So are youth club closures to blame?

[TheLadyEvenstar]

"There'll be riots"

So are the youth club closures to blame for the riots in Tottenham as some people on FB/Twitter believe?

Thank Richlinn - makes perfet sense now - apologies

Rioting because they were upset by the fact that a policeman had shot a bloke who had a gun, who had shot at another police officer and who didn't stop when he was told to by armed police?

There have been a lot of deaths in my family and amongst those I love which have upset me, some of them unjust, a couple by another's hand... I'm not petrol-bombing and burning cars though! WTF is wrong with these people?

Apparantly the family are saying they don't believe the police "story" about the policman being shot (despite an independent enquiry) and were saying the shooting was a cold blooded execution.

Upon a man who just happened to have a gun... ?

Do you remember an incident many years ago that precipitated unrest in the north-east? A lad stole a car and was killed, being chased by the police I think. The press called it 'joy riding' and the lad's father was furious; he said he'd been 'on a job' [i.e. stealing it for gain]. The father was very defensive of his son, saying it was unfair to accuse him of being a joyrider because joyriders were stupid.

That there are young people and their families who see car theft and [now] drug dealing as jobs and legitimate career choices, needs facing up to. And that requires investment in proper jobs for inner city kids, that they can look forward to from a young age.

Oh I don't agree with them - was just posting what I had read as part of thier explanation.

apparently the police - 15 of them battered a 16yr old girl for no other reason than her throwing a piece of card at them oh and then shouting abuse at them

Really? Well there will no doubt be an enquiry if that is true lady

Cat not sure if i believe its true but we shall see.

Think I have upset them now with my last comment.

the majority of spoil kids who think they are better than the law are raised that way. So yes lets lay blame on the parents. It is not the schools or the government responsible for raising our children but we are parents are. So if something goes wrong we need to look closer to home before laying the blame elsewhere.

I very much doubt it is true.

The complete decimation of youth services (not just a few youth clubs closing down, but massive cuts to children's services, Connexions and the careers service, youth offending teams etc), growing unemployment,
heavy handed policing (getting increasingly worse in London recently) - all contributing factors to a growing sense of unrest in deprived areas of London, and to the swell in marauding, frustrated youths.

These are the uncomfortable truths. The socio-economic reasons are fairly glaring.

Mark Duggan's death was just a trigger.

It isn't about 'blame'. Blame never got anyone anywhere. It is about searching out the real, messy, complex reasons and not getting all daily Mail about 'scumbag parents' and 'ignorant thugs'

tottenham activist

He sounds like he is trying to justify what happened which I think is pretty low

totally maypole, there is plenty for young people to do if they get off their arses and look. Volunteering, scouts/guides, local initiatives. Just an excuse, these people are wild feral animals with no moral compass.

oh and the cadet cores are really good, I was in the Air Training Core when I was a teen not so long ago

thats the point thought maypole if you have shit parents that do bugger all for you, dont pay the 3 pounds for scouts, or take you to museums, or offer any alternatives to what you see your peers doing then what do you do?
if you had a local community centre you could go to with people you could talk to or help you perhaps you would not become a member of the "underclass"

No teenager in London has any business complaining that they are bored and have nothing to do. They have access to wonderful facilities unmatched anywhere else in the country. They are violent and criminal because they want to be. No excuses.

I have known poverty. I have also lived in places with nothing to do. I didn't set fire to things and loot shops.

Am fed up of hearing people try to justify this shit. There is no justification.

and i am fed up of listening to people who seem to believe that we should just round up all these young people and shoot them because we were all perfect as teenagers and were never allowed ourselves to be led astray by our peers, we knew poverty but we turned out fine, with all the bashing the daily mail gets on here i am surprised to here so many of you sounding like you just stepped off the pages of it.

So what would you suggest we do with them? Free internet access for all the laptops they've nicked? No one is claiming to have been perfectly behaved as a teenager, but most of us managed to get by without setting peoples businesses and homes on fire, or clearing out the local sports shops.

what do you sell night garden? weed, ket or coke?

its not the govs fault what path we take, but what paths are available to us is down to the gov.
I feel very sad because i see the outcome here and its lose lose, for all of us

:(

Well said TanyaBranning.

What worries me is that no one will actually look at the causes behind these last few days. Rising youth unemployment, lack of opportunity, poverty, poor role models, poor education etc etc.

These young people are a product of their environment, in which they have absolutely no stake. Of course they should be held to account for their actions, but the wider context needs to be examined too.

I used to manage a children's home in Haringay I have spoken to a couple of the kids I took care of today to check they were ok and not getting any ideas. They were both horrified by what has been going on and quite scared.

These are young people who have lived right at the bottom of the social heap and yet they still have enough of a moral compass to know that wrong is wrong.

This is not about deprivation or a lack of facilities. This is a group of thugs with an overblown sense of entitlement and a complete lack of any respect.