Panorama - Anti Social Behaviour: Afraid in my own home

Worrying that anyone in a position of power thinks throwing young people in jail for relatively low level crime, surrounding them with violent criminals for months/years, destroying any chance of education or a decent job in their lives will somehow actually make things better

Sure the already significantly stretched prison system will be thankful too
JM, I have just finished a book " I am not a gangster" by Bobby Cummins, convicted criminal who turned his life around and subsequently lots of others, your right, his view is basically DO NOT send young offenders into prison where they will just become schooled by experienced villains, keep them away from them in their own institutions, but more importantly educate them not to sucked into that sort of life in the first place.

Having read some of the comments about police, schools, community workers etc, it starts at the homes, Parents have a responsibility to bring their kids up with respect for others, where they live, authority, It is not the job of the police, school, work, community workers, the council, Government.
We all know that there are kids who despite their parents go the other way and are utter villains, but there would be a lot less if parents accepted it is their responsibility initially and not someone else's. Sadly there are areas all over the country that have these sort of problems, parents who don't care, have no ambition for themselves or their kids, and accept little responsibility for their own situation, it's always someone else's fault.
We need to address the cause so we can prevent it happening.
 
JM, I have just finished a book " I am not a gangster" by Bobby Cummins, convicted criminal who turned his life around and subsequently lots of others, your right, his view is basically DO NOT send young offenders into prison where they will just become schooled by experienced villains, keep them away from them in their own institutions, but more importantly educate them not to sucked into that sort of life in the first place.

Having read some of the comments about police, schools, community workers etc, it starts at the homes, Parents have a responsibility to bring their kids up with respect for others, where they live, authority, It is not the job of the police, school, work, community workers, the council, Government.
We all know that there are kids who despite their parents go the other way and are utter villains, but there would be a lot less if parents accepted it is their responsibility initially and not someone else's. Sadly there are areas all over the country that have these sort of problems, parents who don't care, have no ambition for themselves or their kids, and accept little responsibility for their own situation, it's always someone else's fault.
We need to address the cause so we can prevent it happening.
I use to work for a programme called Positive Activities for Young People (PAYP) that came under the Connexions umbrella and my main role was to offer alternative activities to young people that were on the brink of offending or had offended. I would meet with these YP's in their home, in schools or in community centres. Not only did we work with the young people improving their school attendance, behaviour, etc. but we would also work with their parents, giving them parenting skills and strategies to cope. I would go into schools and advocate for their parents and was usually the only person who could speak positively about the young person. We would also provide funding that allowed young people to buy the equipment needed to join after school groups.

I had a reasonable success rate in the East Cleveland area and this was recognised by a local secondary school that offered me a job heading up their behaviour unit. Again, I involved the parents by having regular meetings with them and inviting them into coffee mornings to see how their child was moving on. Regular contact with the parents was key here, either in person, by telephone call or by email. Another key to this was separating KS3 and KS4 students (in the unit) to prevent them from showing off in front of each other.

Having recently retired from that position, not because of age but more to do with the direction our schools are going in. The school I worked in had fallen into the hands of an academy and within months, my role had changed from keeping these students in school to getting them out at all costs. This is at a time that we are battling with young people getting involved in county lines and the ideal candidates are young people who are not attending school. Academies are run as a business and having non-teaching staff on high wages looking after students who are going to lower the percentage of students reaching exam grades at a certain level is unacceptable to them but, I digress from the point I am trying to make.

All the above doesn't take place now due to funding cuts made by this government and the introduction of academies. My behaviour unit went from two rooms to one and the staff I had halved. Connexions was disbanded, along with the Sure Start programme some years back and youth and community centres were closed by our local authorities due to the austerity cuts.

The students I worked with are heavily involved in anti-social behaviour in their communities and are roaming the streets at night feral. Other than drinking on street corners, there is literally nothing for them to do. These young people don't have parents who will run them to a football, rugby, swimming groups. 98% of them will not get involved in after school groups because they don't have the correct equipment.

Until our government decides to reverse its decisions on cutting funding to local authorities, reinstate programmes like Sure Start (parent support) and offer young people something alternative to do, our neighbourhoods are always going to be blighted by anti-social behaviour.
 
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