I have touched on this subject before and it links very much to the Edlington case and other similar cases.
I am convinced that the major factor in the breakdown of our society and recidivism rates in this country is the woolly liberals, (small l) who cannot seem to grasp the fact that poor behaviour MUST result in negative consequences. If you have not read the Winston Smith Blog, I commend it to you. The blog vividly portrays life in children’s services and young peoples care homes. This in one area where the liberals have been allowed to take over, unimpeded by the press and public opinion. Once you have read a few of Winston Smith’s accounts, ask yourself; is it any wonder that two thirds of children in the social care system are involved in drugs, have serious criminal records and nearly half of those end up in prison?
The liberals have almost taken over the education system and likewise we have a huge swathe of young people in various ineffective projects outside of school or in school dragging it down to the detriment of those that wish to learn. The present Government has great difficulty understanding the differences and the perceived inequalities of private and state education. We are constantly being told that it is unfair that some can pay to get a better education than others. The reason most people send their children to private school is to get them away from the poor influences that infest the state sector and lower the educational achievement of most pupils. Private schools do not tolerate poor behaviour and address it far more effectively than the state sector. The liberals have ensured that there are only ineffective consequences in the state sector and so this spiral continues.
The liberals have taken over a large section of law and order and the same applies here. The murderous James Moore received numerous Court Orders and I know from my own experience that he will have had lots of nice chats about his behaviour and how he needs to change. But not one of those chats would have said you must not do this or if you do something bad will happen. That would be far too oppressive and so his poor behaviour NEVER resulted in negative consequences and he went on to murder an innocent young boy.
I am a great believer in the Supernanny school of life. If you have ever watched one of those programmes you will have seen that there are badly behaved children and there are always reasons why. Usually it is because the parents are ineffective. There are often other factors involved that need to be addressed. The first thing that Supernanny does is set the rules. If the rules are broken there are negative consequences. The work to address parenting or other issues then starts but always, always, the rules are set first and if they are broken there are consequences.
I am not suggesting that children or offenders are flogged or imprisoned at the drop of a hat. I totally accept that work needs to take place to address the problems of the individual or family but this must always follow the negative consequences. If we ignore consequences we are wasting our time with the good work and reinforcing a society where people feel they can behave as they wish regardless of others.
We have got to win back this argument and ensure that the woolly liberals infesting education, children’s services, the Youth Offending Team and Probation are thrown out or re-educated. Their behaviour is also appalling and they need to understand that consequences exist and apply to them also. We are all guilty of allowing this to happen.
Very good post. I really get annoyed when liberals from middle-class backgrounds say about those that commit crime 'they had a bad upbringing' etc. Well I had a bad upbringing. My father was an alcoholic and we lived on a large council estate and had little money. My mum took on 3 jobs to give us food. My sister (18 months younger than me) have grown into sensible adults who have worked hard to give ourselves a decent standard of living. For me it was 28 yrs in the navy. All of my friends from school have grown up to be responsible adults as well. One in fact is now a millionaire. So that crap from liberals about upbringings is just a sop to the bad people because they feel guilty about their own backgrounds.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, using words like "liberal" like it's a poisonous label doesn't help any side of the debate. Believing that people should be allowed as much freedom as is commensurate with the freedom of thers is not such a bad thing, I think, as to deserve the kind of approbation your use so clearly implies. However, that's not really my point.
ReplyDeleteYour first sentence of your second paragraph states a version of reality as you claim it to be and your entire argument is based on its truth. It isn't true. Every single measure of crime in this country is falling steadily and continuously. Cases like Edlington occur in every age - the Bulgers, Mary Bell, back to Victorian times. We are not, despite what the Daily Mail tells you, on the edge of irretrievable social breakdown.
I see several schools during my working week (and no, I'm not a teacher).
ReplyDeleteNone of the kids in these schools are from a priviledged background. However, some will hold a door for me and others will deliberately slam it in my face. In some cases if I hold a door for a pupil, I will get "Thank you Sir" and in another will get ignored.
These experiences are clustered by school. Essentially the kids are from similar backgrounds. So why, why are there such differences? Simple; it's down to the senior management.
If senior management want order and politeness, they can get it. If they simply want to be mates with the kids, they'll be despised by those same kids who actually want leadership.
It will never happen of course unless, some cathartic type of event upsets the collective conscience.
ReplyDeleteThere are just too many people who have bought into this support/treatment and their salary cheques now depend on it. These turkeys will never vote for Xmas.
Some other government / administration has to try it first and after about ten years of documented success someone here will pick up the torch. Although it will take another 5 years of tests in some local authorities before it could reach anything like a critical mass for national experimental adoption.
Just too any vested interests, many of which are politically active and connected.
I saw the beginnings of this downward trend in the very early 1970's when time & time again,I took Juveniles to Court only for their liberal,lefty legal representatives to trot out a litany of lame excuses and enabled the little toe-rags to walk away grinning all over their faces.
ReplyDeleteIt was then that I resolved never to arrest a Juvenile ever again,I simply reminded them that "their day" was coming & they'd soon be appearing in "Big Boy's" Court.
Obviously,the rot soon spread there too.And by the time PACE arrived and made the job impossible to do,I decided that it was high time to get off the streets.There was no mileage left in it any longer.
The Courts didn't care,the Guvnor's didn't care,the public didn't care,so why the hell should I ?
You only have the people in positions of authority & control back in the 70's to blame for the state we find ourselves in now.
Calum, I don't read the Daily Mail either. I don't know what you read but you appear to have been suckered in by the lies that are otherwise known as statistics.
ReplyDeleteI have been a police officer since 1980. Crime statistics showed increased levels of crime until 1996 and then, if you now believe the current statistics (including the British Crime Survey) they have decreased over the last 13 years to almost the same level.
I can assure you this is utter rot. Crime levels are far higher than 1980 but, more importantly, the low level public order, drunkenness and anti social behaviour that doesn't count as 'crime' is astronomically higher.
In 1980 I could have named the 15 or so yobs that used to cause problems with low level disorder in my policing area. Now it is hundreds. Ignore the stats in the Guardian, look around you at the behaviour in the town centres, the youths drinking on the estates and the piles of rubbish littering our streets. That is the reality and I am sorry to say it is a lot worse than it was.
If it doesn't count as crime then it isn't crime. And there is a reason we collect statistics, which is that yours or anyone elses experience is pretty meaningless. I have *never* in all my life, on sink estates, in the countryside, on the Saturday night high street, or anywhere else, been a victim of crime, but I don't pretend that crime doesn't exist or that my experience is relevant to others. If the actual statistics which are collected by asking people if they have been a victim of crime show a steady and consistent fall over a number of years I expect a pretty damned good reason why you know better.
ReplyDeleteCalum ..
ReplyDeleteI don't know on what premise exactly you base your assumption of "if it doesn't count as a crime then it isn't a crime".
The definition of what is and what is no longer a "crime" can be made at the stroke of a pen.
Crime has been on the increase every year for the past 30 years to my certain knowledge.How those offences are classified is changed with monotonous regularity by Politicians for their own ends.
One can use the term "Liberal" as an alternative to "Wishy-washy","Bleeding-heart","Do-gooders" who simply refuse to believe that naturally bad and criminally inclined individuals and families exist.
30 years of Policing experience have taught me that they do.What experience of practical Policing draws you to your conclusions ?
"If you have not read the Winston Smith Blog, I commend it to you."
ReplyDeleteAny anyone who likes that one - if 'likes' is an appropriate word! - then there's also NorthNorthwester's blog, which has a few posts you may also like...
As for consequences, well, when even this doesn't bring you any consequences, what chance do we have?
When it all gets a bit much, I look at my "GIVE RESPECT ' GET RESPECT" (sic*) pencil, and have a good old laugh thinking about the pony-tailed image consultants who came up with that as a winning strategy for dealing with a pack of ferals.
ReplyDelete(*) Presumably the single quote ' was meant to be a comma, but you can't waste time on grammar when there's a new mantra to disseminate to the troops.
Regarding the missing comma - have you considered that perhaps the message was intended to be "Give respec' " etc, as in "Respec', dood, give me respec' or I'll stiff / shiv / shank / u" (Delete as appropriate).
ReplyDeleteCalum, I do use the term liberal contemptuously because I am angry with the results of the liberal social experiment that has been going on in this country for 50 years or more.
ReplyDeleteYou say that allowing people to have the freedom they wish commensurate to the freedom of others is not a bad thing. If that was the true result I would agree with you.
The reality is that liberalisation in this country means that you can abuse people, you can breed at will, you can commit crime etc. and it is never your fault.
I work with liberals in the Youth Offending Team, Childrens Services, Social Workers etc. None of these people understand the word no. None of them are prepared to stand up and say to anyone you cannot do that. Banging out children and expecting taxpayers to house, cloth and feed you is a gross infringement on the freedom of hardworking decent people. Taking drugs or drinking yourself into oblivion and committing crime to feed your habits is another gross infringement on others.
All I ever hear from the liberals I work with is that we need more youth workers, more social workers, more educationalists to help all these poor people out of their situation. They won't be happy until we have a worker for everyone in the country. We cannot afford this social experiment any longer.
I fully understand that there are people from awful backgrounds who need help and assistance and this should be given but the current liberal attitude is just growing the problem exponentially and we cannot cope with it.
Liberals need to learn the word no and tell people they cannot carry on the way they do. It is affecting others detrimentally but that does not seem to matter.
As for crime statistics, I agree with the comments above. The Government want to try and assure the public that crime is falling. Generally, the public do not believe it. (Look at the fear of crime statistics.) You say you have not been a victim of crime. Put yourself in the position of a decent 16 year old kid and walk round a social housing estate after dark. You will come across gangs of kids drinking, using dope etc. You will get robbed of your cash and mobile phone and you won't report it (crime stats again) as you will get beaten senseless for being a grass. This liberal experiment is actually encouraging young people into gang culture and crime. If you can't beat them join them. It has to stop.
Well said Matey.
ReplyDeleteThere are those of us who've been out there and done a bit of good,old fashioned Coppering and those who've only seen a video,read a book or listened to a lecture about it.And who talk out of their arses about things of which they have no practical experience.
I agree with everything, except what seems to me to be a rather bizarre attack on liberalism.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Wikipedia, liberalism is defined thus:
"Liberalism (from the Latin liberalis, "of freedom"[1]) is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights.[2][3] Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but most liberals support such fundamental ideas as constitutions, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights, free trade, secular society, and the market economy."
Dictoinary.com gives a lot of meanings, which are based around freedom of choice for individuals.
I have yet to come across a definition of liberal or liberalism that says "ignoring the bleeding obvious; acting negligently in the discharge of one's care of the young or vulnerable; or being stupid."
It may be that I have missed somewhere that does give such a definition.
I consider myself to be liberal in that I agree everybody should have a right to chose how to live their life, but that must be qualified by the condition that your choices do not interfere with other people unduely.
INstead of describing the people who are so obviously failing the people they are supposed to be helping and the rest of society, maybe we should called them "twats" instead of liberals?
It might be that what you are complaining about is the medicalization of bad behaviur. Psychiatrists want their cut as well.
ReplyDeletePeople that you might call psychopaths or personality disordered have very often been charged and or convicted with criminal offences numerous times but released on the condition that they receive psychiatric treatment, usually drugging. Psychiatrists always have to lie to diagnose a mental illness as a medical condition. So it's innappropriate from the outset. Even the stupidest crim knows this at some level and will likely commit more crimes, sometimes in a effort to escape the drugging.
Coercive psychiatry is a double whammy because it treats innocent people the same as the criminals it treats. Innocent people who are locked up and forcibly drugged without any substantive due process at all apart from the opinion of the psychiatrist who is about to do the locking up and drugging. No medical test is required because no medical testing exists.