Gun culture and youth crime

See below for a revealing interview held in Moss Side, with a young man about gun crime:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6374171.stm

The interview to me has the ring of truth.

Tony Blair's foray into the issue of gun crime, ensuring the 5 year minimum sentence applies to 17 to 20 year olds, I am afraid contrasts lamentably with David Cameron's speech on the issue, http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=135068

Cameron actually appears to have understood that a materialistic society has consequences which need to be tackled. I profoundly disagree with his remedies, based solely upon voluntarism. It is all a bit too public school social concern for me. As it fails consider that the change to society needs to be much more profound than encouraging faith based activism.

Meanwhile Blair is stuck supporting the Thatcherite consensus of market dominance and a coercive state.

My own anecdotal experience of young offenders is that they do not consider or think through the consequences of their actions. So upping the sentence for possession of firearms will have little or no impact. The last similar case I dealt with was a 13 year old who had robbed a 14 year old by brandishing a pen knife. The knife was produced as an afterthought. All the defendant wanted was the mobile phone that the victim had on him. The robber was not interested in the much more valuable jewellery that the complainant was wearing. The offender probably has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, but it had not been diagnosed as his mum's life was too chaotic to make sure he got to the assessment appointments. They missed one appointment as she had to attend her other son's school as that son was to be excluded for bad behaviour. Stopping this young lad from offending will require a lot of work and resources. First off sorting out his education and providing assistance to his mum.

Shooting from the hip and saying let's increase sentences even more just misses the point.

Reap what you sow

Reading the UNICEF report comparing children across the world's wealthiest nations makes depressing reading from a British perspective. See below for the full report:

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Society/documents/2007/02/14/UNchildwellbeing.pdf

See below for an excellent article by Jon Fayle, ex head of policy at the Youth Justice Board, who has resigned shortly after Prof Rod Morgan, who was the chair of the board and who has also recently resigned.

http://society.guardian.co.uk/youthjustice/story/0,,2012032,00.html

The article makes the sensible point that we imprison far too many young people at the moment. As a consequence resources are stretched and young offenders do not get the interventions necessary to prevent re-offending. Jon Fayle suggests that there is the possibility of developing a political consensus, across the main political parties, which would reduce the rate that we imprison young people. However the appointment of Louise Casey, the Respect Tsar, to replace Rod Morgan would send totally the wrong signal to sentencers.

It seems to me to be commonsense that the poor way we as a society treat our children is at least partly responsible for the way they behave and mature. So there is a link between the UNICEF findings and the offending of a small number of young people.

See the Compass website for research/ polemics about the way we treat children. On the links section of this blog.