Young Offenders Worker and Community Campaigner Discuss the Causes of the London Riots.

[fatpie42]

Shelagh Fogarty - BBC Radio Five - Wednesday 10th August

Shelagh Fogarty: Our reporter spoke to these looters in Manchester.

Comments

[fatpie42]

Reread the interview with the expert, and I don't see where it "pretty much repeats" what the rioter said.

That's not what I said. Sorry if I was confusing.

I was saying that the interviewer who was interviewing the rioters (as opposed to Shelagh Fogarty who was interviewing the two experts) was pretty much repeating what the rioters told him (basically saying "is this what you mean?").

I thought you were saying that the interviewer was twisting their words and I was disagreeing. I didn't see that you had anything to say about what the experts had said. Perhaps I missed it.

There's also a good dose of "kids these days" tossed in while the expert essentially implies that the underclass couldn't possibly be frustrated enough to commit crime because the UK has one of the most generous welfare systems.That doesn't seem fair at all

[windy_lea]

Stop responding. You aren't presenting new information, just insisting that your view is self-evident, while ignoring my point. I'm done going in circles with you.

[fatpie42]

You aren't presenting new information, just insisting that your view is self-evident, while ignoring my point. I'm done going in circles with you.

I wasn't trying to present new information. You said that my anecdote "proved your point" and then misrepresented Winston Smith saying that he only dislikes the way detention centres work because they aren't prisons. You also seemed to have misinterpreted a few of my own comments.

I was just trying to make the details clearer. Sorry if I failed to do so.

Stop responding.

If you stop replying, I'll stop responding. Fair?

[fatpie42]

Even assuming this school issue is as wide-spread as one person in an interview makes it sound

He made it sound wide-spread? He said he was working in a particularly bad comprehensive school. It's quite clear that this is the extreme. Unfortunately we aren't dealing with the extremes like this properly and who do you think suffers? Other children in that school.

If one of your classmates can get stoned in the classroom, how does that make you feel about the discipline in your school? Children want consistent boundaries and if the rules in a school simply don't apply to some of the children in the school, it undermines the system for everyone.

It's not like the wealthy don't have privelages that cushion them from consequences on a regular basis.Wealthier pupils don't get told "it's not your fault because you're poor". And as you might imagine, a school that deals with a few cases of dyslexia and the occasional kid with aspergers is going to have much less of the aforementioned problems than a school surrounded by extreme poverty

[windy_lea]

If you use anecdata about a specific shitty school in a discussion that suggests a lack of authority on all levels, then, yes, that makes things -like- child stonings sound widespread.

If one of your classmates can get stoned in the classroom, how does that make you feel about the discipline in your school? Children want consistent boundaries and if the rules in a school simply don't apply to some of the children in the school, it undermines the system for everyone.

Honestly, none of this matters, because I already acknowledged that -that- school has an authority issue. My point, as I already said, was that it shouldn't be given as an example in a discussion of the underlying issues behind the riots. You haven't actually challenged my point.

Wealthier pupils don't get told "it's not your fault because you're poor".

Uh, no shit? Did you think I was saying they could. They don't need that when they have class privelage.

The point is that when our society refrains from blaming parents and refrains from punishing criminal behaviour

[fatpie42]

Oh, I see. I'd say the "lack of authority" is widespread. Absolutely. It's just the stoned children that's probably rather more extreme.

It's like if you pointed to a school where children arrived without shoes, that would illustrate widespread poverty. It wouldn't have to be true of most schools to make the point.

Sure, this plays a part, but my point has been and remains that it is not the main device behind the devestation that is being seen, and it is problematic that this interview basically acted as though it was. If you believe it was, that's fine, but I don't believe there's sufficient grounds for me to agree.

I'm not sure that linking the behaviour during the riots to anti-social behaviour issues is a presumption.