite a leap you’re making there from a story about getting cuts in school with no lasting ill effects to an enthusiastic supporter of torture without trial. Do you do this often with people you don’t know on the internet?
Funny how people use George Bush as an ultimate measure of evil and torture. Jails across half the planet make Gitmo seem like a five star hotel. Have you ever sampled conditions in jail in an Arab or African country? Or perhaps you’d like to try out an Iranian jail?
Steve, in the US the answer is clear, we just need to build more prisons and put more people in them. I like the three strikes and you’re out rule. It will keep hardened criminal types like gang members off the streets for their entire lives. Opponents of this call it warehousing human beings, I call it making the streets safe for law abiding citizens.
In the UK and the EU it’s different. When a soccer hooligan from the UK blinds a French cop in a drunken street brawl after a soccer match, he should be put in jail for say 5 or 10 years and between fines and civil suits against him, whatever assets he has in the UK should be taken away and most given to the victim. That is what would happen in the US. But the EU is so soft on street crime, I think the guy got off very light. The EU still has a lot to learn about making the streets safe. It has to learn the lessons from the mistakes the US made in the 1960s and 1970s with its liberal there but for the grace of god go I attitude and it’s all society’s fault nonsense.
@ Steve T, your thought is theoretical and outstanding.
Mark -
Some people just amaze me.
LOL
@victork13
Most Britons are wised up to the bits that the media leave out of a story. We look for codewords like “Brixton” or “community”. Or we wait to see the photos of the attackers or even the victims.
Even just hearing that something happened in London is enough for us to shrug our shoulders and stop caring.
The real tragedy is that we’ve had 2 decades of whining and pleading for special status from the pushiest and noisiest of black people. One result is that the rest of the country now looks the other way while they stab and shoot each other. Their community – their problem.
And yes – this is the elephant in the drawing room.
charity begins at home. train up a child in the way that he SHOULD grow not the way he wants to grow, so that when he grows old, he will not depart from it.
@Will Rhodes:
“the under-class of British society.
And that you can thank Thatcher for.”
Will, sorry to intrude here with some facts, but Mrs Thatcher left office in 1990. These 15-year olds were born in 1993 – which happens to be 3 years later.
Intrude as much as you like, Jack – but those children have parents, the decline is in the parents not the children who have to live with it.
Thatcher started it all and still has no shame.
It’s a fact that all men (and women) are born equal, but it’s also a fact that different cultural groups uphold values differently and have differing systems of discipline. I do not want to sound racist as my first line should dispell it. However, in the housing estates near my neighbourhood (in Melbourne), property damages caused by vandalism occurred much more rarely 20 years ago, when it was inhabited mainly by whites and asian immigrants, than they are today, when these estates are now populated by large numbers of refugees hailing from war torn parts of Africa. It’s getting so bad that the community vegetable gardens are now fenced off, and trees no longer line the footpath as they, and the subsequent replantings, have since been cut down by vandals. This has resulted in the unavoidable association of ethnic groups with non-discipline and vandalism.
Melbourne does have its own knife attack crisis. These attacks have been blamed on a combination of a binge drinking and gang culture. No specific ethnic groups have been spared from this blame.
@will
// “Thatcher started it all and still has no shame.”
We could go round in circles debating this slogan. But instead let’s try a different tack.
Let’s assume, for the moment, that this crime wave is Baroness Thatcher’s fault. How do we move forwards to a solution using this analysis ?
Corporal punishment is lazy and ineffective, but, like they say, that’s another show.
Also,..it’s a long way to go between being in a group that attacks a police officer and just being unpleasent.
People can be nasty for many reasons, but I think most reactions that are percieved as ‘nasty’ come out of disrespect. We need to teach respect to our children, that all people should enjoy it without prejudice.
@ Mark from Indiana- When both parents are out of the house ten to twelve hours a day earning a living and there is no extended family present to supervise ‘children’ who is there to teach anything.
Particularly the youth between the ages of 13-21 are at loose ends because families on tight budgets cannot afford the programs that would keep them off the streets, engaged with society and otherwise too tired to run amok. I, myself, was one of the kids ‘raised by wolves’ because my mother was exhausted, my father was a drunk and there was no-one else.
Almost anything would be better than letting youth be at loose ends including tossing mixed groups of them into padded rooms with a bag of chips and a box of condoms. At least then you’d know where they were and what they were up to.
Work their bodies to exhaustion then work on their minds. Repeat daily until the system is internalized by the individual. See my post above on the California Conservation Corps. It works.
@nelsoni
“charity begins at home. train up a child in the way that he SHOULD grow not the way he wants to grow, so that when he grows old, he will not depart from it.”
How should a child be trained?
The old way was:
1. Do anything as long as you keep it under wraps
2. Write all the good things on paper and then just ignore it
3. Respect authority, even the rapists, child molesters and robbers of the money of widows and orphans
4. Do as much evil as you like as long as you don’t get caught
and so on…
@ Bryon- ‘getting cuts in school’ as you phrase it qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment in the US. If a policeman was proved to do that to a detainee he would lose his job and his livelihood. His career in police work would be done.
Any zoologist will tell you the best way to get a mammal to change behavior is to use a system of rewards for graduated increases in desired actions. You can’t beat and orca into compliance no matter how hard you try. Likewise a dog that is rewarded for positive behavior is generally better trained and better mannered than a dog that is shocked or beaten into compliance. It’s also less likely to engage in destructive action when the threat is no longer present.
No good horseman beats a horse anymore. Ever. You would be shunned.
Punishment is simply a stupid way to attempt to educate mammals. It doesn’t work very well and feeds destructive cycles of behavior response.
@ Selena- Please, our whole world’s economy is based upon learing to be blind to the obvious. There is no reason to expect that that those paid to be blind will suddenly choose to see.
yeovil england,yes things are getting worse,in the sixties the band [the who]
got it right with their track [ WONT GET FOOLED AGAIN]
listen to the words ,mad max the movie ,it is all around you the british government
is scrapping incapacity benifit for disabled people while mp,s they fill their pockets with
tax payers money while they dont pay tax ,
my number 1 priority in the sixties was my children ,when the government screwed
the country up with cut backs i had to get money , [i had an accident at work and lost my job] so i stole from companies to look after my familay ,yes i done some time but then i learnt how to survive out side of the system,and run a business repairing cars for2 years,i wrked on nurses cars /police/cars/and people that worked in the benifit office where i singed on,yes i got caught,the punishment =get a job or we will prosicute you ,so i did then i had an accident at work and could not work and now they are going to take my benifit away again just to save money,
i am now 60 and like many others will have to go back under the radar as the system i payed into all life dont want to pay any money out even though it was an insurance system from the goernment.
so the answer is yes it is a nastier world.
peter mose
fully trackable unlike anybody who works in government.
Whether it is or not I’m not sure. You would have to review the detailed stats and factor in the increased population over the last decades.
But the perception of nastiness is increasing. This is in part because of the availibility of news. 20 years ago there were perhaps 3 hours a day of UK TV news output. Now there is nearing 100 hours a day. The news of violence by kids which in the past would have been sidelined for more importent world issues. Nowadays more stories are needed to fill the output. Young violence is an easy piece of journelism. Obvious victim, obvious bad guy. Send the young reporter and a camera, take a few shots, a brief interview with somebody on the street and repeat on the hour all day.
Because it’s more visable via TV and internet it is more available in peoples minds and gives perhaps a wrong impression on how socity is.
You ask the question ‘is it becoming’ as if it has yet to happen.
Becoming, to me, means it is happening as we speak…
Thanks to VictorK we at least know what the real deal was; we’re not really speakin’ about Brits in this case, are we?
Goes back to the whole multicultural mess, and the refusal of the media (BBC included) to tell it like it is, and ask the pertinent and accurate question, which should be: Are Blacks in Britain becoming more lawless and violent?
My guess is, probably yes.
Whether or not there are more news coverage does not change the fact that society has become more complicated now than ever before. I live, I see and I travel the streets long enough to see it evolving. Alcoholism is on the rise. So is substance abuse, youth homelessness, school dropouts, family breakups, etc. The youth of today live under an entertainment industry that thrives on violence, a culture that encourages rebellion over obedience, an education system that is afraid of disciplining the young, a judicial system that is lenient on crimes, and a government that is looking for ways to limit the parents’ ability of disciplining their kids. The result of these are that the new generation no longer have the same level of displine and respect as the one before them.
All may be good in Britain, but the “becoming” is happening in where I live.
Society as a whole is becoming more nasty. US Society is equally as nasty and rude towards their fellow man / woman. It’s sad, it really is.
peter mose england
kids in school=an exam system that is corrupt=teacher does not mark the papers
anymore=no money in it for the government=contract out to private companies
teachers not allowed to correct kids no matter what they do.
parents not allowed to correct kids=kids will sue their parents.
police cant prosicute kids no matter what they do /and they know it.
jails full up =let aload of criminals out early=but when they are in court for beating someone to death tell the public they got life= 6months
disabled people to loose incapacity benifit =told to get a job=spongers
AND THEN PEOPLE ASK IS THIS COUNTRY BECOMING NASTY
I THINK SOME PEOPLE NEED TO GET OUT MORE
What do I think? I think Newshour should do its homework, research and provide the facts and the statistics about whether crime is getting worse, qualitatively and/or quantitatively. Then Newshour should present those facts in its introduction and invite informed discussion, which will be more instructive both to participants and to BBC than pointless blather off the top of people’s heads.
if i had my time again [teenager in the 60,s ] knowing what i know now i would not bring a child into this world there are few prospects for our children,oil running out,
governments taxing everybody out of every thing they have, under the save the planet
rip off /they made billions doing it ,now they want us to pay for their greed,
of corse people are getting nastier when you have to fight for every thing and your resorces are getting lower =fewer jobs /lower money / increased bills the knock on efect is stress ,
children see so much on line /tv/ cinema /violent games on consols,
the human is programed to adapt to it suroundings,if we have a fair and just society
we can afford to be nice ,when we dont we have suvival ,
take another look at MAD MAX the movie we are on the outer edge all the signs are there ,
to protect your own you may have to be somthing other than nice.
peter mose
fully
trackable
i still believe that nice guys can finish first, although the signs might not be pointing in that direction.
@ Jens
There’s not even an incentive for someone to be “nice guy” anyways. Society doesn’t reward it, it actually penalizes it. If you are kind, or whatever, you get taken advantage of, and then people will say you deserved it for giving someone the benefit of the doubt. Society is weird like that. If you want to never get very far, be an underachiever, die a virgin, then being “nice” is the way to go.
As a European, I judge by European Standards and certainly the UK leaves much to be desired. However, it is not Burma.
@ victork, tom, donovan roebert
The empire strikes back! Deal with it.
@ blacklion
Needless to say we are dealing with it. I’m still alive and my house hasn’t yet been robbed.
Meanwhile, the gangsters are beating up and killing themselves in the darkness of night. I’ve more sympathy for those who need to clean up the mess afterward.
Victor–
Why does it matter so much to you who is black and who isn’t? How is it relevant to anything? Why do you say it was “edited out” of the story instead of simply not included? Lots of stuff isn’t inlcuded.
Pangolin –
If the economy were truly bsed on ignorance of the obvious, you’d be rich.
@ Jonathon- To quote you: Pangolin – If the economy were truly bsed on ignorance of the obvious, you’d be rich.
That would be an ad hominem attack and against the rules of proper debate. Should we continue with “your mutha” cuts?
Pangolin- California July 21, 2008 at 8:34 am,
Dogs and horses are not directly comparable to human beings. If you adopt an “anything goes” attitude towards the youth you’ll get a society in which anything does, in fact, go. This is what is happening now and has been happening for quite some time, not only in Britain but across the planet.
Jonathan (cool, gray San Francisco) July 22, 2008 at 8:01 am,
I didn’t follow the story, but if the BBC reported it, you can bet it edited it out rather than simply omitting it. The BBC is absolutely obsessive about protecting its favourite victim groups. Why is it relevant to mention race? As apartheid in South Africa crumbled everybody suddenly became scrupulously PC. Nobody could mention the race of a criminal – if he was black. So the absurd situation arose in which you could not mention the race of black people you witnessed committing a crime – or you could, but nobody would report it, making it obviously more difficult for the police to track them down. It was a classic case of PC trumping basic common sense and the BBC demonstrates the same behaviour on a daily basis.
She dropped the litter, can’t she pick it up herself?
@Jonathan: you asked, “Why does it matter so much to you who is black and who isn’t?” It doesn’t. The question ought to be why concealing this particular fact about race matters to those who have omitted it. The police themselves reported to the media that those they were looking for, following the attack, were all black. They thought, reasonably enough given the need to apprehend the culprits, that that was a detail worth circulating.
“Why do you say it was “edited out” of the story instead of simply not included?” That’s a distinction without a difference. There is little doubt that the point was edited out. The police included the information in their account of the incident. And the BBC – and, clearly, other media – has a line about the handling of such information. A BBC executive, speaking on News 24 a few months ago, stated what everyone already knew: the Corporation has a policy of not mentioning race or religion (i.e. Islam) in stories when it doesn’t think that either is relevant. That may be a wise and responsible policy; it’s certainly an editorial one.
“Lots of stuff isn’t inlcuded.” Of course. But when things are systematically and predictably excluded, that have a bearing on the story being reported, then that becomes an issue. When, for example, several people are arrested for planning suicide bomb missions and, despite their having names like ‘Abdulbakr’, ‘Muhammed’, ‘Omar’, ‘Saifalislam’, etc, nowhere in the report is the word ‘Islam’ or ‘Muslim’ mentioned, then you know that there is something political about the editorial policy in question.
@Jonathan (pt II):
“How is it relevant to anything?” It’s relevant in three ways. Firstly, and most immediately, the mob story was used as the starting point from which to raise the issue of British society getting nastier. The social dynamics of this criminal incident are so particular that it was misleading to attempt to extrapolate from that incident to the rest of British society (in the same way that it would be absurd to ask if British society is becoming more terroristic because of the growing problem of Muslim terror groups). This is not to say that either blacks or Muslims aren’t British, just that they are a British minority who cannot, in these cases, be treated as representative of the whole country.
A more important point of relevance lies in the counter-productive consequences of this kind of politically sensitive editorialising. There are a number of issues where people now routinely distrust the media (not just the BBC): amongst these are race & crime and Islam and terror. People expect, in stories involving either, the full facts to be suppressed. Unfortunately, but unavoidably, they will supply the missing ‘facts’ themselves according to expectation and experience. If they hear of certain crimes being committed in particular parts of the country (London, Handsworth in Birmingham, Toxteth in Liverpool, St Paul’s in Bristol, Moss Side in Manchester, Chapeltown in Leeds, etc) they will automatically assume, when the description of the offender(s) has been edited out, that he is or they are black.
@Jonathan (concluded):
But British cities do not have black ghettoes. Practically every part of the country that has a large black minority population has an even larger white population. Whites also commit crimes (something that seems to be news to parts of the media and to the more dogmatic liberals). One of the consequences of this well-intentioned editorialising is, instead of underplaying the issue of race and crime, to overplay it, since people will on quite a few occasions be drawing mistaken conclusions (that the offender is black when he is in fact white) because the media have not fully reported the facts that would often have prevented that from happening. Some crimes are admittedly more characteristic of some communities than others, but no group has a monopoly of any sort of crime and most categories of crime overlap a variety of social groups.
The third point of relevance concerns social/criminal policy. By pretending that there are not variations in the pattern of crime amongst different social groups you risk limiting the ability of the police and other authorities to deal with those patterns of crime effectively. This is, I believe, more of a problem in your country, the US, where I understand racial profiling of terrorists is considered undesirable for PC reasons. There are no qualms about doing this in the UK.
You have to be firm and loving with them from the start. I have one daughter who will be 17 this Friday and she is a good girl. I have never spanked her from the time she was a baby. To get the behavoir you want you have to use behavioral reinforcements.If you wait until they are 13 or 14 to start disciplining them it’s too late.
I fear that some parents are just not that into parenting and the kids are all like,..hey, look at me, don’t you love me? I mean,…what do I have to do to get you to pay attention? Do I have to get arrested so you have to come and bail me out?
Spoiled kids will feel this too. Money is no surrogate for real love.
Now…even Batman has been arrested for assualting his mom and sis. Now thats some nasty behavoir.
The world doesn’t become nasty because people watch it on TV. St Paul once said, “the whole world groans in the pangs of child birth” and Eckhart Tolle says, “the human mind has become like a sinking ship, if you don’t get off you’ll go down with it.” What this means is that humanity is on the verge of an evolutionary leap of consciousness. Either we move on or we die. We either become conscious of our minds of we get destroyed by them.
Please read “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle. This book will change the world.
I Think we have to look at the messages that are coming out of the media and yes British Society is getting worse we have the highest teenage pregancy rate the worst teenage drink probelms in Europe FACT ! .On TV we see programmes glamorising sex drinking ,violence and we wonder what our youth look to.
It is also bad when our state benfits system favors single mums rather than encouraging family s to stay toghther in the past married couple would stay toghther through thick and thin, we now live in a more disposble country with the mentality of if he or she is nt doing this for me i will get a new partner. People are not believing in religion which is affecting peoples moral behavior . In Britain we care more about careers and money as a whole we work longer hours than the rest of europe look at france it has a much better family life because they are not so obessed with working to death, picking up on other comments made we have moved on in technolgy for the better but we still need to stop being so P.C and get back to older values of respecting our elders and giving the youth more discipline and stronger boundraies.
We can not blame the goverment ,the media as it takes more people to stand up for polices and decisions we do not agree with as we accept most of what we are given .