OV9

Targeting the effect is pretty pointless. Need to go after the root before they’re all fucked up. What’s happening when they’re very young? Probably almost all goes down to shit parenting.

Its not pointless - it will change behaviour and it is the only thing that is remotely achievable. You can't possibly think it is realistic to suddenly address parenting and other societal issues on this scale for anything like an acceptable cost and then you have to admit that you do nothing to solve the problem until the next generation.

ZedLeg wrote: Fri Jan 24, 2025 1:15 pm Why do they need to carry one then middle aged conservative experts on the youth?

I'll jump in here as a centre-left voter in case it helps

Multifactoral influences from effects of the cultural environment, alongside absence of mental health support, a poor welfare state leading to increased criminal activity, lack of role models in broken families, lack of street-level community policing, a crumbling social care system, failure to properly enforce laws and lack of space and rehabilitation facilities in our outrageously overcrowded prison system, and that's just a few.

We should elect Trump - he'll solve all those issues by Paddies Day...

GG. wrote: Fri Jan 24, 2025 1:27 pm Its not pointless - it will change behaviour and it is the only thing that is remotely achievable. You can't possibly think it is realistic to suddenly address parenting and other societal issues on this scale for anything like an acceptable cost and then you have to admit that you do nothing to solve the problem until the next generation.

Your approach of arresting everyone carrying a knife for 3,6,9 months will just lead to ever more hardened criminals and gangs. And I don’t think this country is capable of a proper rehabilitation system either because no political party wants to spend that kind of money on criminals but are happy enough pissing about billions on other vanity projects.

On the contrary I think not enforcing the law in anything like a credible manner creates a proliferation of criminals and gangs that recruit progressively more young men into their ranks. You live in London - surely you can recognise that that is true here and has been accelerating over the last 10 years to a point where large parts are deeply undesirable places to live.

I think it was only in the news 2 days ago, something like 250,000 kids carried a knife to school in the last year. A lot of them are out of fear etc so I don’t think we should just ruin say 240,000 kids futures by giving them a criminal record because they’re worried they may get stabbed and want to defend themselves.
I would change the sentencing guidelines and go hard on current gang members and stabbers - 40 years+ etc.
However there’s no prison space for that.
Really you’d need 5 years of recruiting police and building prisons to do the above. By which point the next party is in who have a different agenda so nothing happens.

Unfortunately we can't carry on as we are. There are 10.63 million school children in the UK - some of that minority of 250,000 that refuse to comply are going to need to be treated pretty harshly. You would obviously telegraph it well in advance but ultimately bring a knife into school expect to get a criminal record.

As I said. No ifs, no buts. The non-enforcement method has led us to that 250k number so time to try something else. No more excuses.

Boys need fathers, even if one exists in their lives but is a waste of space it creates problems.

Wasn’t this proven by a huge margin in America ? Boys without fathers were something like 5 times more likely to be incarcerated compared to families with both parents in ?

I grew up in Orton Goldhay and in the 80s a friend from school had his ear chopped off, one was stabbed but only in the leg and there was a lot of fighting and robberies etc. One family and a few others were from one area which was the troubled area, waste of space parents or single parent families. It’s setting the children up to fail.

My neighbour over the road is a mental health nurse and runs a company who gets children into housing, teaches them how to adult and be a grown up in society and the 2 things he says that screw kids up at a young age were divorce and cannabis. Nearly everyone he looks after has both of these issues. Not to say that all divorce does this but some kids are just ignored when the family seperates.

In my own opinion, children younger than 18 need solid parenting, encouragement and support. Not criminal records and extra hurdles. My Grandpa did youth work and really enjoyed it, what surprised me was in Croydon how many young men went there for help, it’s a scary world without guidance and support.

Dave!

Yeah unfortunately you've got a gigantic uphill struggle to prioritise support of the old fashioned family unit. The key ways to accomplish that are to support families financially and to go back to a world where single parenthood is societally recognised as being an undesirable outcome. That's more radical in modern eyes than locking offenders up and has been probably since the early 1970s.

Your other point is one of enforcement and clamping down on class B drug use. Again, you've no chance as the overton window of what can be accepted as a legitimate political aim (even though what you've said is logically unarguable as key drivers of poverty, mental illness and drug induced psychosis) has entrenched all this beyond hope of being reversed.

In reality though the above is a much bigger debate on the causes of societal decline. Sticking to the point in question, all we need to do to stop atrocities like Southport is ensure we deal with the identified tail risk of psychotic individuals that have come to the attention of the authorities over periods of several years and who are a known and present dangers to others. Maybe dealing with this tip of the iceberg is the best we can hope for.

Mito Man wrote: Fri Jan 24, 2025 2:22 pm
I would change the sentencing guidelines and go hard on current gang members and stabbers - 40 years+ etc.

As a method to reduce gang-related violence then having an extremely aggressive stance has proven to be exceptionally successful in El Salvador. They've gone from having one of the highest murder rates in the entire world, with over 100 murders per 100,000 people, down to less than 2 homicides per 100,000 people, around a 98% reduction. On the other hand, they've got some of the biggest, newest and most high tech prisons with the highest rate of incarceration in the world, but with the lowest homicide rate in latin America. Hopefully that creates the breathing room to foster a new generation who can grow up in a healthier environment.

I mean ultimately political parties will sign their own death warrants by failing to grasp the nettle and you end up with Trump like characters in power. Reform is now top of the polls and the failure to get a grip on lawlessness is a big factor in what fuels it.

I think the problem with enforcing the law on this is that a custodial sentence is unlikely to change anyone's behaviour (and may indeed make them worse) in our prison system as it is. Years of cost cutting with longer sentencing has left us with prisons that incubate criminals rather than reforming them. Locking up kids for carrying knives will just push them into a cycle of crime.

Explosive Newt wrote: Sun Jan 26, 2025 4:00 pm I think the problem with enforcing the law on this is that a custodial sentence is unlikely to change anyone's behaviour (and may indeed make them worse) in our prison system as it is. Years of cost cutting with longer sentencing has left us with prisons that incubate criminals rather than reforming them. Locking up kids for carrying knives will just push them into a cycle of crime.

Not to mention by all accounts drugs are easier to get in prison than on the street, and drugs and violence go hand in hand no matter where they are

GG. wrote: Thu Jan 23, 2025 3:16 pm (see Thames Water's report estimating 1 in 12 Londoners being in the country illegally)

Just popping back in to say The Telegraph, The Times, MailOnline & The Sun have all published corrections after initially pushing this “1 in 12” claim.

Sundayjumper wrote: Sat Feb 01, 2025 1:09 pm

GG. wrote: Thu Jan 23, 2025 3:16 pm (see Thames Water's report estimating 1 in 12 Londoners being in the country illegally)

Just popping back in to say The Telegraph, The Times, MailOnline & The Sun have all published corrections after initially pushing this “1 in 12” claim.

what was the correction?

We wrongly said that a study on behalf of Thames Water showed “1 in 12 Londoners is an illegal migrant” (News, Jan 23). In fact the study covered only 7 million people in specific “water resource zones”, not the whole population of London, which is closer to 9 million. 1 in 12 was the highest of a range of estimates for the proportion of “irregular migrants”, but these estimates included some people who are not illegal immigrants, such as those given indefinite leave to remain, as well as some British-born children of migrants with irregular status.

Splitting hairs really isn't it as this just relates to the 1 in 12 number. If there are 585,000 people in London that is clearly a massive concern irrespective of whether it is 1 in whatever. That number is equal to the fourth biggest city in the UK.

Equally their exact status is important as part of the overall debate but the report was supposed to identify "hidden or transient" users (again it would be helpful to know exactly what that means) and remains a very visible demonstration of the load on services of migration that the left would have you believe does not exist. The fact that we don't have anything like accurate numbers of the total population just demonstrates how hard it would be to properly surveil threats, build infrastructure, provide healthcare and many others.

Really, showing anything but total disbelief that there is anything like these numbers of people living outside or on the periphery of the system is a clear demonstration of how politically radicalised people have become in relation to discussing any topics relating to immigration.

It’s only about 7% of the pop of greater london though.

You’re really starting to sound like the Reform party press pack gg.

It’s also a bigger number than the 4th biggest city in England. Not the UK

not really surprised you didn’t make that distinction

“1 in 12 Londoners is an illegal migrant”

…

“estimates included some people who are not illegal immigrants”

ummm