Are things actually getting worse.....

[Rob M]

.....or do we simply have better news coverage?

The spate of recent posts on CF talking about how our society is going down the gutter (yobs wrecking graveyards, pelting funeral processions with stones, teenage pregnancies, ASBOs etc) has got me thinking.

Is our society really going down the tubes? Is this a new thing or do we simply have more news channels, greater access to the internet, wider coverage of events around the world?

Take child molestors. Anyone comparing the news today with the news 30 years ago would probably conclude that the problem is increasing. Is that the case or are we just reporting on more incidences (either because the detection/prosecution rate is greater, or because we all have access to more information)?

[Derek S]

I don't think the frequency is increasing but the severity is.

I don't consider my teenage years as being particularly angelic but the group of people I hung around with always knew where to draw the line.

There doesn't seem to be that line any longer

[bdav]

Could it be due to desensitization (is that a word?) due to being hammered with so much of this stuff? We get exposed to this terrible stuff so often, it makes it all seem trivial. Thats just one idea.

[Rob M]

Originally Posted by bdav

Could it be due to desensitization (is that a word?) due to being hammered with so much of this stuff? We get exposed to this terrible stuff so often, it makes it all seem trivial. Thats just one idea.

So you're saying that:

20 years ago there wasn't as much coverage of this stuff in the news, so people were more shocked when they heard about it.

Now that we have a lot of coverage people, or in this case the people carrying out these crimes, are less shocked and therefore don't see it as so much of a problem. Thus leading them to perpetrate the crimes with less of a feeling of guilt?

[homealone]

I was just reading a report of a mugging in our local paper

http://www.thisisgrimsby.co.uk/displ...entPK=12504692

this kind of unprovoked attack using excessive violence does seem to be on the increase - 4 strapping lads would have probably been intimidating enough for him to hand over his phone, anyway - but no, they have to hit him with bricks & knock him senseless.

The comments from other residents, nearby, appear to confirm that lawlessness has become endemic - and there is a brand new LPT station nearby, too

[nffc]

Originally Posted by bdav

Could it be due to desensitization (is that a word?) due to being hammered with so much of this stuff? We get exposed to this terrible stuff so often, it makes it all seem trivial. Thats just one idea.

It's desensitisation but yes, it is a word. And a good one at that.

[Rob M]

Lpt?

[Maggy J]

Well now what were the punishments back when I was younger...A clip round the ear not only from the local bobby but from any adult who got close enough and no one's dad would be going round to sort them out because as soon as your dad heard what you had been up to(courtesy of the adult/bobby)you got another clip round the ear...

If you got kept behind at school(on the same day that you had been caught misbehaving)you dare not tell your parents because they would have grounded you AND given you a clip round the ear...

IF you did summat truly terrible like fighting or cheeking the staff at school you got the cane...in public because the head couldn't get a proper chance to swing his arm up without hitting the light...

There was Borstal for the truly evil and I can also remember the days(just) of National Service.

Now possibly there is a pattern here but who am I to judge?

[homealone]

Originally Posted by Raistlin

Lpt?

Local Policing Team

[Rob M]

Originally Posted by homealone

Local Policing Team

Thanks.

The answer is no Apart from when it's yes.

[paulyoung666]

personally yes i think it is getting worse , what also worries me greatly is the seemingly alarming increase in gangs wandering around , the lass i work with will not go out to her local shops alone because of this , she lives in a decent area but the local scum travel to that decent area from a neighbouring sink estate to try and get at the rich pickings , personally i would like to see widespread dispersal of gangs of youths as is happening in some areas , the thing is , you could maybe take 1 or 2 of them on but you would stand very little chance against a gang of 10 or more

[bdav]

Originally Posted by Raistlin

So you're saying that:

20 years ago there wasn't as much coverage of this stuff in the news, so people were more shocked when they heard about it.

Now that we have a lot of coverage people, or in this case the people carrying out these crimes, are less shocked and therefore don't see it as so much of a problem. Thus leading them to perpetrate the crimes with less of a feeling of guilt?

In a word, yes.

We see this kind of stuff so often, it looses meaning after a while.

The goverments slack methods of dealing with these problems dont help either. For example the teenage mothers. Its basicly an incentive to be an underage mother, and not to work (we'll pay you to bum around).

[BBKing]

Take child molestors. Anyone comparing the news today with the news 30 years ago would probably conclude that the problem is increasing.

They'd be wrong though - for the classic 'dirty mac stranger' crime it's going down and has been for years. It's been pointed out before but most child abuse is in families - even there these days there's a higher likelihood of people being reported for it and people taking notice rather than sweeping it under the carpet (partly because of high profile cases). A lot of abuse 30 years ago was in children's homes, which are totally different these days - fear of paying compensation goes a long way. Families with violent/abusive fathers are more likely to split up these days - true, that's not good, but healthier than staying together due to social pressure. Abortion isn't nice, but it's better and safer legal than illegal, and a woman having one isn't a social outcast if anyone finds out.

Other things going down:

Car crime (cars are better, we also have CCTV, helicopters and number plate recognition)
Burglary (things are cheaper, you get less for your nicked DVD player when they're sub-£30 in the shops).
Road deaths (which were north of 7000 in the 1930s - motorways and bypasses have a lot to do with this, plus fewer children walking and better cars).
Childhood mortality
Inflation is low
Employment is high

Murder isn't falling, but is extremely low in global terms*, gun violence likewise.

Going up
Life expectency
Wealth (mainly due to houses, but still)

Always with us:
'Yobs' - check out the Teddy Boys or Mods v. Rockers - 1000 kids fighting on the beach in Brighton or Margate would be just as shocking today, if not more so. Youth culture is far less visible and more docile - the TV and Xbox see to that (you don't get obese running around fighting, after all!) and of course it's a minority where the exuberance of youth spills over into anti-social behaviour - difference should be celebrated.

Mugging - the word 'footpad' dates from at least 200 years ago and means 'one who robs pedestrians'. Not new, not nice.

So not all bad, is it? Well, there's mental health care and civil liberties, but that's for another thread.

* low enough to be seriously distorted by Harold Shipman, who was responsible for about 16% of reported murders in 2003 (a lot of his victims were reclassified as having been murdered in that year). Most years it's 750-850.

[Angua]

Originally Posted by Incognitas

Well now what were the punishments back when I was younger...A clip round the ear not only from the local bobby but from any adult who got close enough and no one's dad would be going round to sort them out because as soon as your dad heard what you had been up to(courtesy of the adult/bobby)you got another clip round the ear...

We have problem "areas" where the police go and take names and addresses of the "yoofs". Then when they send letters to the parents they are accused of police harrassment, and we live in one of the safest areas in the country.

Where the Ma in Law lives (West Midlands) a child kept hanging around the school and not attending lessons, jeering at the teachers "you can't touch me". Another child who stabbed someone in the leg with a protractor was just moved to another class.

However when my brother was a lad in the Mods and Rockers days the police just used to herd the fights to the nearby green away from residents.