Feb 19 2007
Broken Britain, fractured families
The shootings in South London have shocked many because the people involved are so young. There is an undercurrent of casual violence and and crime?? in many places in modern Britain which upsets the law abiding and worries the many who want to lead pleasant and decent lives.
On Saturday I was invited to one of the??formerly quiet and attractive villages in my constituency to be taken on a vandalism and burglary tour.
The backs of garages had been sprayed with large amounts of graffitti, where the artists were struggling to master the abstract style.
A homeowner with a large corner plot showed me his modern strong brick wall, which is being systematically demolished along its whole length. He assumes it is a gang of youths doing it, and that it started when someone drove into it, made a small hole, and drove off without reporting it.
A shop owner told me how her house had been ransacked and burgled whilst she was at work. She has now discovered that several of her customers?? have suffered something similar in recent months. Jewellery which she had just inherited from her mother was taken, which made it even more upsetting as??it cannot be replaced.
I was told of christmas decorations placed outside homes in December either vandalised or stolen.
A Parish Councillor who organises the clean up and maintenance of the local stream told me how vandals were constantly throwing things back into the free flowing water.
We found a fire extinguisher from some flats thrown onto the grass verge.
All this speaks of a community where a few youths and maybe some older burglars can force the rest of the inhabitants to live in fear of what will happen next.
The locals tell me all this began when the police removed the two local police who had been offering a community policing service to the village. One of the policemen has been transferred to motorway traffic duties I was told.
The government tells?? us we have record amounts of money going into the police service and record numbers of police. Will the government now ensure that we restore community policing, so people feel there will be follow up, and that it is more likely loutish youths will be caught?
It is also tells us that there are problems in the families of Britain which need a response from all people of good will.??Each youth??is someone’s son, nephew, grandson. They are pupils at a local school. The adults in the community have to find ways of channeling the energies of young people into activities that are worthwhile for the young and less damaging to the rest of society.
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John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
When there is no real possibility of being caught or punished for such behaviour, there is no incentive for people to conform to social “norms”. The police aren’t allowed to search people for weapons and don’t have the time to catch graffiti artists and vandals because they are tied up doing paperwork.
[Reply]
During dinner breaks at work we often talk about the behaviour of the growing violence from the youth of today, just as i,m sure thousands of others do the same. our voices are not heard because we talk amongst our selfs. we live in fear of our children. but i feel it is only a few that repeatidly cause so much missery. yes repeatidly because the laws of the land need pulling into the modern world. we need a zero tolerance on crime. how many times have you read the paper, yet another stabbing, another family greiving. to say this country has gone soft is an under statement! I may be of the mark here but dont some members of our goverment have body gaurds and armoured cars? they dont walk the streets alone. what does joe public have? well a police force that spends too much time doing paper work instead of being on the streets , and a legal system witch is an absolute joke. how many times have you seen the same person reaffending? 2 strikes and your locked up i say. oh i forgot the prisons are full of imagrants or there is not enough room? please somebody use some common sense!!!!
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