Yesterday, Sean Mercer, 18, and six other gang members were convicted of murdering 11 year old Rhys Jones in Liverpool. The judge, Mr Justice Irwin, condemned the brutality and cowardice of gang culture. He said that the cowardliness and “brutality” of the young killer was to blame.
Whilst I do not disagree with Mr. Justice Irwin’s opinion, I am concerned that this could further foster negative attitudes towards young people in general.
A poll commissioned by Barnardo’s examined attitudes towards young people. Astonishingly, 49 per cent of adults asked regarded children as “increasingly dangerous”. 53 per cent thought young people acted like animals and 45 per cent refer to children as feral.
These results are disturbing not least because the response is so disproportionate. In fact, according to the British Crime Survey, 88 per cent of criminal activity is committed by adults. How have we reached this stage? The situation is complex but two central points need to be discussed.
Firstly, I blame the media. You can rarely read a newspaper or watch the television these days without hearing a negative story featuring young people or gang related crime.
Secondly, there is a lack of positive role models for young people. Youth violence is a serious problem but I believe that we need to focus on the positives whilst accepting and dealing with the negatives.
Young people are at the centre of my charity the Warwick Leadership Foundation. (For more information please visit: http://www.warwickleadership.org/) This charity provides young people with ethical leadership and it helps empowers young people to achieve their aspirations.
I regularly see young people making a valuable contribution to society. I chaired the UK Youth Parliament debate in the British Museum in November and was impressed by the intelligence, energy and creativity of the young people present.
I believe it is time that the majority of young people who are doing well should be listened to. It is time that young people who want to achieve were seen and heard.
Lord Taylor,
I agree with you that young people are often misrepresented in the media and Barnardo’s campaign has highlighted this through it’s recent hard-hitting TV adverts. An exaggerated focus on the negative is also the case with Parliament and politicians I might add!
I manage an online forum called HeadsUp and we recently held a forum on what young people (11-18) think about politics, citizenship and the contributions they make to their community. There were a lot of interesting and insightful comments from the young people that took part in the debate. They certainly make a valid contribution to society through volunteering and offer a refreshingly less cynical and more positive view of the world than a lot of adults.
For example we asked them how they would define citizenship and one of the website users said:
A citizen means that you are united with everyone else in your neighbourhood and you be friendly with each other it also means to abide by the laws that the government passes and that you should not be a criminal as this breaks down communities
I wonder how many adults would define citizenship through their duties to other people in the community and the country before talking about their own rights? There are always plenty of good news stories about young people but these rarely seem to be picked up in the press.
Another thing forum users mentioned was that they found the often negative press around politicians really put them off getting involved in politics. This is a serious worry as very few of us find out information about politics and parliament from outside the lens of the mainstream media (although new media channels – like Lords of the Blog – do mean that the information available is spread across a greater number of people). By portraying politics as PMQs and not showing a lot else is a serious misrepresentation of what politics is. Here is how one of our forum users put it:
When I think of politics, I see a group of men debating about one thing or another, and after hours of endless droning, nothing is solved. However, I am sensible enough to recognise that it is more than that, but what exactly?…I am keen on debating and campaigning, and finding ways to help combat issues in today’s rickety world, but how is the question, as well as the fact that, what is it to do with politics?
Without showing that politics is broader than the short snippets of people arguing in Parliament young people (and everyone else too for that matter) will have a hard time working out why politics is important, how it affects them and why they should get involved.
The media have a serious responsibility for providing more balanced coverage when it comes to certain groups in society, particularly vulnerable groups, like children. However the rise of new media, which encourages user generated content, will hopefully have the effect of broadening the number of voices involved in debates and providing more balanced information.
If you would like to read the report of this forum, view more quotes from young people on this subject or find out more about the project please visit: http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/citizenshipeducation
Thanks for listening!
Beccy Allen
Project Manager, HeadsUp
This gang related business is truly dreadful.
All adults outside of the nuclear family must now see children as a liability. To be near them is to risk accusations of improper conduct and the children themselves are only too aware of this. It gives them a great sense of power, which they do use inappropriately from time to time.
For instance a teacher wanting to comfort a crying child may put their arm around them as a surrogate parent. If the child is that way inclined they might later dial 999 and phone the police accusing the teacher of misconduct.
The teacher will be immediately suspended while police investigate the matter. I feel sure that ninety nine point nine percent of such instances are groundless. However, by the end of this process the teacher’s career is in ruins and the mud has stuck.
Another scenario is the child mentioning something to their parent and the same turning up at school and then assaulting the teacher. The teacher is still suspended and the out come is just the same.
I had six of the best at school and even had chalk thrown at me by a maths master. I can remember teachers were people you did not cross because they could deal out pain. Was it wrong? I think not, but at the time I did. I was a child and my higher reasoning centres were not well developed. My head was empty and they were having some trouble filling it.
The fact that my best friend at school broke into the headmaster’s safe and stole the tuck shop money is testament to a high IQ. He was expelled and I have never seen him since. I don’t think reasoning with him would have changed his career path but then again neither did six of the best or detention.
The only way forward that I can see is for teachers to go around at school in pairs like conjoined twins so that they may have credible deniability. The current situation is nothing short of inquisition where the mere mention of wrongdoing brings the wrath of the inquisitors down upon the accused.
Norman Baker MP recently discussed such matters in an adjournment debate in the Commons. Only he and a government minister took part. Such is the importance of this to our other MP’s. He is seeking a way forward for teachers and schools in his constituency. I would like to see similar debates on these matters in the House too.
Ref:
http://www.normanbaker.org.uk/
I think several things have happened to society:
1) We are more atomised, which means that we are more likely to believe negative things about people who we come across.
2) We are more risk adverse than before, which means that we have become less able to reflect on true risk (e.g. driving children to school to safeguard against the very small risk of a paedophile attack, when the lack of exercise and the consequent increase of cars on the road create a far larger risk to children). This leads to people assuming others are dangerous until proven safe. This then forms a vicious circle with point 1) above.
3) Distrust of politicians in the media: This shows itself with the assumption that a decrease in crime is nothing more than politicians massaging the figures. This leads to cynicism and, consequently, lack of engagement with the political process (or an effort to improve things).
I can’t claim immunity from the above:
I don’t think the view of teenagers as scary is all that new. I remember that, when I was a teenager, I felt aggrieved that I could sense that quite a few adults looked at me as a potential trouble maker although I didn’t even swear until I was an adult (and even now I rarely do that).
However, I do find my tension levels going up if there is a group of youths nearby. I try to tell myself that I’m probably being unfair but, given the coverage in the media, I can’t help feeling threatened.
I am, also, reminded of a time when I went for a job interview. At station afterwards a drunken man came up and started talking to me and I chatted with him (I had just spent a few years working in a bar so I was comfortable around people who had been drinking). After he had gone one of my fellow interviewees asked me why I was taking such a big risk talking to someone who was drunk (and therefore could turn violent). Nowadays, I’d be too nervous to do that.
I just had another thought:
The point about swearing is probably more significant than I first thought. I just remembered that, in older films and drama, a person who swore was a short-hand way of saying this person was a bad person. As such, hearing swearing from children automatically makes those who remember those productions subconsciously think they are up to no good. Logically, I know it’s unfair.
Firstly, a Happy New Year to you all! Thank you for the positive responses. I was interested in reading about your online forum Becky – young people need to be encouraged to engage with politics and politicians. But, even more importantly in my opinion, politicians need to engage with young people.
I think, Senex, that a sensible balance needs to be made by society with our approach towards young people. Children should not receive excessive discipline or harsh punishment. But they should be given boundaries that define acceptable behaviour. I agree with you – we need to debate how these boundaries should be enforced.
The points you make are interesting Hifranc – I believe that lengthy research needs to be conducted into the causes of this polarisation in society. We need to understand why a minority of young people are caught up in gang crime and why the majority of adults think that this problem encompasses all children.