Oh dear God, you must be kidding me....

[Hawk]

I wonder what its going to take for society to realize that the problems kids are causing started to get really bad when it started being unfashionable to discipline kids? I'm not saying there weren't bad-a$$es when I was a kid. There were! Back in the dark ages, kids in my grade 5 class were stealing family allowances out of mailboxes, and taking money out of milk bottles on steps. (For those that missed that - milk came in glass bottles. The day the milk man delivered, you put the washed bottles on the step, with the money inside for another bottle of milk). The police walked right into the classroom and escorted 2 of these kids out. **Well, none of us were surprised, those families are always in trouble anyway**. Kids didn't steal cars, people didn't get shot outside bars (they may get beat up, but not shot), gangs didn't rule the street. We had a drug ring in my high school. It was kept so quiet, I found out about it years later. Now, I don't know if its safe to go out!


Hawk

 

[chanman]

That's the line right there.  Sorry.  They knew what they were doing.  Sucks for the parents, but they knew they might be killed for their efforts.  TFB. 

I'll agree with that.  Singapore's justice system is known for being harsh, not corrupt.  And I don't get the planted drugs excuse - maybe if you want to frame somebody, but it seems an odd way of delivering valuable contraband given that the receiving party will need to know who the dupe is, which luggage is the one with the cargo, and will need to make off with it with no one the wiser.  Rather risky endeavour considering the sums involved in drug shipments.

I just wanted to offer a counterpoint to countries considered too soft on their kids.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Accepting, as I do, that a whole lot of people are just plain bad, and recognizing that I may come off as a loony left wing nut, I do have a theory about crime and punishment.  It’s a theory based on nothing much except ‘thought.’  I have neither formal training nor experience in law, law enforcement, corrections, rehabilitation or anything else – beyond what one learns from years and years of regimental duty up to and including command.

I think most criminals are stupid.*

Most reasonably smart or even slightly intelligent people understand that crime does not pay, not as well as a half decent job anyway.  Most also understand, even if they don’t like the fact, that education is the key to that good job.  I have read that prisons are full of the least educated Canadians.

I also think that some (much?) of our school system does little except prepare many children, especially boys and especially aboriginal boys and boys from some (but not all) visible minority communities for socio-economic failure, crime and prison.

Too many boys ‘graduate’ from some level of high school without elementary literacy, numeracy or what our American friends call ‘civics.’  We ought not to be surprised that they cannot get a half decent job – who wants to hire a kind who cannot read or handle a waybill or who does not comprehend how an honest, hard working society functions?  These same children are also exposed – overexposed – to a constant stream of sound and image which glorifies the gangster/drug dealer/pimp lifestyle with all its bling-bling, big cars, fast women and easy money.  Why are we even slightly surprised when they want what they see on TV?  Why are we surprised when, being unemployable, they turn to crime to get what they want?

How to fix it?

Keep them in school, but, big  BUT make them learn in school.

How?

First: feed them.  Teachers have told me that many schools in Canada’s richest cities are full of children, boys and girls, who have a hard time learning anything because they are hungry – every morning when they arrive in school.  I believe it costs something like $75,000 per year – likely more – to incarcerate an offender.  I think we can provide 10 good solid meals per week, 40 weeks per year, year after year for about $2,500.00/year – in other words we can feed 30 kids for a year for the cost of keeping just one of them in jail.  It must be worth it.

Second: While we’re at it we should also insist upon school uniforms to help damp down the style and gang ‘cultures’ and we can also provide free uniforms to children from poor families (through a combination of vouchers (for all) and tax claw backs).

Third: Stop passing kids, grade after grade just because they aged a year and grew an inch.  Provide ‘streams’ and more vocational schools and programmes.  Get e.g. the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce involved in education standards – they know what a real ‘elementary’ education ought to involve.  They know what a kid ‘must know’ to get a hold a half decent job.  Let them set real, practical, measurable performance standards and then let the educrats in Edmonton, Toronto, Halifax etc develop curricula and so on which will allow most children to meet them.  (Also, let universities and colleges set and mark their own entrance exams and let the educrats design curricula for that, too.)

Let’s aim at diverting some kids away from crime and towards productive, honest citizenship.  It will not take very many success stories to pay for the programmes.

-----------
* I’m happy to stipulate that some, a few are ‘smart’ and a small group, even fewer are actually intelligent .


P.S. I also favour corporal punishment - public corporal punishment - for a wide range of adult offences, including, in some cases, as an alternative to jail.

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act, is an editorial from today's Globe and Mai/i]:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070724.ECRIME24/TPStory/Opinion/editorials

The shooting of Ephraim Brown, 11

July 24, 2007

To be black and to live in or near public housing in Toronto is to face a big risk of dying young. The fatal shooting of 11-year-old Ephraim Brown while he was riding a scooter Saturday was not an aberration. It is what the city has become.

Toronto is an unusually safe city unless a gun battle happens to break out. It can break out at any time and in any place. Bullets have flown in the Eaton Centre, the big downtown mall. They have flown outside the mall, on Yonge Street. They have flown in bars crowded with 500 people, in the downtown entertainment district and in distant suburbs. They have flown on the streets outside the bars.

But mostly they have flown in and around the public housing projects where poor, black and usually fatherless families live. Six years ago, Dudley Laws, a local activist, produced a list of 100 black people, mostly young men, who had been killed in Toronto by other black people between 1996 and 2001. Today, however, even young children are at risk.
Torontonians are not jaded yet; they remember each separate incident. A 15-year-old boy, Jordan Manners, was shot dead in his high school in May. An 11-year-old girl, Tamara Carter, was shot in the eye on a packed city bus three years ago. Amon Beckles, 18, was shot dead two years ago on the church steps at the funeral of his best friend, Jamal Hemmings, 17, who had also been fatally shot. A four-year-old boy, Shaquan Cadougan, was shot in the knee two years ago. All of those shooting victims were black. And in numerous other incidents, bullets whizzed over the heads of children at play. But for good luck, there would have been many more Ephraim Browns.

The secondary damage done to children and teenagers who witness deadly shootings has not been well documented in Toronto. It has been extensively documented in the housing projects of Chicago. "In some environments," writes educator James Garbarino, "virtually all youth demonstrate negative effects of highly stressful and threatening environments." For instance, they fall more than a grade level behind in school.

The research shows that Ephraim's death is not an isolated incident. Black residents in Toronto are murdered at a far greater rate than non-black Torontonians: roughly 10 victims for every 100,000 people, compared with just two non-black victims, according to research by University of Toronto criminologist Rosemary Gartner, covering the years 1992 to 2003. Homicide victims are younger than in the past, more apt to be shot than before and more likely to be killed in public spaces. (Seventy-five per cent of homicides occur in places such as parking lots and bars, up from 50 per cent in the 1990s.)

Toronto has undertaken a variety of useful responses: setting up four 18-member police squads that blitz high-crime areas on foot, creating extra social programs, and keeping schools open for summer programs. But the underlying problem of large, poor, fatherless families, alienated teens and a gangster culture transplanted in part from Jamaica is sinking its roots into Toronto, and will not soon let go.

The problem is not confined to either Toronto or the black communities (there is more than just one) and certainly not just to the Toronto-Jamaican community.

There are large under-classes in most if not all Canadian cities: some are black/Jamaican, other are black/Somali and others are aboriginal or South Asian or Vietnamese or, or, or ...  These under classes share a few attributes – here are just a very few:

1. They are, broadly, young and male – young black, aboriginal or Asian women are, somehow or other, better able – but not 'perfectly' or even 'predominantly' able – to escape the traps;

2. In most cases, one of the root causes is that children (ages 13-16) are raising children – with only limited supervision from parents (some of whom become grandmothers before they turn 30) or other family members;

3. Most of the boys in each under-class leave school before they turn 16 – they are, broadly, illiterate and innumerate and, consequently, unemployable.  The school systems fail them by passing them, grade-by-grade, despite being unable (or unwilling in the higher grades) to do the work;

4. Reverse racism is rampant in Canada.  Blacks, Aboriginals, Asians etc. must be excused their failure to conform to even the most minimally acceptable societal norms because they are 'victims.'  We create the victims by failing to demand minimally acceptable standards or behaviours and citizenship – standards 'our' school system probably failed to explain in the first place; and

5. We have, despite centuries of experience, failed, miserably, to balance the rights of the majority to live in safety with the inalienable right of every individual, no matter that he might be a well known gangster, to be free from unlawful search and seizure.

I remain convinced that changing the sub-cultures which animate these upper-classes is the key to preventing young men from having 'run and gun' duels on city streets.  The school system is, traditionally – going back to 17th century Scotland – the way we (the enlightened West) change our sub-cultures.  Ours are not doing their jobs – not in the under-class communities, anyway.  We should start by demanding more and better schooling, maybe offset by less and less social service mollycoddling.  (Which does not, I hasten to add, involve cuts in most sports and after-school programmes.) 


Edit: format

 

[Hawk]

Still think we need a "thumbs up" smilie!!

Well done, I agree completely. We somehow think we're doing kids a favour by mollycoddling them - can't let them get behind their peer group by failing them if they didn't learn anything, treating them with psychology while they laugh at us. No one's teaching them that they're responsible for their actions. In some cases (kids raising kids, but not just kids raising kids) their parents aren't any smarter than they are. Some people just don't have the parenting skills. Schools, as we've said before, fail them, society rejects them - its no wonder they end up in gangs.

Now I'm generalizing, and I don't mean to. A certain percentage pull themselves up by their bootstraps and make something, however little, or however major,  of themselves. What it boils down to, is society has to find some way to turn this around. Violence and anarchy are becoming the norm in our cities. There has to be a way . . .


Hawk

 

[zipperhead_cop]

As always, a great post Edward.  The one thing that I would like to point out about underclasses though, is that they aren't confined to visible minorities.  There are plenty of dead end white kids kicking around causing heaps of crime with the same lack of consequence the legal system provides. 
I also agree with the "molly coddling" comment.  IMO until the welfare system stops rewarding people for being leeches on society, we will not eliminate that underclass. 

 

[Hawk]

I've been reading an old thread in another forum I frequent - this one from the UK. Someone in there has a great definition of a FERAL CHILD. I'd never heard the expression before, apparently in common use in the UK. Unfortunately this person has left the forum, so I can't ask permission to share the whole thing with you. I'll try and give you a nut-shell version:

They are children who receive no practical parenting, whose fathers likely have never lived with the family, and whose siblings have different fathers; children who are tossed out on the street to roam free and uncontrolled, and are involved in vandalism, theft, drugs(taking and selling), and involved in gangs for companionship. Their parents don't know and don't care, and are likely on drugs or drunk. The kids are undereducated, unloved, unwanted, uncared for, and will likely be incapable of forming stable families of their own.

Thought I'd share that. Its a shocking thing - but look around - these kids are there. Canada doesn't have a monopoly on these kids, and there is no ethnicity attached - they can be kids from any background and culture.


BB

 

[gman620]

actually my wife is an ece and I have watched a show on this, kids turning to gangs for love is not as bad as some.  there was a girl in the ukraine who was raised by dogs.  another kid was kept for I believe 13 years in a cage by her parents (the dad didnt want a girl !) and was only given scraps for food.  The human brain can only learn certain things for a certain time, unfortunately these ferral kids will never be able to speak or exsist in what we call a normal life.  I have more info if you are interested.

 

[lawandorder]

While I would agree that the money spent is outrageous, simply locking them up and "punishing" them isn't the solution.  How would you punish them?  The youth that are committing crimes more often then not have other issues besides bas decision making.  Youth need counseling and "therapy" but maybe not $700 pieces of wood for a home made guitar.  If you just lock them up and throw a way the key for a few years you see them re-offend because whatever made them commit the crime in the first place hasn't been dealt with.  Now I'm not saying pamper them, but if they are youth, and the "future" of our society, shouldn't we want to correct the problem so they can contribute? 

 

[Danjanou]

I’ve seen lots of street kids in Colombia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, The Dominican Republic, Haiti, Morocco, Thailand…. well you get the idea that would be considered Feral by the definitions this entails. Once you’ve been chased by a pack of glue sniffing teens and pre teens in Cartagena who are quite willing to knife you for your camera, you soon understand ( if not agree) why the local businesses organize death squads to kill them. They are long past any hope of rehabilitation.

The common factor there is these are developing countries not first world ones like ours. There almost no social safety nets in place in these places and therefore one can easily understand how it gets this bad.

We ain’t there yet, but the fact we do have all these system in place to prevent this. Unfortunately that system is totally broken and no one is willing to even admit that let alone fix it.

Alright enough pontification, I have another hour of mollycoddling before quitting time.  :

 

[gman620]

It is impossible to fix something that doesnt want to be fixed.  When I was a boy my church was in a rough area and when bums would come to the door and say that there family has nothing to eat, the pastors or older people would say well lets go to the gocery store and buy some groceries.  While SOME were happy others got irrate and yelled and swore because they wanted money for booze not food.  And still others would turn around and return the groceries.  But my point is, if these people are happy commiting crimes living in the streets no government help is going to stop that.  I live in Brandon Manitoba, and a few months ago they did a study on homelessness and of all the people they talked to said that they were happy were they were.  the thing is if welfare stopped crime would sky rocket.  I think the only thing that would deter criminals would have to be incentive NOT to go to jail.  A police station can be shut down due to health concerns if the holding cells are a bit dusty.  we need to punish the criminals.  and the young offenders act should only cover 1 maybe 2 mishaps. I hope im not rambling to much but check out this web site.

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a38a75857671c.htm

 

[Hawk]

gman620-I read some articles online about the traditional meaning of Feral Children. Interesting stuff! The person on the other thread seems to think it has a more contemporary meaning as well, and I thought it fitted in well with this conversation. The group I meant were the young people in gangs, or not, who are out vandalizing property, stealing cars, dealing/using drugs, tagging buildings etc. etc.

Our young offenders laws have to be tightened up. One or two chances (and I'd vote for one) and they throw the book at you. If you're a repeat offender, you know you're doing wrong, and there's a point where you can't blame your home, or your upbringing, or whatever other sympathy getting excuse you can come up with.


Hawk

 

[gman620]

hawk i couldn't agree more, i hear so many people say "well you know he didnt have a dad, he had a tough life" well my dad wasnt around much when i was a kid i had almost nothing growing up and ive started my life on more than one occassion with  literally nothing but the shirt on my back and now im stable have a good job and a wife, and i would consider myself fairly normal and an upstanding member of the community, excuses are for lazy people to be used on the ignorant .

 

[gman620]

okay i just read the first post.  now can anyone at all give me a reason for a young offender NOT to kill someone? seriously we reward criminals, does this alarm anyone else?

God help us all

 

[Staff Weenie]

About a year ago, I was sitting in the courthouse, (not me.....waiting to go in with a soldier). While I was outside the courtroom for over an hour, I had a chance to watch, and listen to, a seemingly endless stream of teenage rabble.

These little fools were bragging about their crimes, to appear bigger and badder to the other kids beside them. And, they were all laughing about the system, and how they were sure they'd get the usual slap on the wrist when their lawyer and social worker pleaded to the judge. What was even worse to me, was the pregnant teenage girls that clung on to the arms of these idiots - probably to be tossed away the instant they outlive their usefulness.

Something tells me that this scene is repeated thousands of times per day from coast to coast.

 

[lawandorder]

okay i just read the first post.  now can anyone at all give me a reason for a young offender NOT to kill someone? seriously we reward criminals, does this alarm anyone else?

God help us all

Not all Young Offenders are violent criminals so that is a pretty good reason.  The system is set up the way it is, but needs to be changed, in my opinion, for sexual, violent, and drug related crimes when it come to youth.  The system, in my opinion, needs to be changed for adults in that area as well.

Too lump all young offenders together is a mistake as you have violent ones that aren't violent.  I wouldn't say the Canadian Justice system rewards people, it is just trying new things that may or may not work, because whatever was being done in the past clearly wasn't working with the amount of re-offenders that there are.

 

[zipperhead_cop]

Too lump all young offenders together is a mistake as you have violent ones that aren't violent.  I wouldn't say the Canadian Justice system rewards people, it is just trying new things that may or may not work, because whatever was being done in the past clearly wasn't working with the amount of re-offenders that there are.

Enough with the violent offender red herring.  Yes, violent crime is bad.  But the fact is that these kids don't start out on a violent rampage.  They are petty taggers, shoplifters, car thieves, drug dealers.  They learn very quickly from their ilk that the legal system is a joke, and nothing really happens to you.  Once they are mired in the criminal lifestyle, they find out that there is a pecking order and standards to maintain.  Then the violence follows.  Nip the behavior in the bud, swiftly, harshly and CONSISTANTLY.  As well, make parents suffer some sort of penalty for their kids misdeeds.  Maybe they will be able to tear themselves from the bingo halls and televisions long enough to clue in to the fact that little Justin just set the cat on fire. 
And how do you figure that the legal system doesn't reward people?  ???  Jason Asshat goes to court for six counts of Theft Under $5000, four counts of Breach of Undertaking, three counts of Break and Enter and two counts of Possess CDSA.  He pleads guilty to all of them, and then ends up with four months jail, but gets time served for the dead time he did while he was on his crime spree.  So then he gets Probation, which means sweet FA.  He also doesn't have to pay back a cent. 
The things that "would work" won't be tried, because they would violate the criminals oh-so-precious rights.  Corporal punishment would work.  Hard labour camps would work.  But our national conceit does not allow us to think that we could be so heinously barbaric as to hurt our precious criminals. 
But funny how the crime rate is so low in Singapore...

 

[Steel Badger]

+1 ZHC

Prison is no hardship to mopes, they even conduct their illicit street businesses from the confines of your local detention centre.

Sentancing should be harsh, consistent AND force the inamte to make resititution in some way. Chain gangs up!

SB

 

[FastEddy]

Too lump all young offenders together is a mistake as you have violent ones that aren't violent.  I wouldn't say the Canadian Justice system rewards people, it is just trying new things that may or may not work, because whatever was being done in the past clearly wasn't working with the amount of re-offenders that there are.

1+ for ZHC. And what they are trying doesn't work either and its getting people killed, including a lot more LEO's.

Its so much easier to kill any witnesses than leave them behind to testify,
hell even in States with the Death Penalty if you are caught, you'll probally sit on Death Row and grow old.

And Bail, the greatest joke off them all, Man arrested for DUI (with many priors), out on Bail, kills young Pedestrian in DUI.

Parole, just ask the Connecticut Doctor who's Wife and two Daughters were murdered in a home invasion.

Yeah ! these new ways are sure working for us.

 

[Hawk]

What do you people think of this?  PARENTS ARE RESPONSIBLE, AT LEAST IN PART FOR THE MAKING OF A YOUNG OFFENDER. Who's the first influence on a child? Mom and Dad. Goes back to what we were saying earlier about parenting skills. If the child is raised with love and respect, tempered with a firm hand and good values, someone there to say yes that's good, or no you don't do that, perhaps that kid will stay straight, stay in school and be someone. Now, before someone jumps on that, you still have to get by peer pressure, the influence of the neighbourhood, all that, but good parenting would most certainly help.

A 4-year old in the north end of Winnipeg wandered off from home yesterday, not reported in the news, one of his neighbours told me. He got several blocks from home, and across a busy street -Keewatin, if any of you know Winnipeg, a busy street. His mother didn't even know he was gone-she was watching TV. Future criminal? Who knows?

Parents, in my opinion, should be held responsible. If Junior breaks a window, Mom and Dad pay. If Junior writes on a building - don't call Graffiti Busters - make Mom and Dad pay, if Junior steals a car, make Mom and Dad pay for repairs. Would that get parental attention?


Hawk

 

[Kat Stevens]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:  Mum and Dad can control their kids...right up to and including the end of the driveway.  After that, all you can hope for is that you've given them the right influences to keep them from becoming shit pumps.  At the age of 14, they should know right from wrong and be held responsible for their actions. Short of tracking collars and surveillance cameras, how am I to monitor them 24/7? Their little pin head pals have way more influence over them at that age. Stiffen the penalties, and make the judges and prosecutors stick to them. Nice people do have rotten kids, despite all their efforts.  I broke a window when I was 10.  My dad made me work in the neighbour's yard all weekend to pay for it, and it was a well learned lesson.