feral teenage mum rioter- does she deserve her council flat and her child?

[porcamiseria]

www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23977196-shame-of-the-mother-who-saw-her-bad-daughter-looting-in-tottenham.do

I get that there are underlying issues, and that castigating the "scum" underclass is not going to acheive anything but this story for me, epitimises things

how can anyone defend her right to be a mother, and her right to benefits and a council flat? now she will go to prison, her poor child will either go to his grandmother or into care, and the cycle continues

something needs to be done to disincentivise girls like this from having children. I am not advocating sterilisation, or having kids wrought off their mothers in labour ward BUT we have a society where girls like this have babies, and they are the kids that end up rioting

people say that education and support is the answer, but in some cases people should NOT have any more kids and I think we are being far too liberal, she's a bad un. end of.

So, as I've posted on a few thread, there's an emerging consensus that the mind set which produced a cohort prepared to go on a criminal rampage of theft, arson, damage and now murder, was not produced by the cuts of the last year - but rather the social and educational policies of the past 14-20 years.

Is the better response to knee-jerk, or to actually examine these longer term failures and seek to remedy them properly? Because avoiding producing again in the future a cohort like this one seems pretty damned important to me.

What I want to know is if the rioter was, say, a rich mullionaire's daughter, do they have to punished anymore than those on benefits? Should they lose their homes etc? Or because they're rich and don't "sponge off the state", it's somehow ok? Bit like being a member of the Bullingdon club eh?

Actually, I do think the rich millionaire's daughter who was in court yesterday should be punished more harshly than somebody from a deprived background because she had the education to know better and absolutely no reason to thieve or be involved with those who thieved. I think her sentence should be doubled and I certainly think she should be expelled from her university.

I don't agree married - in general the crime should be punished, not the person unless there are clear extenuating circumstances. Otherwise it implies that being rich means you know better and poor people are stupid with no morals.

Some people on these threads are really, really depressing me with their head in the sand attitude. How can there be any excuse - ANY excuse - for rioting and stealing?

I think marriedinwhite has nailed the point about council flats exactly. The prevailing culture has been that over the last few decades you can expect a flat if you tick certain boxes. I know a girl who got a flat at 16 (and it was a nice Victorian conversion as well, not on a purpose-built Sixties estate). She said the drill was your mother wrote a letter to the council saying their child was being abused by the mother's boyfriend. No questions asked. Flat pronto. She said all her friends' mums did that and all her crowd had their own flats.

Look at Jamie's Dream School - what struck me was that how many of them had their own flats. Had they been at school behaving ok would they have got a flat? Like hell they would.

But don't you think Iggly that for the millionaires daughter there are simply no mitigating circumstances to take into account when sentencing.

Op

You have clearly posted to get other peoples opinions and I don't think yabu.

Someone up in the thread said that the rioters and looters were the victims in all this - I really hope that was a joke and a hint of sarcasm because that's total bollox

What about all the people and families who now have nothing? Nothing except the clothes they are wearing and their children have lost every single memory and possession they have.

What about the small businesses? Not only have they struggled through the recession they have now lost everything too. They have no business which means no income which means they can't pay their mortgage!!

What help will these people get?? Insurance claims take MONTHS, the council can't rehome them so what do they do??

They are homeless with nothing left. They deserve the sympathy and the help they are the victims in all of this.

These rioters need to be prosecuted in whatever way makes them realise the damage and effect they have had on people!!

If that means kicking them out of their council homes then to fucking right!! Good I'm glad because they are the ones who deserve to be homeless! And these poor Victims should get their houses so they have somewhere to live.

These kids having kids need to stop also! this culture is getting to a point where they are going to destroy the country and in 100 years time there will be nothing left.

Bring back the workhouses!

No I don't married - she should get the same punishment as a "feral single mother" for this sort of crime.

Laura Johnson, the Exeter Uni undergraduate with the rich mum and dad, has pleaded not guilty to five counts of burglary. If found guilty then I'd have thought it very likely indeed that Exeter will chuck her out, something she would richly deserve.

She may have mitigating circumstances to plead if convicted, but she'll be more likely to be given short shrift by a judge unless the reasons are extremely convincing, given the St. Olave's/ tennis court background and all that sort of stuff.

ooh please can we play "truth or brick?" - that looks great!

think this is virtually impossible to sort out today - because any efforts made to reduce teenage pregnancies ie not providing flats, support etc will be greeted with concern about dangers to and discriminating against the babies and will probably fail. Only way to avoid that is to have system set up in place - maybe like the mother and baby units referred to above - but the money isn't there - and if its sought you'll have the opposite headlines about throwing public money for teenage mums etc etc.

Basically if you stop supporting teenage pregnancies - you 'll be stopping supporting babies/ young children.. But on other hand clearly while they're being supported now its not either enough support or more likely not the right type of support...

I think if you stopped allocating flats etc to say u 21s with babies and rquired them to stay at home you'd just get what one poster above referred to people inventing stories to get around rules...

And always you'll have plenty groups willing to take test cases to test discriminatory rules etc

Or maybe we could just make the fathers finacially support their children, as they are supposed to?

How do all the lovely middle class mummies who stay home baking cakes survive? The husband supports them of course.

The state would not have to fork out for the children of teenage mothers if they made the fathers pay to support them. But they dont want to do that because 1) its too much like hard work 2) many of the decision makers are men and 3) they prefer the media to create a convienient "underclass" of feckless women, out for all they can get and raising yobbish brats, who in turn, when they grow up, can also be blamed for everything wrong in the world and divert attention from our divided society where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Regardless of whether this woman stole them and tried them on or just tried them on she is an sadly a prime example of a teenage mother who has had a baby with no thought to who is going to support it and her. Think we really need to think about the disincentives for people having children so young with no means of support. Mother and baby hostels come to mind, no government has the nerve to start this. Get pregnant under 18, dont want to stay at home, dont want a termination then the hostel is the ONLY option.

Surprisingly I think the teen pregancy rate will reduce dramatically.

Killed Bill - but the fathers are feckless in many cases, living on benefits and doing cash in hand jobs, craving and demanding the latest designer range. Pointless chasing them - there is nothing to chase!

Because no nice middle class teenage girl ever got pregnant....

or used drugs

What a VILE OP.

Actually I would consider myself middle class (but never got pregnant, there really is no excuse these days). I do work full time so that makes me working class as well.

Think that we have to break down this problem, look at the number of teenage girls getting pregnant, the policy is that if you are 18 or younger you will be supported in a hostel, no lying about what your 'mothers boyfriend did to you'.You will be offered training and guidance on childcare. If you choose not to take this you will stay at the hostel and be tasked with cleaning/cooking etc. Effectively for young girls who dont want to get a role/cannot get a role you help run the hostel. Just like you would your own home. It is not a hotel. You wont be offered your own place, and lump sums to get yourself up and running. There will be incentives for starting work. There will be a careers officer allocated to each unit and they will be responsible for helping you find employment.

"because any efforts made to reduce teenage pregnancies ie not providing flats, support etc will be greeted with concern about dangers to and discriminating against the babies and will probably fail."

The best way to reduce rates of teenage pregnancy is to increase the aspirations of girls from the lowest social classes.

Girls who have aspirations for themselves and hope of a home of their own and a living wage without recourse to benefits tend not to get pregnant/keep a pregnancy, young. Despite being sexually active.

That said, I'm actually in favour of hostels for very young mothers and their babies. I think if they were good quality the support with parenting and education teenage mums could get in these places would make a positive difference to many of them.

"If that means kicking them out of their council homes then to fucking right!!"

I don't see why rioting and criminal damage should be punished by making people homeless, when other crimes aren't.

All crimes damage communities, not just criminal damage and looting.

Spud - I think you and I might be in agreement - hurrah! Agree that you need to increase the aspirations of girls - but how? Saw an ex gang member on TV the other day, now thats the sort of person who could go into schools, tell young kids the consequences of crime. Or tbh make the consequences of crime much more severe.

Bring more discipline back into schools, mobiles are banned, uniform is complusory. If people are spoiling it for others move quickly and remove them. The scum who robbed a friends son of his mobile because he didnt 'respect' them'. They punched him, took his mobile and made him take his trousers and boxers off and then stole them, now what should we do with them... Imagine it was your son this was done to..

I am the daughter of a teenage mum.

I was brought up in a very poor part of the country on means.

I am a higher rate tax payer - a net contributer to society.

How would some the vocal people on this thread have decided my worth when I was born?

Some posts on this thread truly disgust me.

May have been said before, and apologies for boring if so, but there are photos circulating all over the world of hordes of young men in various locations all over Britain running down the street with boxes liberated from stores'; so far I've come upon two threads here on MN (early days yet in my unscientific survey mind you so there may well be others) very straightforwardly attacking teenage mothers in the context of the riots and looting, and comments on other threads where teenage mothers are basically being blamed for the sorry state of affairs...