Media And Teenage Boys

Over the past year, there were more newspaper stories about young people and crime than about all other stories on teenagers put together. The media refer to teenagers are yobs, feral, as sick, as scum. Unsurprisingly, research commissioned by "Women in Journalism" has found that 85% of teenage boys say newspapers portray them in a bad light. They think adults are more wary of them now than they were a year ago.

Fiona Bawdon, a committee member for WIJ: "When a photo of a group of perfectly ordinary lads standing around wearing hooded tops [is] visual shorthand for urban menace or even the breakdown of society, it is clear that teenage boys have a serious problem ... our research shows that the media is helping make teenage boys fearful of each other."

I wish that half of the media's attention was devoted to young people trying to access mental health services than this endless focus on feral youth. One in ten young adults (aged 16-25) believe "life is not worth living." Fully 95% of imprisoned young offenders have one or more mental health disorder.

We're so obsessed with being afraid of youth that we can't see their problems anymore.

The New Domestic Abuse Database

It sounds like, at a launch of a database of serial domestic abusers, Sandra Horley, chief executive of Refuge, told it like it is.

With Jacqui Smith beside her, Holey said government action has been "piecemeal" and that the register was "a gimmick" and doesn't address the root problem. "The majority of violent men don't come to the attention of police and it won't keep women safe. Police can't be expected to monitor relationships and love lives of offenders." She added: "The Government is hoping to get away with useless initiatives like this register, and it is hypocritical to sound tough and do little."

You can see Refuge's national website here.

You can download their financial guide for women experiencing domestic violence, "You Can Afford To Leave" here.

0808 2000 247 is a freephone 24-hour national domestic violence helpline (run in partnership between Women's Aid and Refuge).

Also see: Joan Smith: "Vulnerable women are being failed by the authorities, and the last thing we need is a government policy which shifts responsibility on to victims and away from the people who are supposed to protect them"
Also see: Laurie Penny: "That a database of listed offenders will necessarily be inadequate to the scale of the problem, because not all abuse incidents are even reported, is only one of the reasons that the scheme is frankly barmy. This isn't just a question of trying to shoehorn feminist apologism into the quest for a database state. This is about civil liberties, and it’s about how we conceptualise violence against women."

Police Databases On Legal Protesters

The Guardian has breaking news on police holding details on thousands of legal protesters. When I was the webmaster of Red Pepper for 2 years, I took it as read that I had gained a MI5 file, but this level of surveillance, and holding details for seven years, is far beyond what people thought was going on.

It is legal to attend political demonstrations. It is legal to attend political meetings. It is legal to attend climate camps, like Kingsnorth. It is legal to be a journalist and cover demonstrations (members of the press are believed to have been monitored during at least eight protests over the last year). The police should not be treating legal activity as though we are criminals.

Corinna Ferguson, Liberty's legal officer, told the Guardian: "A searchable database containing photographs of people who are not even suspected of criminal activity may well violate privacy rights under article 8 of the Human Rights Act. It is particularly worrying if peaceful protesters are being singled out for surveillance."

Frightening People Into A Police State

Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, has said that "we risk a police state" with the climate of fear sown by the government.

Rimington, speaking to La Vanguardia, said: "It would be better that the Government recognised that there are risks, rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism: that we live in fear and under a police state,” she said.

Her intervention comes just as the Home Office is about to public plans for the police and security services to monitor all of our emails, as well as telephone and internet activity. Since leaving MI5, Rimington has also spoken out about ID cards and on 42-day detention.

Global Corruption

I worked for a year at a think-tank, looking at military corruption and military-run business. As such, stories like this one leap out at me. Today is the UN's International Anti-Corruption Day. Corruption adds up. $1 trillion is estimated to be spent each year worldwide on bribes, by firms and ordinary individuals. Christian Aid has issued a report on what the UK could do.

This would include:

- full compliance with the OECD's Anti-Bribery Convention,
- full implementation of the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC),
- more resources to investigate and prosecute domestic firms accused of bribery overseas,
- the return of the billions in stolen foreign assets held in British banks,
- the freezing of assets of people in the UK, including foreigners, who are under investigation for corruption.

Domestic Violence In Britain

Domestic violence accounts for one in six of all reported attacks, with more than one in four victims (27%) having been victimised at least three or four times. There are now 104 specialist domestic violence courts around the country, but there has been a wave of closures of much-needed support services and refuge centres. Around one third of local authorities have no domestic violence services. We can't continue to have a nationwide postcode lottery on domestic violence.

In other news:

Mark Mardell has a good post on post-WWII German identity. I'm tired of going into bookshops and the "German History" section is full of books on the Nazi regime, especially when the same shop has a seperate "WWII" section.

Right now, on the refinancing of PFI projects, profits are split 30% for the public sector and 70% for the private sector. The Treasury is now proposing for it to be 50-50, on any net gains over £3 million. The revised refinancing rules will applly to roughly 200 projects, worth £26 billion, which are expected to reach financial close before 2010.

This is what Americans call an "October surprise."

And, I won't miss 4 Poofs & a Piano.

"World Day For Decent Work"

The World Day For Decent Work is on the 7th of October. The TUC will be holding a day of activities at Congress House in London which will focus on rights at work and ending inequality in the workplace.

Only 2% of state schools in Britain have introduced some form of restorative justice into discipline codes. A successful pilot project that has led to a 45% reduction in rates of exclusion may change all of that.

US election: the Vice-Presidential debate was last night, but this story on the iPhone was interesting. John McCain has also pulled out of Michigan, which makes the "electoral math" harder for him.

You wait for stories on electric cars, and then two come along at once: "Renault sees demand for as many as 50,000 electric vehicles in 2011, the year the carmaker will begin selling such zero emission cars in Denmark, Israel and Portugal."

Nacro Running Prisons?

It's interesting that two consortia, involving charities, are bidding to run prisons in England. The two groups are:

- Turning Point (social care), Rainer Crime Concern (young offenders), and Serco Group (bidding for one jail)

- Nacro, Group 4 Securicor, an unnamed drugs charity, and an unnamed construction company (bidding for two jails - Maghull and Belmarsh West)

Nacro's head, Paul Cavadino, admits that they are "odd bedfellows" with Securicor, but that:

"If we're both involved in working together on the design, planning and regime of a new prison, it increases the chances that regime will be one which helps to reduce re-offending by resettling prisoners effectively."

I'm confused how Nacro will retain credibility from a few points of view. One, it puts them in bed with private prison operators.Two, how can it criticise Titan jails, whilst simultaneously running part of the prison system?

The news of these joint bids comes only days after Cavadino said that "resources should be used to improve the prison system, not expand it" -- if Nacro believes that, why not bid to run existing prisons, rather than new ones that expand the prison estate?

"Fundamental Doubts" About Titan Prisons

The National Council of Independent Monitoring Boards says it has "fundamental doubts" about the entire idea of "Titan" prisons.

You might know IMBs better as "Boards of Visitors" -- they visit prisons and listen to detainees, not necessarily about issues like immigration problems, but issues like access to a solicitor, staff behaviour, living conditions, or food.

The National Council feels that the proposed Titan jails (at least 3 jails, with 2500 inmates each, on a site of 50 acres, at £350 million a pop) could be dangerous, that ministers have failed to explain why they would save money, and that ministers appeared to omit any concern for the importance of monitoring conditions in prisons.

Nacro, the Howard League, and the Prison Reform Trust are also against the Titan proposals.

The council said "there will be major and potentially dangerous consequences if services such as health and education are provided centrally, as it will be difficult to protect the most vulnerable prisoners from those who might cause them harm".

The council's president, Dr Peter Selby, said: "Most of our boards favour smaller units and have negative experience of large establishments and clustering of prisons to achieve efficiency, but at the cost of effective rehabilitation. We shall continue to emphasise and carry out our task of monitoring fairness and respect wherever people are imprisoned, and point out the major disadvantages of prisons of a size that present serious management problems."

Both Labour and the Tories favour expanding the prison population, a prison population already the highest per capita in Western Europe.

This flies in the face of a recent study (July 2008) by Professor Carol Hedderman (University of Leicester; a former Assistant Director of research at the Home Office). She argues that the Carter Report (the idea of Titan prisons and expanding the prison estate) was largely "unevidenced." Her main conclusions were that prison reconviction rates have escalated as the population has increased, and that expanding the prison estate will generate, not satiate, demand.

Does that sound like the right way to protect society?

"Building Bridges"

A study called "Building Bridges" will be launched next week at a conference in London.

Whilst focused on London (it was a two-year study, by Londoners aged 16-25, and supported by the Race on the Agenda think-tank), it probably has lessons for communities spread across the country.

One of its conclusions is that the emphasis on knife crime meant that the focus was on how violence is inflicted rather than why. The report will call for:

"a greater focus on prevention by tackling problems such as a lack of aspiration, a culture of individualism, fear, poverty and a lack of educational opportunities for young people. It will also back the introduction of youth-led projects to address the issues, since these work because "young people trust other young people". The report will also call for improvements in black history education, since this was feeding into a feeling of exclusion among black teenagers."

10 Reasons To Cheer Teenagers

Mark Easton, the BBC Home Affairs reporter, has a "top 10" list to counteract all the "binge-drinking, drug-addled, knife-wielding thugs ready to leap out and stab a granny for a fiver" stories about teens. Among his points:

1. Teenagers are more likely to do voluntary work than people from any other generation. In fact, they are 10 times more likely to be volunteering in our communities than regularly being antisocial in them.
2. More teenagers than ever before are staying on at school after 16 to study.
3. And more than ever are going on to further and higher education.
7. Nearly two-thirds of 10-to-15-year-olds have helped raise money for charity.
8. According to English schools inspectors, bad behaviour in comprehensives is at its lowest level for at least a decade.
9. 175,000 under 18-year-olds are unpaid carers in the UK with some 13,000 providing more care than a full-time job (50+ hours).

Number 9 says a great deal about how our social care/eldercare system is broken, but it demonstrates selflessness.

One of the comments in response was from Andy Hamflett, Chief Executive of the UK Youth Parliament:

"Dear Mark,

I think I love you.

So great to read a (rare) balanced perspective on this issue. I'll make sure I dsitribute this throughout our UK-wide networks. It will certainly be well received by young people.

As we engage every day with the ever-burgeoning youth participation network which supports young people to be active citizens everywhere, I can tell you that young people are sick and tired of being demonised.

We all understand that youth crime is a major issue (but as you say, most victims are young peope, too), and that bad news sells (so everyone say, anyway), but we don't feel that any other group within society could be demonised in quite the same way as young people are, and there's a groundswell to try and do something about it."

"Get Us To Feel Better About Ourselves"

A former gang member from Birmingham talking to the Archbishop of York:

"What you must do is to get us, young people, to feel better about ourselves. Help us to achieve confidence about ourselves without needing the dangerous prop of a knife. Help us not to judge ourselves in the eyes of others. Stop viewing us through the eyes of failure. Help us to overcome self-loathing. Your job is to stop the merry-go-round of our culture of immediacy by providing us with hope and long-term solutions to our longing for belonging. To us all the brave talk and actions of adults towards young people are similar to the gang culture. We are not all bad."

David Cameron and "Nudging"

Rachel Sylvester has an interesting take on David Cameron and personal responsibility/moral choice.

The latest must-read book at Conservative HQ is Nudge, which argues that peer pressure is a more effective way to change behaviour than state directives. Last week, Steve Hilton, the Tories' chief strategist, met one of its authors, Richard Thaler, to discuss how his approach could be applied to social problems such as drugs and knife crime. At the moment, the argument goes, people are being “nudged” in the wrong direction, with rap music that glorifies violence, soap operas that popularise antisocial behaviour and gang culture that creates a sense of family for people who have none.

The question is how to turn the nudges around. A rap song that highlighted the danger of carrying a weapon could be more deterrent than endless knife summits at No10. A health visitor who persuaded working-class mothers to read to their children might have as great an impact on education as a change in the qualifications system. In short, Mr Cameron does not just want to hug a hoody, he wants the hoodies to be persuaded to hug each other. He wants to create a smaller state by reducing demand rather than supply.

Jim, over at The Daily Maybe, has also written on this recently:

We have a society that ritually idolises violence, wealth, image and personal satisfaction over a sense of community. We have a society where many people, both young and old, feel they are outsiders to their own communities, where no-one has a responsibility to them and they have no responsibility to anyone else. Under these circumstances it's a surprise that so many people feel a sense of social responsibility.

Cameron is on to something. His objective is to keep government small and non-interventionist by encouraging civil society to be more interventionist with itself. He is wrong when he talks about "social responsibility" and withdrawing the UK from the EU Social Chapter. I think he's wrong when he characterises things like obesity and drug abuse as moral failures, rather than health issues to be treated.

But, there are aspects where his kind of approach will be right.

We need to look at why people join gangs (why gangs provide better security than the state) and why people are more willing to shoot/stab folks than 5 years ago. You can't legislate so that people stab each other less.

I think Cameron's is right about peer-pressure being, sometimes, as effective as top-down regulation. Neighbours talking with neighbours about composting, about how to travel to Italy by train, about how they installed their water butt, is the way things will happen.

It's going to be interesting how Cameron pitches this idea of "social responsibility" and differentiates it from the idea of the "nanny state" ... and Ed Miliband is already starting to respond to Cameron's rhetoric with talk of individual control of state budgets.

Musicians Visiting Prison

"When we go in to those places, it's very energising for us. We don't go in to do prisoners a favour: how smug would that be? We're actually appreciative of them giving us some of their time. At the moment I think it's one in four of us knows someone who is in prison. That is something that society is going to have to deal with. If we can do anything to encourage people while they are in there to believe that there is some alternative when you come out, then that has to be a good thing. Let's face it: but for the grace of God any one of us could be in there."

Video: Billy Bragg's Jail Guitar Doors campaign

A New Wonder Drug For Babies

Despite a cold winter, Arctic sea ice is melting even faster than last year.

Johann Hari in the Independent: "Science has discovered a drug that can save 13% of all babies who currently die. It will make your baby cleverer. It will dramatically slash their chances of developing heart disease, diabetes, leukaemia, asthma or obesity as an adult. It is free."

Ian Loader, professor of criminology at Oxford:

It may be no accident that crime came to dominate British politics around the time that governments lost faith in their capacity to deliver other forms of security: we may not be able to save your job or guarantee your pension, but we will protect you from criminals.

Accountability

- Companies should be accountable for the tax that they should pay. Chrstian Aid has found that illegal trade-related tax evasion costs the developing world at least $160 billion in lost revenue each year. If that money was re-allocated, the lives of 350,000 children under the age of five could be saved every year. Nearly half the world’s tax havens are UK overseas territories, Crown dependencies and Commonwealth countries.

- The US should be accountable for crimes against civilian journalists in Iraq.

- The police should be accountable, rather than being able to hold terrorism suspects for 48 days without charge. Police can only hold murder suspects for 4 days without charge. The government can already use The Civil Contingencies Act (2004) to temporarily extend pre-charge detention in a genuine emergency where the police are overwhelmed by multiple terror plots. These powers would be subject to parliamentary and judicial oversight.

Boris Johnson And Youth Crime

It would be catastrophic to underestimate Boris Johnson.

The stereotype is that he's a dunce who'll keep putting his foot in his mouth. Boris isn't going away. He was elected as gaffe-free New Boris, and he will govern as New Boris. Anything other than that, and the Conservatives are toast, with regard to especially northern cities, at the next election.

I'm finding it much more interesting thinking about why Boris won, not lamenting that the electorate were so stoo-pid.

One reason was his position on crime. There must be a way of articulating a better left-centre non-New-Labour tough-on-crime, approachs to law and disorder and restoring responsibility in society. One of BoJo's first appointments was Ray Lewis, founder of the Eastside Young Leaders Academy, in Edmonton, NE London.

Lee Jasper, Ken Livingstone's former race adviser and a long-time champion of young people from London's black community, is a fan of his attitude, describing Lewis's project as brilliant.

"His focus on personal responsibility and discipline are positive things and he is getting results. He has not got any experience of politics or delivering policy but that may work in his favour in some ways because he will be a breath of fresh air ... and when you are talking to young people in and around gangs you have to have radical solutions and be brave enough to follow them through, and he has that."

You might be a Green .... Crime

You might be a Green if you agree with the following statements:

- The Green Party wants to encourage responsible use, not binge use, of alcohol by both adults and young people. We need more police in drinking areas on Fri and Sat night. We want to encourage the serving of alcohol in smaller measures -- all these specials on triple sambucas. We'd increase penalties on drink driving. Better late-night public transport means less alcohol-related crime. We'd review late licenses that are going awry (a lot of the complaints coming out of the "nighttime economy" in Earlsdon)

- We need projects that engage high-risk youth

- We need to crack down on gun crime by introducing a tough licensing system, and work to cut off the supply of guns to the UK

- We should ban the sale of replica guns

- Where appropriate, offenders should be brought together with their victims, so that they can be made aware of their impact on people’s lives, and, where possible, can make reparation for their crimes

- We can tackle drug-related crime by increasing the provision of treatment for addiction and breaking the link between drugs and criminal activity

- Homophobic and transphobic crimes should be dealt with on a par with racist crimes. Police forces should adopt and implement action plans on homophobic and transphobic hate crimes.

- We need more community police, holding community surgeries, and who are mobile (on teams of bicycles)

- 70% of crime is solved by "community-led intelligence" -- local people telling police information. Instead, the recent emphasis has been on investment in "listening" and "talking" CCTV. Cameras can't apprehend people if you're getting beat up. Cameras can only record what's going on

- Cameras already record us 300 times a day. With CCTV, ID cards and databases, we’re sleepwalking into a surveillance society.

Shaping The Values Of Young People

Ray Lewis, founder and head of Eastside Young Leaders' Academy (EYLA) in east London, which works with black boys aged eight to 18 at risk of social exclusion:

"What we can do is look at ways in which we can prevent the next generation from falling off the clifftop. The government has tried with things such as targeting families as young as possible, but it is very difficult to replace or replenish family life. The longer term is about the restoration of communities and family life, and the founding of organisations that shape the values of young people. We blame the Government for too much. What we need is incubating communities that solve their own problems."

News Round-Up -- 1st April 2008

- No stories about the royal family, then two come along at once ... The expansion of Heathrow might affect a certain someone who lives in Windsor Castle.

- George Monbiot criticises how job creation is being used to justify chain store expansion, nuclear power, and military contracts.

- A new study shows an alarming rise in suicides and self-harm amongst women prisoners -- 9 out of 10 women prisoners are in prison for non-violent offences.

- The government is finally changing its Low Carbon Buildings Programme, but no extra money is being put into the scheme. It has only been allocated £80 million over 3 years.

Friends of the Earth's low carbon homes campaigner, Ed Matthew, said: "The government's response continues to be woeful. The LCBP should be 10 times bigger, with funds of £1bn, providing at least 50% grants for renewable technologies for every household." Andrew Cooper of the Renewable Energy Association said he was "shocked". "Making a failing programme fail over a longer period is not a solution. It is no longer the Low Carbon Buildings Programme -- it is the Slow Carbon Buildings Programme."