Theresa May MP: Youth crime - our approach

"When stray bullets hit the pram but missed my son, I realised there was a gap in the market for products to protect babies in today's increasingly violent society"

This is a quote taken from an American mother who has set up a company selling bullet proof buggies. The £300 buggy, billed as "the ultimate in style, comfort and extreme combat protection" has already sold out in the US. 

Will we ever reach a stage in Britain where buying a bullet proof buggy for our children seems like a good idea?

Tony Blair once claimed that the problem we face today with youth crime is "a specific problem within a specific criminal culture". He was wrong. Youth crime is part of a larger problem in Britain’s society. Blaming the rise in violent youth crime singularly on hip hop music or a lack of youth facilities misses a fundamental point. Teenagers do not commit violent crimes simply because they listen to a song about guns or because they have nothing else to do. The root cause is a frequent lack of a secure family upbringing and a decreasing lack of community cohesion and respect.

The Government’s reliance on criminal justice legislation to ‘solve' the problem of youth crime misses this point.  Much of this legislation has not even been implemented. The Government is not tough on crime, and it is certainly not tough on the causes of crime.

In his speech on youth crime earlier this week David Cameron outlined a three pronged approach to tackle the issue. The criminal justice system needs to be strengthened. Radical police reform is needed to enable officers to spend more time on the beat and less time on paperwork. Lastly there must be a concerted effort to tackle family and social breakdown in Britain. By taking into account these three elements, David Cameron has succeeded in rightly placing youth crime in the larger context of societal decline, something that the Government has ignored in practice.

The day after David Cameron made this speech I was shocked to hear that Rhys Jones, aged only 11 was shot dead in Liverpool and that two males aged 14 and 18 have been interviewed in relation to the incident. On the same day a 14 year old girl and a 16 year old boy were questioned by the police in relation to the stabbing of a 17 year old boy in Newcastle. London alone has seen 17 teenagers murdered in the past year. In the last 10 years violent crime has doubled. This pattern of events illustrates the seriousness of the problem.

Thank goodness that the Conservatives are offering concrete solutions.

Time for a change of Government anyone….?

Comments

[TomTom]

When the denizens of affluent London want their "fix" they prefer to keep the suppliers resident in South London so they don't ruin the house prices: the Met obliges.

The denizens of South London experience the vibrancy of free markets in drugs and competitive tendering via the 9mm. The Police do not venture into the swamp too much.

Then the guns tend to wander into the high-priced areas and the denizens get terribly upset and squawk all over their TV programmes. The ancillary crimes to get cash to deal - like credit card fraud have conveniently been dumped off the police radar and onto commerial banks which just file the fraud and price it into the interest rates.

The spate of car-jackings in areas like Bradford did not inspire West Yorkshire Police to action until Porsches and Mercedes started disappearing at gunpoint from affluent driveways - then they had to start cracking down and unravel the chain of cars stolen to order for shipment via container abroad to raise the seed capital for drug-dealing.

Then they started raiding houses and found home-banking with large cash deposits that the Benefits Agency was unaware of - and they found commercially-produced passports....and of course the obligatory firearms.

[Tony Makara]

There can be no doubt that 'Rap' music culture is a factor in the gang/gun culture. Of course the are other factors too such as family and social breakdown, but I think its a mistake to downplay the effects of a destructive sub-culture like 'Rap' music. The entire 'Rap' culture is alien to the British teenager and has its roots in black gang culture in America. Nontheless, the BBC and other media outlets have fallen over themselves in an attempt to 'Push' this sub-culture onto our young people. Even BBC childrens TV presenters have taken at times to holding their hands in the cocked-gun position to emphasize their 'Coolness'

[mark]

We can go on wringing our hands over the causes of all of this but even if our analysis of the causes is correct it will be decades before any remedial action works. This is a major crisis resulting in a severe physical threat to the law abiding folk of this country and we do not have the luxury of time.
We have to be bold and physically separate the law abiding from the evil monsters who have been created by our too lenient society. We spend £4 billion on the prison system per annum and crime costs the UK economy £60 billion per annum, spend £4 billion more on locking up all criminals and we will reap a dividend in more ways than one.
The prison system has to operate as an isolation unit that sends out the message that if you cannot work with society then you will be isolated from it.

[Bill]

I have to say that whilst I am very concerned about the rise of violent crime in this country I am not sure the Tories will be of much use. They appear to have sat on their backsides for most of their time in opposition whilst the New Labour wreckers' project has driven our country on to the rocks.

If the Tories really want to sort out the mess this country is in (and I am not sure that they do), they need to attack the cultural Marxists and their agenda which has
brought our country to the brink.

Since the situation is dire compassionate hoodie hugging policies must take second place to firm and authoritative action. The police need to get back on the streets and return to being a force to be reckoned with and not a watered down social service. Punishments must fit the crimes. If appropriate we should reintroduce borstals. Drug abuse should no longer be tolerated and its trade should be severely punished.

Of course in order to achieve a safer and more just society we must also abolish the HRA, pull out of the ECHR, secure our borders, reassert parliamentary supremacy
over the judiciary and pull out of the EU. It really is that simple. I will of course not hold my breath. But until then things can only get worse.

[englandism]

There is considerable angst over in progressive liberal land about the meaning of liberalism and, indeed, the failure of liberalism.

We can see the fracturing of society as one of the clearest expressions of the abject failure of the liberal establishment and the perceived liberal consensus. If, as Conservatives, our response is founded upon this false premise of a liberal consensus then the response will be fatally flawed.
From the endless limitations placed upon the administration of meaningful discipline and constraint to the Human Rights Act we are hamstrung in our ability to respond. The right to seemingly endless rights combined with abdicating the responsibility of the individual for his or her actions as a product of civil society failing that individual has directly led to the dreadful events in Liverpool and elsewhere.

The liberal consensus is that the sections of society have been criminalised by our collective failure as a society. It is our fault that children are being shot because of relative deprivation, racism and inequality and if that doesn’t cover it then the cause is alcohol or video games or some other target that the liberals can legislate about and blame. But never blame the individual. The individual has rights.

Now observe the liberal response to Liverpool. There will be focus groups and consultations and bright eyed young things will open up youth clubs to give the kids something to do and draw up some banal and pointless social contract to engage with the deprived youth. Then, in the great tradition of liberalism, the government will ban something. The smart money is on raising the drinking age to 21.

Naturally, sooner or later, someone else will be shot, we will blame ourselves and then ban something else. Is this really going to be the Conservative response?

[David Greenwich]

I cannot count the number of times that I have sat and listened to rap music and then wanted to go out and commit horrific crimes.

These sort of comments are not helpful to anyone and do not give young people enough credit. I bet when many readers of this column were young they listened to the progressive rock and metal of the 70s and 80s. This did not lead to an increase in the number of bats who had their heads bitten off.

[James Maskell]

The liberal consensus is a farce. Its socialism with a smile. The use of the word 'liberal' in modern politics to justify restricting liberties is one of the great contradictions in our system.

Absolutely right it is time for a change in Government. When Jamie Bulger was murdered by two boys such a crime was rare. Under Labour, the killing of an 11-year-old kid passes as 'just another one'. Brown and Jacqui Smith need to get a grip on this situation, after the shambles left by a series of weak Home Secretaries.

[The Wilted Rose]

That last post

Posted by: | August 24, 2007 at 12:15 PM

was posted by me, The Wilted Rose, by the way - my Typepad account is playing up.

[michael m]

Perhaps Ms May could tell us where her front bench colleagues have been during the past few weeks. We have had story after story where this government- the last one but now in sheep's clothing- should have been brought to account. Instead open goals have been missed and oppostunities wasted to burst the Blown bubble.
Yesterday whilst IDS was ok, we should have had a senior front bencher on the media condemning this Government's law and order policy - remember how Blair exploited the Dunblane tragedy.

Whilst writing articles is all very well, some of these people who are representing the Party at a senior level should be getting out of their board rooms and getting out there showing some determination to win and anger at the way New Labour has hood-winked the country on ever issue since 1997.

They really are a pathetic lot

[Donald Burling]

I was at the meeting where David Cameron was misrepresented as advocating hugging hoodies. At the same meeting a psychologist spoke about the damage to young children who lack proper bonding with their mothers. This can lead to anti-social attitudes later.
It follows we should ecourage and enable mothers to stay at home with their children. This has implications for tax, benefits, employment and house prices, as well as family relationships.

[Graham Checker]

COMMENT OVERWRITTEN FOR PERSONAL NASTINESS.

[Tony Makara]

Donald, I agree totally that mothers should be at home to act as a 'Safe Base' for their children. Labour's New Deal culture is anti-family and I'm sad to see that the Conservative party has been sucked into Labour's 'Mothers must work' philosophy. Most women find work in the service-sector and that often means working very unsociable hours with the kids left to fend for themselves unsupervised. A mother at home provides a structure of security for the child. When the mother isn't at home the child can feel alienated and that can lead to an anti-social outlook developing.

[Matt Wright]

Its a simple fact that most crime is caused by a minority of young men. Young people need boundaries and structures. When they don't get this they create their own gangs or descend into a cycle of attracting attention. When they get away with things they get worse.

I believe that when young men begin to drift into being repeat offenders the courts should have the powers to send them to boot camps. The boot camps would be run by ex-servicemen and would mirror national service regimes plus training. Many would respond and those that showed promise should be offered a career in the forces. It would be the making of many young men. Those that did not wish to enter the forces but completed the camp and did well would be offered priority entrance to other careers by participating corporate sponsors to the programme. Corporate sponsors would be offered tax advantages.

In addition to this, sports in schools should be properly resourced and involve a compulsory session every day. Not only do kids behave better when they get exercise, they learn better as well.

Also all young adults should engage in a 2 month community programme around the time they leave school and before they start higher education or work. This programme should be offered in collaboration with UK and overseas social action providers/charities/ngo's and funded by the Govt. Attendees would be offered a choice of projects to work on but they would be serious and testing projects in the community here or overseas. They would receive an attendance allowance. Those that did not wish to participate would have coming of age legislation (alcohol, driving etc) delayed by 2 years on the basis that being part of society carries both duties as well as rights.

In addition to the short to medium term measures above, a series of actions would be taken to support families and reward community behaviour etc to underpin long term solutions.

Taken as a package the above would see decisive reductions in crime and anti-social behaviour after only 6 months with massive reductions by the end of a 3 year period.

Matt

[Dick Wishart]

Fully agree with you Matt but we also need to factor in education as most of those offending can neither read nor write.

[Alex Swanson]

"Thank goodness that the Conservatives are offering concrete solutions.

Time for a change of Government anyone….?"

From where I'm sitting, Tory policy on crime is indistinguishable from Labour's. This is especially true on gun crime, where both parties have for decades followed a policy of being nasty to law-abiding target shooters such as myself on the basis that since we use firearms, this will somehow have a rub-off effect on the inner-city drug dealers who also do so. This policy has been supported by a robust campaign of lies (eg "Thomas Hamilton acquired his guns legally"). And it doesn't work.

If you really want concrete solutions, try starting by telling the truth. And then try focussing on the criminals not the innocent.

[G.L. Tasker. MBCS CITP]

I picked up this thread on Tuesday, thus the delay in the comment :

With reference to Matt Wrights Comment :

“Compulsory Sports Session Each Day” NO WAY, I am dyslexic with dysphasic tendencies and there fore useless at any form of sports. I know what it is like to always be the last to be picked for any team and told to ‘Keep out the Way’ I have been left with an abiding hatred of all forms of sport and team sports in particular. I despise the way the football seems to rule so many lives in this country. I find it almost impossible to fit into any form of team at work, my faith in teams having been destroyed when at school. I dislike authority as PE teachers seem to be this biggest bunch of sadists know and delight be ‘Having a go at’ the poor performers.

Your suggestion my well do more harm than good.

[Teck]

Intellectualising about policies to solve the problems of youth crime misses a whole colossus of facts. Crime by anyone of any age is not acceptable, neither is violent death of anyone regardless of age.

For God's sake, the crime would be equally heinous had the bullet hit the father Mr Jones and killed him and poor fatherless Rhys is alive today!

The sanctity of life must be respected and safeguarded until we die from causes unavoidable or untreatable. Politicians, rise to that!