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Blair to tackle 'menace' children

BBC News, Thursday, 31 August 2006; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5301824.stm

Tomorrow's potential troublemakers can be identified even before they are born, Tony Blair has suggested.

Mr Blair said it was possible to spot the families whose circumstances made it likely their children would grow up to be a "menace to society".

He said teenage mums and problem families could be forced to take help to head off difficulties.

He said the government had to intervene much earlier to prevent problems developing when children were older.

There could be sanctions for parents who refused to take advice, he said.

The PM has returned from his summer holiday to face intense speculation about his plans to step down.

In his first interview since his three-week stay in the Caribbean, Mr Blair insisted his policies could outlast his time in Downing Street.

His aides say people are more interested in problems like anti-social behaviour than in talk about when the prime minister will quit.

Starting early

The Conservatives say the government should not try to run people's lives.

And one think tank suggested it was almost "genetic determinism" to suggest children could turn out to be troublemakers before they were born.

Mr Blair told BBC News his government had made "massive progress" in tackling social exclusion but there was a group of people with multiple problems.


Watch Tony Blair's interview

There had to be intervention "pre-birth even", he said.

Families with drug and alcohol problems were being identified too late, said Mr Blair.

And there was a "pretty good chance" children of teenage mothers who were not in stable relationships would grow up in a "difficult set of circumstances" and develop behavioural problems.

He admitted many people might be uneasy with the idea of intervening in people's family life but said there was no point "pussy-footing".

But he said: "If we are not prepared to predict and intervene far more early then there are children who are growing up - in families which we know are dysfunctional - and the kids a few years down the line are going to be a menace to society and actually a threat to themselves."

Help had to be offered, but "some sense of discipline and responsibility" had to be brought to bear, he said.

Sanctions?

Official figures released in February showed the conception rate for girls aged 13-15 was 7.5 per 1,000 in 2004.

Mr Blair did not specify exactly what changes he was preparing to make or how they would work.

He pointed to the success of Sure Start centres in giving parents help.

And he said sanctions, such as anti-social behaviour orders or parenting orders, were already in place for those who refused support.

But experience from other countries suggested people were willing to get support if they knew where to get it, he added.

Nanny state

Conservative policy director Oliver Letwin said: "The answer is not more state intervention.

"It is to encourage the social enterprise, the voluntary sector, community groups, to help people without trying to run their lives for them."

Norman Lamb, chief of staff to Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell, said: ""Empty threats to pregnant mothers will do little to restore confidence in a government that has failed to tackle poverty, crime and social exclusion for the last nine years."

Anastasia de Waal, head of the family and education unit at think tank Civitas, said: "It is teetering on genetic determinism this kind of saying that before children are even born they are labelled as problematic."

Ministers should not take a "Big Brother" approach to the problem and look at the root causes of problem behaviour.

But Dorit Braun, Chief Executive of national parent support charity Parentline Plus, said he was pleased Mr Blair was talking about intervening before families hit crisis point.

"The difficulties will lie in how this is received by families," he said, saying intervention must be "respectful".

Ah well, that's one more problem sorted, then

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Ban them!!

That'll work.

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Andrew.

I thought it was a pity that such a system was not in operation sooner so as to stop the possibility of a delinquent running the country.

Oh if only they meant it



That's the way - catch them in the womb - give it 60 or 70 years & the world will be wonderful - full of law abiding citizens

Mind you I don't think this is a new idea - didn't Adolf have the same idea in the late 30s?

Interesting one. While in principle it goes against my political beliefs, I find it hard to dismiss the idea out of hand.

I guess having witnessed urban decay and the rise of the chav[1] first hand, you can see where he is coming from.

The children of todays delinquent chav types are going to be brought up with no moral values, neglected, encouraged to steal, avoid work and scam the benefits system. We are already on our second generation in many parts of the country and it shows.

So if you can identify todays troublemakers and target their children, perhaps we may stand a chance of reversing the process. There is little point in giving out parenting orders to parents who's children are already teenagers and out robbing stuff, it's too late.

The thinking is valid, the ethics are debatable, and much as I can't stand Blair, I do have to respect his courage for bringing it up, even if he has waited until he's on his way out so it makes no difference to his career.

The Hitler comparison is a little unfair, that was about race, not criminal behaviour.

Of course, it's unfair to say that all single parents on the dole are going to bring up little criminals. I grew up with just my dad, who was on the dole back then and didn't turn into a criminal, if you ignore my speeding tickets


[1] I refer to the original meaning, as a replacement for Scallys in Liverpool, Neds in Scotland, non-Gypsy Pikeys in the South East etc.

wouldn't it be better to stop encouraging them to have children in the first place rather than hoping you can fix some unfortunate kid's head?

I remember Sir Keith Joseph saying this in the 1970s and being vilified by the trendy lefties of the day.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

The original comparison was made in jest - but... is it really so different? It's population cleansing.
No doubt Hitler had good reason at the time as well - the problem was when it escalated (or drifted - I'm sure the general public didn't realise how far it had gone) into Gas ovens.



So what's the differentiator? Why did you turn into a good guy (albeit a motoring criminal ) and others don't? Should your dad have been automatically sent on parenting courses and had weekly visits by social workers because of his situation? With you being taken into care if "they" deemed he wasn't bringing you up properly?

I would suggest it's a sign of the times and a reflection of the nanny state. Kids are a reflection of their parents, far better to look at why society turns people into bad parents than wait till the damage is done and slap an ASBO on a kid.

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Why not just introduce mandetory steralisation at birth and then issue breeding licences...?

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

did he suggest reducing/removing welfare payments?

Basically he was suggesting that the underclass reproducing at a much higher rate than the rest of society was likely to cause social problems in the future.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

So we're moving from

- 'innocent until proven guilty' to

- 'assumed to be guilty after an offence has been recorded' to

- 'assumed to be guilty before you are born'?

I actually find this very very scary.

That said, I do very fundamentally approve of crime prevention. I suppose we'll have to wait and see if the rhetoric turns into something right, something wrong, or simply hot air.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

The problem is never how something starts out - it's how it develops over time.

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Again, there is a difference between race and crime. I am sure there are plenty of people here and elsewhere who would be perfectly happy to put certain kinds of criminals (eg. murderers) into the gas ovens. Personally I'm not, but you see my point yes?



The difference is my dad had just fallen on hard times after being made redundant, he still made the effort to bring me up properly (the fact that the courts put me in his custody rather than my mum's should say a lot about his parenting ability here) and ensure that I attend school etc. etc. The chav lot that I refer to don't bother to do this with their children, and neither did their parents. It is a downward spiral.
I quote verbatim from a 15yr old schoolgirl I overheard in Birkenhead. "As soom as i'm 16, I'm gonna have a kid so I can gerra cuncil 'ouse and get away from my f--king mother". When you have people having kids for that reason you know damn well it's not going to get brought up properly.

Both have similar social situations, it's all about attidude and you can't judge that from a bank statement so you do have to involve social services. IIRC we were visited by social services from time to time, but they didn't have any problems so didn't really bother us much.



I agree with this 100%, however I am convinced that it is a cycle of bad parenting bringing up kids who turn into bad parents themselves, often worse than their own parents. What this policy seems to be doing is admitting that they can't do anything about the current lot, but perhaps we can fix things in time if we try and bring up the next generation properly.

I think the implementation will have to be very carefully thought out. I'm old enough to remember all the social worker jokes (eg. what's the difference between a rottweiler and a social worker, with a rottweiler at least you get some of your kid back) even if I don't remember how they did things.

If it's just a monitoring policy, same as how the police monitor known criminals that they haven't managed to bring to court yet (or who got let off with a £5 fine paid back at 10p a month) and how hey monitor people who they think might be terrorists, they are now proposing to monitor people who they think might bring up the next generation of chavs.

How will they implement the monitoring. If it's things like wiretaps then obviously we have a problem. If it's just the occasional visit, along with keeping tabs on who is out on the alcopops all night while the baby is left alone screaming it's head off then maybe not so bad.

The devil is in the details, as they say.

I agree & I wouldn't be too worried about more severe penalties for certain types of people. But the issue here is not criminals - it's "could develop into a criminal" - real thought police stuff.



I was in no way critisising your dad, the point I was making was how would he have been put down as a "good dad"? "They're" not now going to give him a chance to see how you turn out - he'll be lumped in with the rest - because they're trying to address something that hasn't happened yet...



Exactly - so the state is causing the problem in the first place with the nanny policies.



Yep I agree - but they're still not addressing the cause, just the problem.



Which like anything else develops into monitoring everyone they think may be a problem to them, which eventually is everyone and we find ourselves with a fully fledged police state.

I find myself turning into a supporter of the civil liberty crowd these days...

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Wake me up when the revolution starts
STOP the Toll Tax http://www.traveltax.org.uk

Is there?! Some people would have us convinced through 'research' that there is a correlation between race and crime, upbringng and intelligence, hair colour and athletic prowess etc. etc.

As we all know in here, correlation and causation are not the same thing, but when they are treated the same to justify policy then right and wrong just doesn't come into it any more as any 'truth' can be fabricated with 'evidence' to back it up. Even more so if you can get people to accept it through convincing arguments (Speed Kills!, anyone?!)

Tread carefully!

Indeed, however if you accept that certain types of bad parenting will create children who are highly likely to turn into criminals, then surely targeting these children before it's too late, perhaps removing them from the bad parents, then you get to bring up the child properly and not have them turn into criminals. That is the real issue here, it needs to be implemented as a drive against bad parenting, with the focus on nipping it in the bud before the child is ruined for life, as opposed to how some people have interpreted it which is to put the children in jail before they've even done anything.



They have no way of knowing, that's why they used to check from time to time. So long as we wern't living in filth and I wasn't being neglected while he went out on the piss then they were happy and we got left alone. I would envisage that the same is true with this proposal.



In as much as you get to jump the queue if you have a kid yes, but there are plenty of other stupid reasons why teenagers have kids which go on to lead lives of neglect and abuse. Not all of them are to do with advantages gaind in the benefits system (eg. the recent cases of 11yr olds, they aren't going to get houses and child benefit and the mother was saying how she's proud of her daughter and so on and so forth, which proves my point perfectly)



The cause of kids turning into chav/criminal types is purely down to bad parenting. Unless you are advocating restricting reproductive rights then the only way to tackle the cause is to target the at-risk children before the damage is done.



Where do you draw the line. If there was no facility to check into the lives of children deemed to be at risk then there would be a lot more cases of child abuse and neglect (Though they would go unreported) and I'm sure no-one would say that is a good thing. Social services often come in for criticism when they fail to spot cases of abuse, so surely they need some rights to check and intervene if there is reasonable suspicion.

I guess that ultimately this new initiative just adds "on the dole, had kid at 16 and is regularly caught shoplifting" to the list of valid reasons for social services to get involved, then dresses it up as an entirely new policy that will cure all society's ills. Typical Blair then.

Hmmm... "Let him who hath no sin cast the first stone" eh?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/date ... 495255.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/822513.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1690284.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/886776.stm

Now what's this about families who's circumstances...?

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev