HOW do we HELP and CHANGE the CHILDREN of the INNERCITIES

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

the two most important things to do are:

stop regarding all children as the same and making them jump through arbitrary hoops, recognise, respect and respond to their very real differences in abilities and character without shaming or denigrating any child

encourage as many adults as possible that paying close attention to and positive interest in children is a really good idea and that showing lack of attention or malign interest or neglect is really shocking [this includes teachers]

[eighthobstruction]

More security at places like the Underground, on late night trains and on after school buses, shopping centres....where I understand a great deal of FEAR is instilled and Respect lost....

Where's the money going to come from....????

Something like this would be two fold helping 3 separate groups....1) Those afraid to go on public transport. 2) The young people . 3) the people who get the security jobs

[Ariosto]

More security at places like the Underground, on late night trains and on after school buses, shopping centres....where I understand a great deal of FEAR is instilled and Respect lost....

Where's the money going to come from....????

Cameron can afford a few million.

[ahinton]

ahinton

You do seem to be only providing negative threads these days!! Even if some of these ideas by various people might have some problems, maybe being a prophet of doom is not helping, and makes people even more depressed.

By no means - and what I have written is not even prophetic of doom in any case but simply being realistic as best I am amble in respose to what I have read here. For example, in another place, a contributor to a thread about the recent UK unrest wrote as follows (and I hope that the write will not object to my quoting it in extenso) in response to another contributor's suggestion of "an amnesty for this week’s offenders, coupled with a strong proclamation that that any further incidents – and any more fiddling, bribery and corruption among our so-called betters - would attract very strong penalties":

"It's far more rational than a lot of what is coming out of the courts. A man is sentenced to six months' imprisonment for stealing £3.50 worth of mineral water - depending on what you read that will cost the taxpayer between £20,000 and £25,000. And that man - who probably isn't a hardened criminal now, will probably emerge from six months (or even the three to four months he is likely to serve) a graduate of one of our universities of crime, finding it impossible to get a job. Where's the rationality in that? What does it achieve other than gratify an urge to demonise?

Or the youth sentenced to four months for ranting and swearing at the police? Four months? What incentive has he got to integrate to law-abiding society when he gets out, even assuming that he'll get a job?

It's lunatic and it's irrational, unless your agenda is simply one of revenge and prejudice confirmation.

I'd have thought for most of those going to court after the riots, community service was the obvious option. Fill their time, make them do something worthwhile, get them away from the desperate nihilism of street culture (more of which is what they'll find in prison), give them some structure. What about restorative justice, in which offenders are forced to confront their victims? It has been used with huge success to deal with gang-related crime in New Zealand. Why should it not be used here? Let those who torched homes and small business clear up the mess, do meaningful work in the community, be faced with the human consequences of what they have done in a way that simply won't happen in prison.

Long prison sentences focus on the individual; what we need to focus on is repairing society and bringing people back within it. You can't lock people away and throw away the key - for politicians and the media to pretend that locking people up is actually dealing with the problem is absolutely irresponsible and frivolous. You send a minor offender to prison for six months because it relieves you of the burden of thinking.".

I do not see my broad endorsement of most of this as being especially negative; would you?

[Ariosto]

By no means - and what I have written is not even prophetic of doom in any case but simply being realistic as best I am amble in respose to what I have read here. For example, in another place, a contributor to a thread about the recent UK unrest wrote as follows (and I hope that the write will not object to my quoting it in extenso) in response to another contributor's suggestion of "an amnesty for this week’s offenders, coupled with a strong proclamation that that any further incidents – and any more fiddling, bribery and corruption among our so-called betters - would attract very strong penalties":

"It's far more rational than a lot of what is coming out of the courts. A man is sentenced to six months' imprisonment for stealing £3.50 worth of mineral water - depending on what you read that will cost the taxpayer between £20,000 and £25,000. And that man - who probably isn't a hardened criminal now, will probably emerge from six months (or even the three to four months he is likely to serve) a graduate of one of our universities of crime, finding it impossible to get a job. Where's the rationality in that? What does it achieve other than gratify an urge to demonise?

Or the youth sentenced to four months for ranting and swearing at the police? Four months? What incentive has he got to integrate to law-abiding society when he gets out, even assuming that he'll get a job?

It's lunatic and it's irrational, unless your agenda is simply one of revenge and prejudice confirmation.

I'd have thought for most of those going to court after the riots, community service was the obvious option. Fill their time, make them do something worthwhile, get them away from the desperate nihilism of street culture (more of which is what they'll find in prison), give them some structure. What about restorative justice, in which offenders are forced to confront their victims? It has been used with huge success to deal with gang-related crime in New Zealand. Why should it not be used here? Let those who torched homes and small business clear up the mess, do meaningful work in the community, be faced with the human consequences of what they have done in a way that simply won't happen in prison.

Long prison sentences focus on the individual; what we need to focus on is repairing society and bringing people back within it. You can't lock people away and throw away the key - for politicians and the media to pretend that locking people up is actually dealing with the problem is absolutely irresponsible and frivolous. You send a minor offender to prison for six months because it relieves you of the burden of thinking.".

I do not see my broad endorsement of most of this as being especially negative; would you?

No, that is not negative, but your previous posts were. Maybe you have seen the light.

[Anna]

As for a suggestion that looters, vandals, arsonists get an amnesty - I've never heard anything so ridiculous as that, although I think most people would agree community service (for minor offences) would be correct but for the hardcore gangsters who masterminded a lot of this - no way.

[eighthobstruction]

Discipline and role-modelling for **what?** remain Big Questions. Inasmuch as my thinking has got out of bed, I'm with Lat at this point.

Ref 8thO #3 To create an environment where the community learns together ....the **what** being....HOW to have aspiration,discipline, concentration , understand the value of learning and knowledge, how to relate properly to one another etc etc plus the....>>'
stop regarding all children as the same and making them jump through arbitrary hoops, recognise, respect and respond to their very real differences in abilities and character without shaming or denigrating any child

encourage as many adults as possible that paying close attention to and positive interest in children is a really good idea and that showing lack of attention or malign interest or neglect is really shocking [this includes teachers]'<< that CadaJa puts forward.

[Ariosto]

I've just heard on the radio news that a mother has been made homeless by Wandsworth Council because her son was involved in the riots.

Typical of that Thatcherite Fascist council.

[Frances_iom]

I've just heard on the radio news that a mother has been made homeless by Wandsworth Council because her son was involved in the riots.

she hasn't - they have however fired the opening shot which she can appeal - I suspect, unless of course there are as yet unannounced reasons why she was selected, that both parties will pull back - the guy from the council did however sound as though he came from an immigrant family himself..

[Anna]

Ams has posted this on the Riot thread but for those of you not reading it, here is food for thought from a very articulate young black man (video and his thoughts in writing) which is very relevant to the discussion

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/12/riot-predict-trouble-not-over

[ahinton]

ahinton - Thank you for your comments I think.

1. You have made a conscious choice about your line to take. That is one of no compromise.

The former is as amenable to change as it would need to be in accordance with my reading of developing circumstances. The latter is not so.

Fair enough, and you pretty well invite me to work hard on spelling out what should be fairly obvious. If MPs exercise their rights to go on holiday wherever they like, this is one of many examples where we are not all in this together.

Whilst there are more instances of that than any of us could hope to count, the same applies to anyone else who can afford to go on holiday; it's not something specific to MPs.

Would it not be helpful if they showed in their behaviour some desire for reining in their impulses too?

Perhaps - but, again, why on the part of MPs alone?

Two weeks in Bognor would even help to boost the British economy.

Be that as it may (or may not) I imagine that, were hordes of MPs to descend upon that town simultaneously for their vacations, the likely mass exodus of other tourists and residents therefrom might do untold damage to the economy of Bognor!

You don't comment on Parliament disappearing for three months. However, this is in sharp contrast to the "open all hours" approach to the police, the NHS and so on. Maybe it is time for it too to modernise in line with the private sector, just as it inflicts on everyone else. It might even begin to indicate a change in the couldn't-give-a-hoot complacency.

No, I didn't but, since you invote me by implication to do so, I would say that MPS, like most of the rest of us, remain entitled to their vacations and, were Parliament open for business for most of the time rather than the amount of time that it's currently open for business, the additional cost to the taxpayer would be immense.

2. I don't think I mentioned anything about "in advance". There are pages and pages from their pasts - many recent - of matters about which to be ashamed. To a lesser extent, the same applies to most of us. I don't accept that a joint letter would undermine public confidence. The public are sick of the covering up, the way that apologies are unfashionable and all of the other hypocrisy. Mostly, when people in the public eye come clean, unprompted and with sincere regret, they are applauded for their honesty. They really need to get over adolescence, and not simply by brushing it to one side, to be able to have any authority at all.

I'm not suggesting that MPs should conceal their possible or actual misdeeds from public gaze (although, once again, I think it inappropriate to single out MPs here), but should too much unfavourable information enter the public domain and provide for the almost inevitable ever-ongoing media bloodbath, public confidence might disappear not only in the individual MPS for whom they vote but in the very system that, of itself, appears to do little or nothing to prevent such misdeeds.

3. The percentages going to university should be based on an accurate assessment of ability to benefit and the future job market. Rather than being arbitrary, this would change according to the times. I see no evidence to support the numbers being any greater than they were in the 1980s. Gove doesn't think that the outcome of schooling has improved. And what is the point of sticking five coins in a slot when four will simply be stuck in the machine. There are very few jobs. To get everyone to work like trojans and then leave them competing for a couple of waitress jobs in Pizza Hut. It isn't just insane. It is a form of sadism. Keep with the policy if you wish but do not be surprised when there are very ugly consequences as Middle England joins in with the underclass.

Accurate assessment of ability to benefit, to be sure (insofar as such can ever be arrived at reliably), but how can anyone possibly predict the number, kind or location of jobs that will be available on the market at any time?

4. No. I am not proposing income ceilings. The word was "net". It wouldn't be a reduced tax take. And on the job question, as I said, the money would go towards job creation.

Then I misunderstood you, for which I apologise. However, by what means could a government ensure in practice the imposition of a ceiling on anyone's income from work and/or any other source? What you appear to propose for the allocation of taxes on gross annual incomes in excess of somewhere above £100K is a particular hypothecation which, as such, would be extremely difficult to manage reliably, particularly in a climate where HMRC has admitted to and apologised for making literally millions of mistakes when invoicing its customers!

5. Anything can be imposed by law makers. I accept that you can't fix prices and hope to improve the economy. However, it is not permissible to transport flammable materials in any old packaging. At the point where the idea of a pair of trainers has been pumped up through advertising so that it leads to buildings in flames, the advertising needs to be made more functional and hence less inflammatory. Prices would fall as a consequence. Given company practices, I suspect that in many instances there wouldn't be a great difference in the tax returns the population sees.

Anything can indeed be imposed by lawmakers provided that enough of them agree to do it, but imposition isn't the same thing as making it stick in practice. Price fixings have been tried, albeit in haphazard ways, in the past and they simply will not work. Lawmakers can do some things to help to control advertising and tghere are already such laws in place - and maybe these can be refined - but this would, I sumbit, merely effect the odd minor cosmetic change to what you're talking about.

6...Why would regular words about the benefits of free pastimes from politicians, celebrities, sportsmen cost? Unless they felt that they were being forced into them and entitled to even more loot.

I didn't suggest that they would; I merely mentioned that any organised efforts to do anything come with a cost attached.

7. The level of future pensions? They don't know it. A 10 year old will reach 70 in 60 years time. If I were to list all of the differences between 2011 and 1951 I would be here all day. The majority were entirely unpredictable and many lucrative.

Of course one cannot know what levels there might be at any distant future date, but it is clear that (a) state pensions are on the way out because successive governments have never invested for growth the premiums that contributors have paid and the state doesn't have another funding source for them and (b) other pensions are going the way that we've seen them going and, if employers and elf-employed people cannot afford to fund them, they'll likely become history too.

8. I did change the spelling. Obviously you will forgive me for one brief error, noticed and corrected without prompting, in such a long piece of writing.

Of course!

9. No. Not censor. If you are suggesting that the BBC no longer has the ability to compete, I disagree. Content is what leads the markets. Its biggest problem is that it increasingly follows the herd rather than leads.

I'm not suggesting that about BBC and I agree with the rest of whart you write here. The problem is that markets are created by those who create them and sustained by those whom they coerce into doing so.

10. Maybe you can think of some answers on the punishments. It would, of course, require some effort on your part.

See the quote above (even though the effort in that instance was on someone else's part!)...

[Lateralthinking1]

Thank you ahinton. I don't have any specific comments. However, I would just summarise by clarifying that I would like our MPs to try to rise to the dignity built into parliamentary procedure. Although Mr Speaker is doing a splendid job - no wonder many want to get rid of him - it is an uphill battle. King George V may or may not have said "Bugger Bognor" but it seems relevant in its symbolism. Every tinpot Charlie who claims to represent an area appears to be saying "Bugger Britain" in his actions.

[scottycelt]

My old sparring-partner 'Ams' is indeed fond of posting selective links to match his view of the thuggery and looting ...

I've quite carefully and deliberately selected this marvellous one to fit in with my own ..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82vrdUWrvJA

Maybe we might listen to this refreshingly straight-talking lady as well .. ?

[french frank]

I seem to have strayed into the wrong thread. I thought it was: HOW do we HELP and CHANGE the CHILDREN of the INNERCITIES ?

The first thing I'd do would be look at the schools. I'd abolish the national curriculum, SATs and league tables; build more, smaller, community schools, primary and secondary, and train the best teachers to go into the areas that needed most help. The recreational facilities would be available in the evenings to provide centres where the children could meet and engage in a mix of activities. Teachers would educate and prepare children in smaller classes for life, not for exams or jobs.

[scottycelt]

Sorry ..