Young offenders

Former Member

Is it me or is there a rise in young offenders?

It seems that more and more teens seem to be getting 'off' with charges or getting light punishments. For example, going on activity days with other offenders.
Unfortunetly for me i live with two young offenders- one of which is persistant...you'd like to think they learn the hard way yet they are given £20 fines. I'm not talking about silly offecences like shoplifting, i'm talking assults and ABH. one of the boys i live with assulted 3 people in a month and all he gets is a slap on the wrist.

The other day i was reading an artical in the newspaper regarding this. A mother was telling her story and about her frustration that nobody is supporting her with her out-of-control teen. she explained how she asked for more to be done so her son finally learnt the consequences of his actions yet all that was given was golf lessons and she got a £50 fine.

What i think is awful is you watch the news how these groups go around causing problems and as you've seen recently, their actions are becoming fatal. There should be stricter punishments in place for these people, cause whats gonna happen when they get to 18+ ?? What also scares me, using this boy i live with as an example, is how he thinks assulting people gives him the upper hand, and then he may carry on using this. i wouldn't want to see this being continued into domestic violence because he has hit a girl before.....

Former Member

I don't think stronger punishment will do anything. I think better rehabilitation will. I have a step-cousin who's in prison at the moment, and has constantly been in trouble with the police for petty things like burglary and so on. He can't read very well, and therefore can't hold down a job (he's quite a keen mechanic and is pretty good at it, but can't fill in the paperwork that goes with the job). If he does get a job, the employer will let him go as soon as that thing is up (you know the thing where employers are given incentives to take on people), or in one case try and rip him off by paying him less than minimum wage. It's not that surprising he's ended up in prison.

His parents aren't the best (his mum tries but is on benefits, but he never sees his dad), but equally, the schooling has let him down. There isn't enough support for children with learning difficulties and behavioural problems in schools, and I think this tends to be the start of the problem for persistant offenders.

Former Member

aye theres plenty of young ones these days with no respect for anyone or anything .. i think its down to the way people are brought up these days

as mentioned before, its not that they don't have the skills to do certain things, its just they have no way of going about them .. the whole 'theres more ways than the academic route' scenario is only really starting to come about now, so you've a whole generation of people who would have basically felt alienated from school etc, leaving them with nothing better to do

and young people with nothing better to do more often than not results in trouble.. throw being brought up in a 'rough' area into the equation and you've got violence and crime.. these people with fuck all to do group together, start shit with eachother, with other people, drink excessively, take stupid amounts of drugs.. potentially theres more things for them to do wrong than right

back to the orignal point about the way they're brought up.. a few generations back kids were to speak when spoken to and what not - any shit from a kid to any adult and it was a good hiding.. bit extreme you might think but looking back it did work (not that i would have at all wanted to live like that) .. but yea plenty of parents have no control over their kids these days - a lot do try but sometimes it just isn't possible, people start hanging around with the wrong crowd then they turn into a lost cause .. people tend to say 'yea their parents should keep them in line' and blame the parents, but it really isnt their fault a lot of the time!

i think its a sad thing to watch, ive had family and friends go down this route and you see someone that was a good decent person get into the wrong things with the wrong people and thats them for life, im from a working class area with quite a lot of trouble but thankfully ive had decent sensible parents who kept me in line and out of bother .. if it wasnt for them no doubt id be out assaulting people and stealing cars.. cuz i wouldn't know any better

i dunno what the answer to the problem is anyhow, i think its a very very complex situation, but certainly locking them all up and throwing away the key is not the solution.. fair enough punish them but get them off the streets and give them something to do, and a chance to make something of themselves, or nothing will improve, that much is for sure!

Former Member

I reckon its getting worse as well like the lack of respect people have for each other.

Me and my friend (shes a girl) got beaten up the other day at the train station by about eight lads (15-16?) we weren't from that area but I was so SHOCKED after that boys acting like that ! Something like that has never, ever happened to me before.

I hang around with some boys from time to time who would probably be called 'yobs' or whatever but they are my mates I've known them for years and I disagree with some of the things they get up to but they are still my friends and they would never do that to two girls !

And then I read about that old person who got stoned to death by a Yorkshire and I think thats so wrong ! How could any one do that ? What the fuck where they thinking ?

I dunno what the answer is to the problem but something needs to be sorted because its getting worse.

Former Member

Was going to post some extremely harsh and very un-PC ideas on what we should do to people like this.

Decided not to, for obvious reasons.