h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Great discusssion Guys and Gals. The conclusion seems to be focusing on getting young people to take on the responsibilities of living within a society and to realise the consequences of their actions if their behaviours and attitudes are not under control.

Changing these traits was amply demonstrated last year in a Channel 4 series called, I think, Brat Camp. Disruptive and out of control teenagers were sent to a camp in the middle of the Utah desert, supervised by trained counsellors. Sparse privilges such as remaining a member of the group or some small food award were earned by being a team member and not being disruptive.

Sanctions were being isolated and left to reflect on ones own behaviour and attitude. The initial impression was that the counsellors were trying to break the spirit of the kids but they achieved some impressive results that semed to be effective over a long term.

Admittedly the kids were mostly middle class and I imagine the costs involved high but it did demonstrate that in order to live within a society you have to take on board the responsibilities as well as the rights.

An idle speculation in the context of this discussion -

when only an 'elite few' went on to grammar school/ A levels/ university, did those on the lower academic rungs feel less excluded from 'normal society' than they do now, where they comprise a smaller percentage?

That's not to say that poor academic performance necessarily goes with yob gang culture, but it is a general perception. It may also be bored under-achievers who lack an alternative outlet for their energies.

Brat camp...

Firstly, remember that here we're talking about priveleged, (upper) middle-class children. Might it not be that removing priveleges from children who don't have any priveleges to remove in the fist place could have a lesser effect? In fact it could be counter-productive, causing children to lash back at yet another set of adults who (in their mind) don't give a toss about them.

Secondly, the 'give 'em a bit of a shock' ethos is really more of a matter of playing to a macho agenda than an evidence-based part of of a therapeutic approach. It is possible to change minds without the punishment/reward stuff.

(That said, behaviourist 'token economy' approaches do have their role with some of the more unmanageable, harder-to-reach children. But it's better and more effective to reach them before it gets to that stage).

Morning Edward,

Re your last para about early teaching,

Am I correct in thinking that a few months back there was a govt. suggestion that children be removed from identifiably unacceptable ( cannot remember how that was defined )parents?

I 'think' the idea was to remove them from an environment which would produce socially misfitting kids.

Sketchy memory I confess, but if aproximately accurate, what would your thoughts on it be?

Respects

Novo

That was sort of what they seemed to be saying. If true, it's soundbite politics. Firstly - how would we pay for it? Aere we *really* thinking of re-housing large numbers of children? How much would a placement and all the associated resources cost. Secondly - what might be the human rights implications of removing children from their families?

In Scots law - which is remarkably sane and (dare I say) liberal on child welfare and child offending (it treats the two issues as identical), a key governing principle is 'minimum intervention' - ie parents are assumed to be the right people to raise their own children, and the state should intervene as little as is necessary to ensure the child's wellbeing. Sometimes residential or secure placements might be necessary to protect the public and/or protect the child (since children who continue to offend are bound to have a horrible life) - but it's not the state's business to break up families in pursuit of an ideal.

(In practice, all UK social workers are taught minimum intervention from day 1. The idea of their being desperate to stick their nioses in or snatch away peoples' kids is a myth)

Oh...I must point aout that the numbers of children who are offended against (ie are abused or neglected) far outstrips those who offend. The former has risen drastically over recent years. The latter is fairly steady, maybe even decreasing.

<>

I would echo that. My mother is a District Nurse and she literally wails with despair when Social Workers refuse to take action. She's seen obviously abused children, reported it, attended meetings and the Social Work Dept are extremely loathe to take action. Her opinion of Social Workers is not the highest as a result. I know of at least two instances where adhoc community justice prevailed where the authorities wouldn't step in.

Leaping (as ever) to the defence of Social Workers...resources are a big issue. If in doubt, report it to the - er - Reporter, and then their managers can be made to prioritise it. Anyone can refer directly to a Reporter.

And community justice isn't always the answer, either. I myself have known of several instances where neighbours, members of toddlers' groups etc. etc. have been reluctant to interfere.

Plus the new Scottish CHPS should (theoretically) end the health/ social work demarcation disputes.

Well, she's got thirty-plus years of experience Ed, working in the same neighbourhood treating the children of the children she treated when she started. And most of the District Nurse team is equally as experienced. You can take it as read that they know the proper procedures for reporting. They generally get treated as nobodies by the Social Work Dept. Can you imagine how galling it can be to have thirty years experience dismissed by a twenty-something not long out of Uni with a head full of sociology theory?

It's not all sweetness and light with the Scottish system. All Youth offenders are referred to the child welfare system. The police seem to find it very annoying. They know that the lad at 15, who is sent a crack team of social workers to talk to him about his problems, is the same lad who ends up in a Young Offenders Institution at 17, when the abrupt cut-off happens and his behaviour stops being a 'welfare issue' and starts being a 'criminal issue'. Criminal behaviour is treated as a welfare issue and the response lacks a sufficient consequences element IMO. Many kids get a helluva shock when they turn 17 and, instead of being supported through their criminal behaviour, they get their first real taste of consequences.

If there were more deterrent consequences earlier in the youth's "rebellious" phase, perhaps we wouldn't see so many 17 year olds clogging the courts.

I in no way intend to disrespect the current system entirely. On balance, the good points possibly outweigh the bad. But it is not a panacaea.

Oh, it's never all sweetness and light anywhere. Yeah...there's good and bad social workers. And I'm sure your mother knows good and bad district nurses. (My mother certainly did. She was a district nurse too Maybe you and I were separated at birth?). I'm not sure I recognise the picture of social workers with heads full of sociology theory, though.

And, indeed, there will always be cases where our best endeavours fail. That's not an argument for a one-size-fits-all system with maximum intervention, though. It's more an argument for having the flexibility to put in case a range of measures appropriate to individual needs.

I agree completely that 17 is an arbitrary cut-off point. In fact...we really should have the courage to do more of these namby-pamby liberal things within the adult criminal justice system. However...if we work harder and provide the resources (who is clamouring for more to be spent on social work?) more children can be given the protection, guidance, care and treatment that they need at an early enough age to make a difference.

It's an area where we need to have the confidence to tell the politicians to butt out and let the experts get on with it. Children's Panel is an excellent initiative, but it needs to have teeth and the willingness to use them rather more than they seem to do so at the moment.

I worry from my experience of watching a step-kid with ADHD progress through school and encountering the Children's Panel, that not enough emphasis is put on consequences. Instead it's about positive reinforcement, reward good behaviour and ignore bad behaviour. This is a scenario designed to encourage the badly-behaved child to seek the rewards of good behaviour but alarmingly often, it is taken as acceptance of bad behaviour by some children. Effectively, they do wrong and nothing happens. Yes, they miss out on the rewards, but this can be compensated by peer pressure Brownie-points.

I don't see the age of 17 as an arbitrary cut-off point personally. I see it as a recognition that at some point individuals have to be held to account for their actions. It's not as if the personal approach of the CP is lost. Every case is considered on its merits by a Judge, who will have access to Social Reports and the like. So we still have scope to tailor the response to the individual, except at 17 there is an enhanced variety of options including retributive punishment.

We cannot as a society continually look to absolve individuals from personal responsibility and seek to attribute blame elsewhere. At some point we have to accept that there are people who deliberately, knowingly do wrong because they do not fear the consequences. Where someone has been given every opportunity to rectify their behaviour (and let's face it, very few first-offenders go to prison), they should be faced with a consequence severe enough to make them realise the game isn't worth the candle.

If we were seperated at birth, which one of us was dropped on his head?

So who's arguing that some people don't have to be punished? All I'm saying is that it's little to do with crime reduction. This is where I came in. Hues and Cries following a ghastly murder are too little, too late. We should be getting liberal on people's asses.

As an aside, how many criminals think they'll get caught when they commit a crime? Pretty low margin, I'd imagine.

The circle squared indeed. I wasn't suggesting that you, or anyone else was implying a zero-punishment solution.

As I said at the outset, it is unlikely we will see a reduction in crime at all. Instead, as the population becomes more and more compressed we are likely to see crime increase. Hard-line draconian actions have been tried and failed. Liberal policies have been and continue to be tried and they are demonstrably failing too. We have the highest crime rate in Western Europe, the highest prison population per head of population (but one of the lowest imprisonment rates per conviction) and it continues to rise. (Incidentally, if judges imprisoned criminals at the rate they did in the 50s, we would have a prison population of over 250,000 now).

And it's nothing to do with right-wing or left-wing policies. We top the criminality league in a society which I think most would agree is one of the most right of centre in Europe. Yet second on the list is Sweden, held up as an example of good socialist government.

It's not the society per se that breeds criminality, it's the density of the population imo.

Rising crime is like the incoming tide. Right wingers try to stop it by collecting water in buckets and putting it out of sight. Liberals try to make the water see the error of it's ways. Neither works. We should all buy wellies and learn to live with it.

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Certainly one factor, but if we have policies to encourage population growth, then that's part of society, no? I'd also be wary of that without making further distinctions. I'd imagine the population of, say, the Kensington & Chelsea parliamentary district is higher than that of Inverness, but I'd wager it has less criminals per head of population (or certainly less crime).

And I'd also wager that the density of population within Kensington and Chelsea is less than that of a council estate in Inverness

Well, Manhattan maybe? The point being that population density *alone* won't explain everything.

PS I'd see you and Ed as more like second cousins than brothers. Just thought I'd let you know.

No, it doesn't explain everything but I would say it is a huge contributor that is totally ignored in the crime & punishment debate.

What happens then when a zero tolerance regime is instigated; New York and Middlesborough spring to mind. Is crime displaced or does the cost of extra police and court resources limit the effectiveness?