13 year old girl in Lancaster attacked by 10-15 girls

I don't think the evidence supports this perception. I'm struggling to find precise figures for longer than about 10 years ago but sources seem to suggest youth violent offences are also down.

ETA: seems to be worse than 10 years ago but better than 20 years ago.

I don't know what the answer is, stricter punishments, community service perhaps. Always remember Rory having to pick litter in Gilmore Girls. Perhaps the embarrassment of having to appear in an orange tabard may have an affect on some of our youth

I believe councils have the powers to evict tenants if a child is persistent in receiving ASBO's. Perhaps some parents maybe a bit more interested in where their little darlings are but this is assuming:

a) the girls involved live in council properties
b) the council is willing to do this, I've never actually heard of it happening

And then it's not fair on the perpetrators who don't live in council properties that get away with no punishment so it's probably not been worth me making this post

Do hope the girls hurt get some counselling and that they recover from their injuries

But kids stabbing and killing other kids really wasn't a thing. Bullying yes, knives no.

The police hire people, not "officers". You will find the same people in every walk of life. Every toxic manager, every colleague who bullies, belittles you and takes credit for your work. We accept these behaviours in every office environment in every business in this country. We even joke about it, we have memes about "toxic managers", we consider it normal, if undesirable.

Why so you think the police would be any different?

Officers are paid less than most office middle managers.

But we/you expect them not just literally risk their lives for us, but they must be walking saints while they do it.

If you want the best of the best, a saintly presence on every street corner, then you must pay them as though they were just that. You want them, but you won't pay for them.

People who work as police officers are no different to any other people. Don't kid yourself that becoming a Police Officer changes you, it doesn't.

If you were a raging misogynistic areshole before you joined the police, wearing a uniform won't change that.

The most toxic, manipulative, nasty bullies I ever met were female teachers.

And I'll bet most teachers on here would agree with me.

This definitely went on in the 80's when I was a teen. I saw a girl battered by a gang of girls, was chased down by a gang of older girls and beaten myself (by just one, with others watching - car stopped and shouted at them and they ran off, luckily) and another time a friend was badly beaten, watched on by many, then left unconscious on railway lines.

The difference now is there is a narrative in the press about how awful teenagers are so it's widely reported on.

That said, it's clear that we are still failing to get the message across to teens that violence is never OK.

Little rat bastards.

It's not apathy. I work in community development and have thought a lot about how to reduce crime in my neighbourhood. But it's unhelpful to blame society now when this is an endemic problem and needs to be considered as such. Violent crime was at its peak in 1995. Slo we need to look at why it has gone down. Certain types of crimes such as knife crime has risen and we need to see why.

A blanket "in my day" it wasn't like this post isn't helpful or true.

Saying it hasn't increased isn't the same as doing nothing. It's important to be clear on the facts though as that affects the solutions. We can look at what changed when crime started falling and do more of that.

If anything I'd argue the opposite that it's more unhelpful and defeatist to just throw your hands in the air and denounce the entire country as violent badly parented thugs.

We don't have apathy about it when we point out this has always happened, it's obviously terrible what has happened to that poor girl.

But it IS true that it's nothing new. I remember things like this happening almost every day as a kid. Your personal experience makes you think it has gotten worse but life changes like moving towns etc could make it seem that way but I agree there should be stronger punishments

We live in a country of thugs. The aggression everywhere has got out of hand. Just this morning I saw a shop assistant screamed at and an incident where a man had awful road rage with a woman. And so many people have apathy about it with comment like “it’s always been like this”, “there’s nothing we can do”.
Incidents did happen in the past, I’m not discounting that. But the scale of peoples rage is much greater now. There were not signs everywhere in the past stating “we won’t tolerate abuse” because it was a much rarer event. I worked in retail for years when I was young and I remember 2 incidents where we had an aggressive customer, now it’s a daily occurrence for retail staff.
Stabbing were also rarer, but now there are multiple reported every day.
There have always been bullies, but I think there are far more people with that personality type these days.
If I was in my 20s I wouldn’t entertain having kids now, this country is a mess.

One very nearly caught up with me one time I probably would of been hospitalised if they had, this thread is bringing back the adrenaline (not the good sort of adrenaline😂) from it all. This was the 00s, bullies never went away even back in the middle ages there were probably kids beating each other with sticks and shoving kids down wells

This happened now and then when I was growing up in the 80s. The difference is that there's no way anyone out of my immediate local area would have known about it unless someone died (once a girl came close after she was stamped on in the head with a stiletto heel).

Filming raises awareness and produces evidence I guess, but it also provides another way for the victim to be bullied and retraumatised over and over again.

I definitely am not a fast runner 😂

It happens because there are too few authority figures (who have any actual authority to act) in children’s lives, and unfortunately that very often includes their own parents, who are also often the ones interfering in other authority figures doing their jobs.

No authority figure will be perfect and they will make mistakes, just like parents. But authority figures have been rendered spineless by parents not accepting that simple fact.

Overall violent crime has dropped dramatically since I was a teen (the 90s). I am not suggesting this makes this incident any better but it's not true to paint it as a modern problem.

In this area, an attack of this severity is not a common thing to happen amongst our young people which is why it has horrified locals.

Having said that I am aware of at least two other incidents of young people that I know, in the last couple of years who have been attacked by a gang of youths, simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or because they were seen as different.

Within society there is an increase in negative and challenging behaviour being observed, some of it being fuelled by kids being recruited into criminal gangs. There is also an increase in poor parenting of these kids too. People are too scared to challenge poor behaviour, parents/carers do not put into place boundaries or back up others such as schools or the police when managing behaviour. Unlimited access to social media/gadgets is also a factor. It’s a vicious cycle, and looks only to get worse unless we as a society break that cycle.

Those poor girls that were assaulted, this will have a massive impact on them mentally. I do hope that the attackers are found, but I’m not convinced that justice will be served.

It's not really a "these days" thing. Lancaster is a great place to live and grow up, but these things have always happened. I was always nervous walking through town in my school uniform as people from our school tended to get picked on, and there were some parts of the city where we just wouldn't go at all. The bus station has often been rough. That poor girl had a horrible experience. But I remember kids getting beaten up there and elsewhere in the town back in the 80s and 90s.

We need parents to bring there children up properly. Parents need to be parents and stop trying to be bezzie mates with their offspring. When the adults act like teenagers themselves the children don't stand a chance.

Agreed. Definitely happened a lot when I was growing up it almost happened to me a few times but I was a very fast runner thank god.

Bullies have always existed it's nothing new

And parents will justify their children’s bad behaviour (bullied, COVID, school, SEN) and make an issue in the media or on SM, against the authorities.

Not a chance of anything substantial enough to change the behaviour of these kids. The path is always the same. Shit behaviour at school, bullying, assaults, minor drug dealing, possession of knives, robberies, stabbings...... At no point does the criminal justice system do what's required.

It isn't a "these days" thing. Sophie Lancaster was a very famous case and she was attacked in the same way but didn't survive.

There lies the problem. People should be able to push yhese girls out of the way, at the very least, to save the victim. Anything it takes really but no one can say 'boo' to children these days. It doesn't 'take a village' anymore.

Our government is too busy looking abroad at the moment. Starmer needs to stop grandstanding and get some control back on our streets before he runs around being a saviour to everyone else. There's no punishment for antisocial behaviour and kids today know that. They know that 10-15 girls piling on one girl is wrong and should be held accountable for it but they'll probably get a telling off because the police don't have enough powers or resources.

Nonsense. If these people are arrested and convicted, there will certainly be consequences.