Are things actually getting worse.....

[Raistlin]

.....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 (http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=29118), pelting funeral processions with stones (http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=28854), teenage pregnancies (http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=29085), ASBOs (http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=28094&highlight=pollard) 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]

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.

[Raistlin]

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/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=151712&command=displayContent&sourceNode=151442&contentPK=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]

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.

[Raistlin]

Lpt?

[Maggy]

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? :angel:

[homealone]

Lpt?

Local Policing Team ;)

[Raistlin]

Local Policing Team ;)

Thanks.

[andyl]

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 **** travel to that decent area from a neighbouring sink estate to try and get at the rich pickings :erm: , 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 :mad:

[bdav]

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]

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.:Yikes:

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:shocked:.

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.:shrug:

[allieyoung666]

As many of you know I work in the local hospitial, I darent take my car to work as to were the hospitial is based, many friends and colleagues who I work with have had their cars broken into, they have been followed back by gangs of teenagers on a night shouting abuse, one of our foregin nurses was even attacked on the way back to her flat which is on site.
A couple of weeks ago, I was walking down in the basement {we call it the streets} to go and get changed, I found at least 10 of them loitering about the locker room, when I asked them what they were doing I got a load of abuse and they were very threatening towards me, I pressed the panic alarm that we are now given for our own safety, by the time security had come they were gone.
I did not dare tell Paul this as he would have not let me go back there. What I want to know is what did they think they were doing down there as only staff are allowed down there and is everywhere starting to become a no go zone because that is how I feel at the moment. I am starting to get to the point I do not want to go out as I am petrified of getting a 'happy slap'. I would rather stay at home and clean up.

[Stuart]

I think there are a couple of problems. First, the media blow some crimes out of all proportion, and seem to prefer to report negative events rather than positive (based on the premise that bad news sells, good news doesn't).


The other thing is that , in my experience, people tend to remember the good parts of the past, and forget the bad (apart from seriously bad events such as war). We do tend to view the past through rose-tinted spectacles (whether we are aware of it happening or not).

[danielf]

I can't find it, but I seem to recall someone (may have been BBking)posting a letter where someone complains about how the youths' behaviour, is wrecking society. I believe the letter was written by someone in Pompei, over 2000 years ago... Not exactly a new thing therefore.

[Tuftus]

You know I read the news some days and I really just do not know what depths some idiots will sink to next.

[allieyoung666]

I do partly blame the press and TV as they seem to make it cool to be like this. People are just going to start resenting the youth of today if they dont watch it!

[Nidge]

.....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 (http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=29118), pelting funeral processions with stones (http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=28854), teenage pregnancies (http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=29085), ASBOs (http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=28094&highlight=pollard) 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)?

I've just watched something on TV about yobs attacking firemen :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: What is this world coming to??

[Paul K]

.....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 (http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=29118), pelting funeral processions with stones (http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=28854), teenage pregnancies (http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=29085), ASBOs (http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=28094&highlight=pollard) 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)?

I've just watched something on TV about yobs attacking firemen :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: What is this world coming to??
Tonight with Trevor McDoughnut wasn't it? Someone was watching Eastenders here :erm:
Unfortunately our emergency services are easy targets for the people that want to prove to the world just how stupid they are :( They bombard the emergency services for a laugh but if their house went up in smoke they wouldn't find it so amusing if the firemen had to wait outside for Police to arrive and protect them :(

[allieyoung666]

They are just sad little tennys with nothing else better to do than make hoax calls and then attack these guys, it makes me sick!

[zing_deleted]

I believe the break down in society has increased at the same rate as liberalisations in law,when I was a lad (to the sound of hovis) if you did wrong you expected a thrashing maybe its wrong maybe not but it gave you a reason to behave.Nowadays you can't do it the kids grow up knowing there parents can't do anything,and the law do not hold any fear,then as adults they feel the same and it rubs off on the kids,I know im generalising but disapline and respect has dropped

[punky]

I've just watched something on TV about yobs attacking firemen :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: What is this world coming to??

That's old hat. A mate of mine, he's an ex-fireman, and he told me a while ago that was going on a long time ago.

The bloke that said the frequency is the same but crimes getting more severe is probably closest, I think. Adults have held steady but kids are getting terrible nowadays. When I am out walking, I go all kinds of silly routes to avoid usual groups of kids, schools, hangouts, etc.

[allieyoung666]

I would like to know who invented this blinkin happy slapping??? They want putting away for that

[Tuftus]

I would like to know who invented this blinkin happy slapping??? They want putting away for that

Yaeh! did you hear about that girl that was knocked out by this recently?

[Damien]

I think its about the same but the media report crime more and more. (Look how many people on here point to storys they wouldnt have heard off without the internet).

The media sells papers by giving the impression you cant walk safely outside, that gangs of yobs roam the streets looking for victims to get there next fix. That the second you leave your house you will get attacked and filmed.

[timewarrior2001]

I dont think the problem is any worse than 20 or 30 years ago.

What I htink is happening is the amount of news, the fact that all news agencies will print a story before checking facts, the fact that we arent now so obsessed by the IRA as they seem perfectly happy just killing one another now rather than us.
The kids outside the shops now are no different to the skinheads of the early to mid eighties, they are no different to the "trendies" of the early to mid nineties.
You could even go as far as saying they are no different to the punks of the late seventies and early eighties.

Life in the 70's and 80's was pretty ****ty, many slum houses still existed, areas that these days are classed as run down were palacial compared to some places in the 70's and 80's.
I remember in the mid eighties there were massive riots on the streets of many cities, there were areas Police refused to go to, even en mass. Think of the news reels of Belfast in the late seventies and thats pretty miuch what you had everywhere.

Drugs, its not that theres more and more evil dealers, its just that its pretty easy for them to get hold of it, clamp down on the drinking and the kids will look elsewhere for fun. I do know, I was one of them.
Kids these days whether rightly or wrongly are looking for a release, they know drugs can make you feel good, give you a buzz, thats what they are designed to do, I dont think they care about what MIGHT happen to them, just like heavy drinkers and smokers.

Whats happened? we have changed, nothing else, we find it intolerable, we have become a society of liberals where we dont want these gangs of kids but whoa betide anyone that suggests clipping them or locking them up, no we have to send them on holidays, no bloody wonder they wont change, would you?

[Raistlin]

when I was a lad (to the sound of hovis)

Can you remember when all of this (/me gestures around him) was fields?

[Tuftus]

Can you remember when all of this (/me gestures around him) was fields?

Yes, and wasn't it nice.

:angel:

[homealone]

Yes, and wasn't it nice.

:angel:

/quotes Talking Heads (from memory) "It was a Pizza Hut, now it's a peaceful oasis"

of course the whole world isn't about to dissolve in a soup of petty crime - but, drugs do fuel a lot of it - addiction can be defined by wanting to get as much as you want of anything, any time you like, no matter the cost - or, by when you try to stop...one is much easier to cope with, than the other :angel:

[Halcyon]

A lot of young people have no respect any more.
People have lost the ability to use simple manners, politeness to other people has gone, and standards are dropping.
I do feel some people do need to look at themselves sometimes as I've seen some people treat others with not one tiny bit of care in the world.
If they were on the receiving end, I doubt they'd be too happy.
People should really make more of an effort.

[etccarmageddon]

I was turning into a country road last night at a T junction. To might right a few yards away on the road I was turning into was a horse with a rider and a lad walking with it plus a girl plus a teenage lad. I indicated and looked right for traffic, the lad immediately said "what are you looking at". I didnt feel threatened but why the open hostility?


Where we used to live is now heading towards a no go area. Local Police stations have been shut down and centralised into one main station which is forified like fort nox and in the town centre. Outside the local police station (shut down about 2 years ago) is now a vandals paradise and youths openly drive around at night on trail bikes, tip over the recycle bins and smash glass all over the place, openly try to destroy the phone boxes etc etc. Things have definitely worsened since they shut down the local police station. A few months back I saw 2 police doing a foot patrol there on a sat afternoon - I had mixed feelings - firstly I was delighted and almosted stopped and thanked them then I think, where the hell are they during the rest of the year!

The last time I spoke to a copper he told me in this area there are only 6 cops on duty at any one time to handle 999 and other immediate calls and when he comes off duty he has a task list on his computer screen of around 70 jobs (999 calls etc) needing to be attended.

I recon it's heading for oblivion. How much longer are people going to put up with this? Once people feel the law/state/police are no longer protecting them, then will it will drive enforcement into the hands of vigilanties?

[punky]

Always with us:
'Yobs'

Now, now.... You aren't supposed to call them yobs anymore. In case you hurt the poor little darlings' feelings (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4570307.stm)

[BBKing]

It's ok calling a yob a yob, it's not OK calling someone who isn't a yob a yob because of what they're wearing. That wouldn't hurt my feelings per se but it would make me effing annoyed.

Yob is boy backwards, incidentally. I think that's the derivation.

[zing_deleted]

Can you remember when all of this (/me gestures around him) was fields?
I can yes but im lucky cuz I didn't have ta work down pit :LOL: