Thousands of children arrested in Devon and Cornwall last year

reply to post by noonebutme


To be honest, it would appear I have my head somewhat in the sand. I will admit I have very little experience of "feral yoofs."

Therefore, I am going to concede the point, I don't think I have enough information and experience of the subject for my previous statement to stand.

reply to post by TrueBrit


Nicely put and I agree.

It really comes down to proper education and, proper enforcement or rules and civil obediance. That doesn't mean police going around assaulting people. But when a group of youths causing trouble on an estate or public area are confronted by the law, they KNOW that they will get treated like adults.

I know many people say, "I never acted like that when I was a kid" but I never did. I never argued back to adults, i didn't walk across the street, causing traffic to slow down just to annoy them, thinking I was "above the law".

Here is an encounter where an adult is being confronted by a chav.
Notice that the chav continually tries to provoke the adult
into making the first move, like he know the law.
Eventually the adult finds he has to
defend himself.


David Grouchy

reply to post by PW229


As another true example, some years ago I was walking home, on the public pavement (sidewalk in Americanese) and ahead coming my way were a couple of teens, walking two a breast talking up the entire pavement. I moved to one side, as a rational, common sense sort of human would to allow them to pass unhindered on one side, and when we met, I banged shoulders with one - he didn't move over, he didn't even try to avoid it. I was all the way over.

He asked what the eff my problem was, I said no problem - I was walking down the pavement as they were - why didn't he move over to one side and let oncoming people pass normally? He said why should he and why the eff didn't i get off the pavement?

And that's the attitude that I'm referring to. I'm sure all countries have people like that. But I stared and him incredulously - I really couldn't believe kids were that ignorant, that stupid, that insular. And it really grates on you.

reply to post by noonebutme


I have on more than one occasion asked a particularly oiksome group to "kindly remove themselves from the front of my house." Perhaps not in those exact words but then again, I am a big fella with big sons and I knew all of their fathers (all military men) so I think that played a big part. I certainly would not even attempt that if I was a pensioner. However, having no experience of inner city life or life on an estate I find myself not in a position to comment lucidly on the subject.

With regards to the lads that bumped you. It really is a difficult decision to make, I'd love to sit here from behind the safety of my keyboard and proclaim, "They would have all got a hiding from me," but let's be honest, would I? Nope, I would have given em a good, "eff off," and then pegged it!

David Laws MP steals £40,000 from the tax payer, why did he do this ?

Well David is gay and was living with his partner at the time, but didn't want the world to know this.

So now were told , by this multi millionairre ex banker, that the best way he could think of to keep his partner a secret was to get the tax payer to give him £40,0000 for rent, so his partner appears to be his landlord as the cover story.

No s*%t, I'm not making this up. - His punishment.......

He'll be back at the top of our/your government to tell you all how to live your lives before the end of the year, he did get suspended for a week though but remained an MP throughout.

We certainly do provide our children with great role model leaders, preaching do as I say not as I do.

Until we the people call to account those that we elect to office and stop putting them above the criminal law, then prepare to continue to deal with the unruly youth, who are being used to concoct new laws install new cameras and yes build databases of DNA for future use etc' etc'

How many of you are unemployed, on reduced income, under threat of eviction, but move along no criminal activity here. How many bankers are in jail again - a big fat zero.

reply to post by ukWolf


David Law should have been sacked and charged with fraud/deception..

It truly is disgusting how those with money or positions of power can get away with such stuff...

The ordinary joe public can't even use this sort of case in defence of themselves..

reply to post by Extralien


A labour MP has today asked the Met. Police to take a look at the matter. It was pointed out though that he was acting independently of the labour party, who were satisfied with the situation.

The MP cites if someone claimed 40k of housing benefit had done similar, they would have been jailed by now.

Again, we make all sorts of excuses for people who refuse to accept the social conventions of our community here in Britain, by citing poverty, the misbehaviour and criminality of our politicians, the behaviour of the rich and famous. None of that is new. My mother grew up in London, in more poverty than I have ever expirienced, and less than ten miles from the richest people in the country, some of the richest in the world, and my fathers parents were not very supportive of him (he and his brother and sister were forced to live in a shed out the back of his parents house until the siblings moved out one by one). Although my father was about as much use to those who loved him, as a kick in the nuts followed by a punch to the throat, he was at least a decent and law abiding citizen, and my mother ... well shes a damned saint in all but name.

In thier childhoods, politics was still full of dirt (but most of it was under the surface), and the rich and famous were still debauched, and conditions could still be harsh, extremely so.
The more things change, the more they remain exactly the same. The ONLY thing that has changed , is the fact that all controls,all rules, all the lines that can be crossed HAVE been crossed. The fact of the matter is,that there are no effective measures that can be taken to prevent childhood criminality, are against our modern laws.

The very second a clip round the ear was made illegal, this country hit the skids in terms of its sociological cohesion. We like to place blame for this on quite a few external factors, immigration, pop culture, media. But the fact is , that our problems are ours as a nation, and caused by our own unwillingness to make effective examples of those who have done wrong.

reply to post by TrueBrit


Your suggest what is lacking is to "make effective examples of those who have done wrong".

To remedy this you apply some type of physical / corporal punishment I guess, and it is the child / teen / youth you think this best applied to first ?

reply to post by Extralien


well as somebody who lives in the u.k. and have spent a period working in the south of england and north all i can do is explain my experience. it is hard to tell if the arrests were over the top or justified because all we have is figures of the amount arrested, which is shocking, but we would need to know why they were arrested.

there is a mentality in the u.k. that has been happening for quite a few decades where children and young adults seem to stick together and hang around in gangs, which is fine. however at an ever increasing rate these gangs are causing crime against residents in certain area's some more severe than others. knife crime, drugs, car theft, anti social behaviour ie: intimidating people and targetting people in their own homes, and vandalism of peoples property or other buildings or fixtures in the area, for example churches, phone boxes, bus stops etc.

now i am fully aware most of these kids are given a bad name because of the ones who do resort to these things, but where these figures are concerned it is a bit hard to tell if they have been arrested wrongly or if they are being arrested for the numerous things i listed.

to know this we must have some sort of figures saying what they were arrested for and which area's or estates they were arrested. from my experience the north is plagued with gangs more than the south apart from london, so the most shocking thing for me was that this many are arrested in the south of england which seemed crime free to me in my time there compared to my experience in cities more in the north.

I am shocked by this as I live in Devon and see very little crime. We still leave our doors unlocked and cycles etc in the front gardens. Go to Exeter the largest city any time day or night, there is little crime.

In fact Devon is the fourth safest place to live in in the UK

From the BBC website

There were 89,734 crimes recording in Devon and Cornwall between 1 July 2009 and 30 June 2010 - 12,300 fewer than the previous year.

There were 89,734 crimes recording in Devon and Cornwall between 1 July 2009 and 30 June 2010 - 12,300 fewer than the previous year

Deputy Chief Constable Shaun Sawyer said it was encouraging to see the force's hard work was having a positive impact on local communities.

"These figures show that Devon and Cornwall remains a safe place to live, work and visit, and that we continue to improve across the board," he said.

BBC Link

Cornwall is even more laid back,

Would be interesting to know what the children were arrested for. We as a society have become more intolerant, what was once a childish prank is now an offence.

As calling 16 or seventeen year olds children arent they young adults? very emotive headlines imho.

reply to post by lifeform11


But let's go back to the 70's and 80's... the damage you are referring to was far more destructive back then..

BT changed many of their red telephone boxes for the ones we now have today, and there are less of the new booths now than ever before.. They changed the actual phones as well, removing the cash boxes and applying telephone pre-paid cards...

Many phone boxes were raided for the cash or just generaly destroyed for something to do.. this included graffiti and the use of the phone boxes as a public toilet..

Graffiti was a major issue back then too, due to freely available spray paints..Now, there are age restrictions imposed on such items.

Car crime was rampant.. from stealing the contents, such as radios, speakers, personal items to general criminal damage all the way up to taking the cars for joy rides.. This is why car alarms and immobilisers were introduced

Regular fights between rival schools was common place. I remember many a day where several of the schools in my area would march on another school for a punch up.. Many weapons were devised for these mini battles and were often created in metal working classes, such as chinese stars, nails through golf balls or trips to the chemist to buy olbas oil to flick in peoples eyes...

The 'net' that has been thrown out across the country by the government and the police has tightened and made many a company change its approach, methods and equipment in order to 'reduce crime'..or rather improve profits and not have to keep fixing stuff..

What we are experiencing now is, IMO, far less than what used to happen.. Many of todays 'criminals' are not as 'hard' as the historic ones.. The Cray twins for example. Police corruption was rife back in the 70's too.

Bullying at school was rife, getting the cane from the headmaster was rife.. Getting a good hard slap from your parents was rife..

Those were the days..

It seems that today there is less to do due to the restrictions this society has put in place, so in order to get more arrests and to keep the level of fear up, new laws are created which have brought in things such as anti social behaviour orders, ASBO's, as a new way to be able to arrest someone because there's not much else anyone can do but use knives, guns, violence against others.. Thefts from business premisses is still high, even with CCTV.

CCTV does very little to stop those who are determined and is very rarely used in court as much of the video captured is poor quality or does not reveal much about criminal activity..

We've even seen an increase in thefts of metals from building sites, railways and anywhere that copper cabling can be gained access to. There's a rise of thefts of home heating oil due to rising prices.. but these two examples may not be due to the youth.

Getting to know what these children were arrested for will paint a better and broader picture. The actual historical differences would suggest that many are arrested for some things relating to drug and alcohol issues, which is nothing new at all... Then we are left with mostly anti social issues..

Originally posted by zookey

How many disappeared to become sacrafices in rituals?

soup. sorry, only 35 kids.

the rest are i don't know. that's a lot of frikin kids and i'm not aware of this.

reply to post by ukWolf


No, not at all. I am suggesting that those who attain office in government and then effectively steal from the people are convicted of treason, not mere expenses fraud. I am suggesting that from the top down, and the bottom up, JUSTICE (not law) and decency, are upheld to much higher standards, and that when something is done which is unjust and wrong, INCLUDING the behaviour of those youths who get themselves the pointless ASBO orders, the consequences are immediate, shocking, and effective.

Some examples:
A reinstatement of the single clip round the ear from an officer to an offensive youth.

Death to murderers and serial kiddy fiddlers and rapists.

Minimum term of twenty five years for gang activity.

Treason carrying minimum terms of life imprisonment , until death, to all politicians who make life worse for the poorest in the land by theft or fraud or financialy motivated voting.

Life imprisonment for corrupted officers of the law, or court officials.

Maximum amounts being applied to any defense case, to prevent people with massive wallets being any more likely to get away with crimes, than those of less wealthy backgrounds.

You get the picture right? I am talking about a re balancing of law and order in this country. Some things back to where they were thirty years ago, and others bought forward into reality. Im talking about equal oppertunities, and equal responsibility for everyone. Some say that things are much better now than they were in some ways, and largely speaking I agree. But at the same time, some things have utterly collapsed on themselves , and rebalancing the attitudes of the nation to things like law, justice, and right and wrong would , I feel , go a considerable distance to putting the symptoms of that collapse right.

reply to post by Extralien


i never said it did not happen in the past, crime has always happened. but that does not change the fact that it is happening now and that the offenders are getting younger and younger and that it is increasing in certain area's.

if you think it is happening far less then that is your experience, my experience is the opposite, but then again i have lived on some run down estates in my younger years that had no go area's.

it seems to me these no go area's are increasing compared to when i was younger.

Luckily the Chav mentality is dying out, but sadly only to be replaced by a even more dangerous culture known something as 'ghetto'...I have no idea myself. You see them all the time, namely with their pants half down, scruffy flannel shirts hanging out and doing all the symbology sign stuff to their 'buddies.'

The irony is the MSM teaches these idiots that anyone with mental health idiots who proclaim themselves to be 'this or that' are outcasts and should be shunned against society, when these idiots do nothing less than imitate the celebs they see on TV themselves anyway. Albeit a extremely failed version of them. Ever wonder why no celeb like 50cent, lady gaga, etc ever comes out and tells these idiots to grow the 'f.ck up and get a job'..its because they know they'd be out of the business if they tried.

reply to post by TrueBrit


I read that as being more even handed.

I may not agree with all your sentences by I can understand how we might differ there.

This report by the princes trust shows how damaged everything really is right now and these young unemployed must surely be a part of the problem.

It appears it is not the fault of the young due to lack of jobs available, yet even further education has suffered some cut backs recently...

So just what are the young supposed to do these days?

The Prince of Wales's charity for young unemployed people has warned the UK is developing a "youth underclass". A survey for the Prince's Trust of more than 2,300 people aged 16-24 suggested those from deprived backgrounds were three times more likely to say they will "end up on benefits". The trust blamed an "aspiration gap" between rich and poor. Its report comes ahead of figures on Wednesday that may show unemployment among the young hitting one million.

www.bbc.co.uk...

With this so-called 'under class' (which kinda resembles the Nazi 'sub-human' comments) we're going to end up with lots of 'feral' kids out there. Unemployed, uneducated, frustrated, disappointed and many a dream shattered.

They're not all to blame.