Comments on: Feral teen menace? Not really

By: David Duff

David Duff — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 20:15:19 +0000

Well, whilst these boys, aged 12 – 14, were born just before ‘Nu-Labour’ they grew up whilst ‘Tone’ was being “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”, so this little piece of ‘boys will be boys’ mischief must, of course, be an aberration:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6969118.stm

By: Neil

Neil — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:45:11 +0000

Today’s teenager would have been born around the time of John Major’s “Back to Basics” campaign.

Little wonder they have grown up without any morals, then.

By: John B

John B — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:20:27 +0000

No.

By: David Duff

David Duff — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:13:03 +0000

“the rapid destruction of communities in the 1980s”

“Shome mishtake, surely”.

Don’t you mean ‘the rapid destruction of marriage and families beginning in the 1960s’?

By: john b

john b — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 11:50:32 +0000

Fine – but the proposition you’re making (i.e. that things have been unprecedentedly bad for the last 20 years) is not the same as the current moral panic (i.e. that things have become unprecedentedly bad since 1997 and are getting worse). I’m somewhat more sympathetic to the proposition that the rapid destruction of communities in the 1980s led to a step-change in rates of social cohesion and hence crime within traditional white-working-class societies.

By: The Kusabi

The Kusabi — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 11:44:35 +0000

@ John B – No I don’t think I’ve undermined anything, after all, I’ve seen nothing that indicates previous generations were anything like either my generation or the generation following, and again, you have not provided any evidence that shows that previous generations in fact were.

So it seems that your supposition that youths were always as bad as they are now is just that, isn’t it? A supposition. Based on nothing.

By: Flying Rodent

Flying Rodent — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:32:58 +0000

No, David, you don’t “see”, or you wouldn’t have mounted your high horse and charged off after sinister windmills.

By: Neil

Neil — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:11:19 +0000

Child labour and poorhouses kept most of the mayhem off the streets back in those days. You have to admit, it’s definitely an approach that works.

By: David Duff

David Duff — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:12:04 +0000

Oh, I see, ‘Ratty’, so local newspapers in Victorian times would have either not known about the murder and mayhem going on in its streets or perhaps would have preferred not to print it for fear of frightening the horses! Come off it! Victorian newspapers were as eager to sell then as they are today and there’s nothing sells better than a nice juicy murder or two. Engels quotes the Manchester Guardian, The Times and newspapers covering Ashton, Bury, Bolton, Leigh, Oldham, Stockport, Warrington, Wigan and London. That is as good a snapshot of English criminal society as you will get.

As I wrote above, if you want a similar snapshot of Britain today, “go the BBC News site and type in Ã¢â‚¬Å“boys in gang attackÃ¢â‚¬Â and click on Ã¢â‚¬ËœSearchÃ¢â‚¬â„¢.”

By: Neil

Neil — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 08:28:58 +0000

Wasn’t the average life expectancy in the times and places Engels was talking about something like 25?