Lock up the parents (Young Offenders - What Should The Law Do With Them?)

Member Name: sympatic

Product:	Young Offenders - What Should The Law Do With Them?
Date:	09/02/09 (96 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Need to offer some hope

Disadvantages: Parents often are to blame

If you read a newspaper lie the Daily Mail or the Sun then you could well believe that the streets of any town or city in the UK are over run with marauding gangs of youths robbing people, drunkenly fighting and causing vandalism, making some streets after dark no go areas for law abiding people.

The reality is that this picture has absolutley no relevanc in the majority o streets and town centres, sure there are bad areas where anti social behaviour is rfe but that behaviour is not always the domain of young people, the worst neighbours I have ver had were a couple in their forties who were alwaysdrunk, fighting and swearing, little wonder that their kids also ended up in trouble as well with role models like that.

For me the question is as much about what society should do with the parents of these young offenders rather than with the actual children as many times it is these so called parents not carrying out their responsibilities as mothers and fathers that is to blame, too many single parent amilies without a male role model in the house, too many violent alchohol abusers dishing out punishments to both the women an the kids and too many shirkers living off state handouts and creating the impression that you can get by without an education.

This is not to say that I do not see the need to lock up some young offenders, some deserve to pay a debt to society and to protect society they need to be taken away however I'm pretty confident that prison is not the answer for many young offenders as they come out more street wise and likely to offend again after getting the wrong sort of edcation from fellow inmates.

Summary: Young offenders