>David Cameron may have sounded tough this week. But the Prime Minister is sorely mistaken if he really thinks the rioters will be punished and made to pay for what they've done.
>Even those who are imprisoned will spend their days watching TV and playing video games. A colleague working in a youth detention centre recently told me he is no longer allowed to call their rooms 'cells' because it infringed their human rights. And these were offenders who'd done very bad things, including sexual assault and extreme violence.
>What they'll actually do is spend the majority of their 'sentence' escorted by youth workers — whose wages are paid by the state — to gyms, adventure centres and even DJ-ing courses. Already this week, we've read about a group of offenders like this who were taken on a day trip to Alton Towers. ISSPs are also supposed to involve community service, but often there is none at all. I know people in the Manchester Youth Offending Team who were reduced to driving offenders around for hours to fill up the time, because no community work had been arranged.
>Instead, the programme usually amounts to no more than enforced leisure: football and tennis on Monday, boxing and squash on Tuesday.One day, we took ten offenders to an indoor rock climbing centre. Each of them had a conviction for burglary — in effect, we were just improving their breaking and entering skills. On another occasion, we drove a group to a youth club with a music studio. There they spent the morning listening to hip-hop, posing as gangsta rappers. When they got bored, they amused themselves by playing pool or being rude to the staff.
>At lunchtime, the offenders gave individual orders for takeaways from a chip shop. Once the food arrived — delivered by a member of staff as though he were their butler — they fell on it like ravenous wolves, without the slightest restraint or manners, screeching foul abuse if their order was wrong. They then spent the afternoon on PlayStations or playing on Nintendo Wii games consoles. Occasionally, these activities will be broken up by classroom exercises in a youth centre, pointless sessions where offenders' 'needs' are assessed — where they are viewed as children, as opposed to people who have done something very wrong.
>'How are you feeling?' they're asked. 'Are you feeling better?' Who cares how they feel? The offenders I saw had broken into old ladies' houses. What about the feelings of the decent, predominantly working-class victims of this new criminal underclass? The victims of the looters and arsonists this week, for example, who may have seen their livelihoods or homes destroyed. Sometimes the offenders will hijack the classroom exercises themselves. In a recent session on homophobia, several members of the class were causing disruption. Eventually, the frustrated youth worker asked the ringleader to come up to the front and take over the class. With relish, the chief culprit launched into an offensive comic routine about different types of homosexual. Afterwards, the youth worker boasted to me that the lesson had been a great success because the class was 'engaged', despite surrendering her authority.
>I have escorted a 16-year-old, unemployed, criminal teenager by taxi from his home to the benefits office so he could sign on for the dole, even though he lived only ten minutes away by foot. He was from a large Albanian family of Romany gypsies who had come to Britain seeking asylum, but each had ended up involved in criminal activities, including violent muggings and burglary.
>In the words of the youth worker: 'We need to work with him to remove the underlying causes of his criminal behaviour', by ensuring he received 'all the benefits that are entitled to him, his partner and future baby.' (He had got his Bulgarian girlfriend pregnant.) My colleague's worry was that, if this support, including the taxi service, were not provided, the Albanian would slide back into a life of crime; even though she knew, from his expensive clothes, that he earned so much from crime he didn't even need those benefits.
>Some of this week's rioters, having been processed by the courts, will end up doing 'poster work', where they will draw and colour in examples of criminal behaviour — just in case they're not aware that torching local businesses and throwing masonry at the police, fire brigade and passers-by are criminal acts.One recent offender made a mockery of the programme by producing large drawings of cannabis joints. He received no punishment.
......WHY!!!???
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2024943/UK-RIOTS-David-Camerons-tough-sentences-Yobs-treated-THEYRE-victims.html#ixzz1UoJX4C5d
No comments:
Post a Comment