Group of teenage boys & girls near East Dulwich station & up towards Dog Kennel Hill (Lounged)

[Brendan]

And if overreacting to what people think is an "acceptable" level of crime gets us to pull our fingers out and do something about it then so be it.

[Keef]

Fuschia Wrote:

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> "Compared to adults, children and young people experience greater levels of violent crime victimisation. According to the 2006?2007 BCS, the risk of becoming a victim of violent crime is 3.6 per cent for a British adult. However, the available figures for children and young people provide a striking and stark contrast. For young men aged 16 to 24 the risk

> was almost four times greater: 13.8 per cent experienced a violent crime of some sort in the year prior to their BCS interview.

>

> ... almost half of children attending school surveyed in the 2004 YJB Youth Survey had been victims of a crime in the previous year. And according to the 2005 OCJS, just under one-fifth (18 per cent) of young people aged from 10 to 25 years had been a victim of an assault in the last 12 months, with 10 to 15 year olds more likely to have been victims than 16 to 25 year olds (20 per cent and 16 per cent respectively). The evidence clearly suggests that children and young people

> suffer much higher rates of victimisation"

>

> Source: ?Knife Crime? A review of evidence and

> policy

>

> Centre for Crime and Justice Studies

> King?s College London

>

> 2007

First of all Fuschia please don't think I'm trying to pick specifically on your posts.

The quotes you've used are interesting, and no doubt true. However, all they really show is that it's far more dangerous to be a kid than to be an adult. I still stand by the claim that that is nothing new. When I was 16 coming home at night through Peckham at 2am, I would be sh!tting myself. These days I'm still cautious, but don't really worry too much. I was a much more likely target back then.

With regards the colour/race issue. There are more black people living around South London than most other areas, so there is a lot of crime involving black people, simple as that. In other areas where it is all white, or all asian, the crime will be commited by whites or asians. It has nothing to do with race as such, simply who is living where.

[PowerCorruptionLies]

If I can add my 10 pence worth of thought on these issues:-

1) Teenage and Youth Crime is not a modern phenomenon (read 'Brighton Rock' or watch 'Gangs of New York' both fiction based on fact!)

2) Vigilantism "a clip round the ear" will be no deterrent to those who are already engaged in a life of violence. Many of the kids engaged in mugging and bullying are doing so as a result of their backgrounds, broken homes where they may well experience violence and intimidation day in day out. In short, for those of us who have been fortunate to have been brought up by loving and supportive parents it is near impossible to put ourselves in the shoes of a child that has experienced none of this, has been brought in to the world by similarly ignorant damaged people and are therefore all to often condemned to simply live and repeat the cycle of abuse and fear.

3) Undoubtedly the media age in which we live, violent electronic games, gangster rap etc. all of which quite deliberately and aggressively marketed at kids, is intensifying the scale of the issue and "normalising" anti-social behaviour.

Solutions? The perpetrators of these crimes are in many cases severely dysfunctional and emotionally damaged individuals, prison (or young offenders institutions) alone will not fix this, in fact the system is often causing more problems than it solves. The experience of 'Brat Camps' in the States is showing positive results, these kids need emotional and spiritual mentoring a long, expensive and resource intensive process. Put simply, as a society we must decide how much this matters to us and allocate resources accordingly. After all if billions of pounds can be found to build and run the Olympics, those same billions could have been used to fund the police, social services, sports academies etc. if ..., and it's a big if, the politicians who are supposed to serve us actually did that job, rather than serving themselves.

Just my thoughts anyhow.

[david_carnell]

blinder999 Wrote:

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> I think rap music's got a lot to do with it. If

> you're a feisty adolescent with no male role model

> at home, people like Lethal Bizzle are only too

> happy to fill the void:

I think you hit the nail on the head there blinder. Broken homes can lead to social problems. The rest of your post was superfluous and utterly one-sided account of rap lyrics. Bob showed the other side. Other genres of music contain equally appalling lyrics.

I shot a man in Reno

Just to watch him die

Johnny Cash

No-one blames country and western for America's gun violence!

[SeanMacGabhann]

I'm never comfortable when people start "requesting" role-models

culture exists and the ones at the top of the game reflect the cultures that put them there. It's up to you if you want them to be your role model

And there is always a full spectrum of role-models to choose from. If you are an intelligent kid, you aren't going to be swayed by the nihilistic culture Mockney mentions.

If you are a not so bright-kid, easily impressed by bling (sugar to an infant) and have always had parents who give youwhatever youneed just because you kicked up a storm then you will be more likely to gravitate to the sort of role-model society gets upset about. There are many many other factors of course but it isn't the "role-model"'s fault.

[falcao]

I grew up in South London in the sixties and seventies and I have always thought there was as much violence then as there is now. In those days you used to get gangs of skins roaming the streets betting up asians. You also used to get a lot more glassing in pubs. Football violence was just kicking off and peaked around the late mid seventies to mid eighties. Every bank holiday on the coast it was mods v rockers. Lond on has always been violent ( Victorian times were even worse). In fact the word hooligan originates from the the name Hoolihan, an Irish fighting family of the Victorian era. Nowadays I reckon there is more violence in the provincial towns and town centres on a friday and saturday night. Having said that, we are an Island race and therefore have a history of repelling aggressors and invaders. It is that aggressive,warring nature that built us and empire and won two world wars. It's uncomfortable but true.

[blinder999]

> The rest of your post was superfluous and utterly

> one-sided account of rap lyrics.

I wasn't suggesting that ALL rap is like Lethal Bizzle. Lethal Bizzle is certainly among the most controversial London rappers out there - but he is (was?) also very popular and influential.

> I shot a man in Reno

> Just to watch him die

> Johnny Cash

>

> No-one blames country and western for America's

> gun violence!

not quite in the same league as Bizzle now is it? That's music from a very different context and a very different age.

[mockney piers]

"an Irish fighting family" I love that, I'm picturing a victorian stable owner breeding some Irish

"yes, I've a fine male specimen with six knuckles that I can't wait to blood in this weekend's meet"

Anyway, I think the aggressive, warring Englishman is a total myth. We've a far far more peaceful history than just about anyone on the continent, and we have our island status to thank for that; thus post norman invasion we had next to no repelling to do, though admittedly we did spend 300 years terrorising France, and we weren't especially nice to the Irish.

However empire came not through being good at fighting, but by being well organised, clever, good diplomats and excellent at commerce.

As for winning two world wars, first one was a land stalemate, we effectively starved Germany into submission with the naval blockade, and the second one was won by Mother Russia.

[BJL]

Good points, falcao. Anyone else remember those Richard Allen books like Suedehead and Skinhead?

(And read Clarence Rook's Hooligan Nights (1899), Herbert Ashby's Gangs Of New York (1928) for more on the "good old days".)

[fatfightersforever]

completely agree with you mp, have lived here for years with,thankfully, little trouble. Worst violence I've found myself in was a pitched battle in the middle of Banbury!

[/b]mockney piers Wrote:

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> I've said at a few times and I'm not alone.

> The threat of violence always seems to me to be

> much greater when I leave London to visit friends

> and relatives in places like Reading, Hitchin,

> Stevenage, Bristol, Madrid et al.

> This is a disturbing trend and the police should

> nip it in the bud before these kids think it's

> easy and normal; but for my pennies ED is still

> one of the safest areas I've ever lived.

[mockney piers]

"I've found myself in was a pitched battle in the middle of Banbury!"

Ooh, with all of those rings on fingers and bells on toes I imagine that could've got quite nasty!!

[chichirara]

Oh no we all know how rough Banbury is and my mother lives there and hates London! I suppose banburys cross!

[mockney piers]

LOL!!

[Asset]

The Hoolihans around Elephant & Castle funnily enough.

[Fuschia]

macroban Wrote:

>

> National averages being projected on to a local

> situation.

Well if you want to believe that Southwark is less of a risk for young people than elsewhere in the country then you go right ahead! I'm taking it you aren't the parent of a teenager?!

I find it quite odd that people really have no idea the sort of stuff that goes on as young people attempt to get to and from school! I have worked in this field for a long time, in several different parts of London, and I'm telling you, it's nothing like it was when I was at school myself 20+ years ago.

[Fuschia]

Keef Wrote:

> The quotes you've used are interesting, and no

> doubt true. However, all they really show is that

> it's far more dangerous to be a kid than to be an

> adult.

Well yes, that is exactly the point I'm making! As I said at the start of the thread " life as a teenager is pretty perilous these days. People are naive if they don't realise that, and that it impacts on East Dulwich."

[lozzyloz]

Agree with some of the points you make Fuschia.

When I was a teenage schoolboy in NW London during the 70's, like *Bob*, we carried knives. Partly because "we woz 'ard" and partly because chicken or splits were popular ways of passing the boredom. I never used a knife in anger, but did accidentally stab a friend in the chest with a Bowie knife! I got involved in some low level petty crime, worthy of an ASBO today, much like the rest of my peers but nothing too serious. I recollect that gangs, stabbings, beatings and rapes were fairly common and gun crime though not unheard did seem to mostly happen amongst villains in South and East London!

The seriousness of teenage crime seems to be worse today than when I grew up. Is it because of more guns on the street, more broken families or a cultural acceptance of violence and crime in music (not just rap) and movies? I don't know. I do know that most of the teenagers that get shot tend to be black and tend to be involved in gangs, drugs and serious crime.

Now I have a teenage son who, although brought up very differently to me (in a good way), regularly gets caught up in conflicts on the street, in the park, on a train/bus, at parties etc. He knows how to look after himself (doesn't carry a knife) and isn't the type to go out looking for trouble. When he was 15 he was mugged for his bike, phone, money, ipod etc on different occasions. Nowadays the problems seem to revolve around girls and territory. He's not a member of any gangs, except by default because of where he lives. I worry about his safety, but I can't tell him to stay at home. All I can do is teach him common sense and hope that he'll work the rest out for himself.

[*Bob*]

lozzyloz Wrote:

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> When I was a teenage schoolboy in NW London during

> the 70's, like *Bob*, we carried knives.

My parents even bought me mine (!) on the grounds that it would be good for whittling, Scouting expeditions and other such innocent boys-own activities.

[ratty]

Good post lozzy and precisely why I am leaving London before my lad grows up!

[Asset]

I've been saying that since my son was born in 1996. Still here and it's looking like I'm not going anywhere at the mo'. ho hum. As someone said to me once years ago when I was expounding about not wanting my son to grow up in London, "He'll only move back when he's older and you won't be here anymore". Interesting as that is exactly what I did at age 18 - move to London.

[lozzyloz]

Thanks ratty but it wasn't my intention to sound the bugle retreat. Far from it. I love London for all its faults and everything thats blindingly good about it. My point was simply that in my experience (and throughout human history) teenagers always kick up, but the worrying trend today is the increase in knife and gun crime amongst teenagers whether or not it results in a death.

I think it was 26 teenagers (far too many) that were shot or stabbed to death in London in 2007. 26 out of 2,000,000* teenagers in London. Our kids are more likely to die from obesity, be run over, commit suicide, contract cancer or heart disease than be stabbed or shot dead. In fact overall the mortality rate in London is diminishing over time, so it's quite likely they'll live well into their 80's or beyond.

The level and motivation of violence amongst our teens is not unique to this city. We need to acknowledge the problems and influence the future not ignore it.

*2,000,000 is a wild guess. Anyone know what the true pop is?

[falcao]

I hate people who slag London off and bang on about leaving it. Please, be our guests, the doors that way.

[ratty]

Sorry falcao if I have offended your London nationalism but there is a big world out there, some of it with green grass and blue water. A bit sad imo to live and die in the same town. But hom hum - each to his own!

Hate's a strong word btw! But you carry on hating!

[Fuschia]

lozzyloz Wrote:> teenagers always kick up, but the worrying trend

> today is the increase in knife and gun crime

> amongst teenagers whether or not it results in a

> death.

Indeed!

[Keef]

Fuschia Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Keef Wrote:

> > The quotes you've used are interesting, and no doubt true. However, all they really show is that it's far more dangerous to be a kid than to be an adult.

>

> Well yes, that is exactly the point I'm making! As I said at the start of the thread " life as a teenager is pretty perilous these days. People are naive if they don't realise that, and that it impacts on East Dulwich."

I never disagreed with any of that, I just said that I don't think it's a new thing. I was at school in the 90s, so not really that long ago, and things were the same! And Southwark isn't any safer than anywhere else, but it's no worse than anywhere else either.