Hang them, scum, take their kids, feral brats, stop their benefits, take away their rights, forcibly sterilise them...

[EricNorthmansMistressOfPotions]

are just a few opinions I have seen on this board in the last few days. AIBU to think that people who hold those opinions are a bit thick unpleasant and wrong?

Apart from the fact that plenty of the rioters were so-called productive members of society who apparently saw an opportunity to get some free stuff, we live in a democracy and if you take away people's human rights that extends to everybody - even you. If you stop benefits you send children into more poverty, which is a major factor in children growing up to become angry, violent and criminal adults. Remove children and do what with them? Place them with the thousands of suitable and willing foster carers who are hanging around twiddling their thumbs? And what about the consequences of removing children from their families - yes, more criminal, poorly educated and challenging adults. Parent and baby placements? Oh yes, we have so many of those! All well funded and easy to access! Never mind that the courts can and do place DCs in foster care over P&B placements because there aren't enough and that ShinyDave and his crew are doing nothing but cut social care budgets...oh yes, great idea.

It's not only our society that is fucked, it's the world. We are one of the most developed countries in the world and all people want is the opportunity to get stuff they haven't earned. Where does that impulse come from?

@ENMOP.... ironically, the same phenomenon of mob rule, mass hysteria and joy at other people's misery that motivated the rioters is what's driving this reaction as well. Social networking can bring out the best of us - like the clean-up campaign - or it can bring out the worst in prejudice and vitriol, inflating it artificially as others join their voices to extremist ideas. Thousands allegedly think enforced sterilisation is a good idea. Thousands allegedly thought Raoul Moat was a working-class hero. It's the same mob rule in action..... just a different target.

It wasn't exactly 'a few trainer shops' now was it?

DoMeDon

I believe that more money should be invested in jobcentres including making partnerships with businesses to provide unpaid work experience placements for longer term benefit claimants. What is happening now is that jobcentre budgets are being cut, so fewer staff, their targets are all about processing claims rather than supporting people to find work. Making links with businesses prepared to take JSA claimants for experience is a big job, it's too simplistic to say 'they should have to do community service in exchange for benefits' - this takes staffing, managing, planning, supervising - it would actually be very expensive (though a really great idea). Unfortunately the fucking tories are hell bent on cutting funding for any sort of social improvement scheme as it's all 'big society' these days.

Parent and baby communes sound like a lovely idea, I'd be first in the queue to work in one. But it's the antithesis of what the tories are about! In the absense of families and community support we should be making sure there is social support in place, but that's interventionist, opposite of conservative ethos.

Children who grow up to have babies so 'someone will love them' have been failed from very early on. I work with these children when they get to teens, we are expected to work miracles in preventing pregnancies when the damage is done by 6, not 16 when we get them. They have little education, poor self esteem and no aspirations. Why is our society like this? These are the questions we need to ask, and what can we do to make it better? Punitive measures don't work, it needs grass roots investment in social welfare schemes but they cost money.......

I'm at a loss here...how on earth have 'liberal lefties' created the society we live in today when there hasn't been a 'liberal lefty' in power since...erm well...has there EVER been a 'liberal lefty' in power???!

How is it fashionable to be on the left when a Conservative government just got voted in??

Has anyone seen the SkyNews site where they've 'named and shamed' some of the people who have been arrested for looting...quite a few were homeless people stealing food. Not sure how much more you can take away from people like that really. How desperate must you be to steal a packet of biscuits?

What is your plan GeekCool if they simply refuse to take part in all of that? I think what has been demonstrated quite amply is that the police actually have very little power.

I am amazed more people didn't die Cupcakes.

What do the 'softer' types on the board suggest actually happen to this large body of people who have just shown they don't care about the 'rules'?

"Not sure why a few trainer shops getting smashed up is such a terrible thing anyway?"

Two things:

1. It wasn't just trainer shops getting smashed up, was it? It was homes set alight, independent businesses run by families getting trashed (most of them won't be covered by their insurance as most insureers don't cover against rioters ), innocent passers-by getting kickings.

1. It's what it symbolises, rather than what was stolen. It symbolises a faction of our society that think that they can steal and loot and that they are entitled to do it.

No you can't possibly take the nice grammar school girls house away can you

lets hope she gets kicked out of her school though

DoMeDon
So the streets were free of crime before benefits?

Hmmm...wonder what your excuse for this happening is...no benefits in the 18th century y'know.

People riot in times of social exclusion and poverty. They have done so before, and will continue to.

domedon "before benefits the streets were not rife with crime" are you deluded? do you know anything about history i mean i know oliver is a sweet story about an orphan kid but gangs of street children roaming the streets knifing you for your money go all through history and every country right up to the second world war.
one of the reasons the welfare state was introduced was to help combat crime.

"No, I didn't see anyone openly being mugged."

Here

and here

So they weren't "socking it to the man", they were socking it to your average person on the street. Cunts.

A Conservative Government didn't get voted in.

I thought they had pretty much an even vote with labour and did a deal with the Lib Dems (who lots of the left on MN voted for and subsequently felt betrayed by).

Comment nicked from the Guardian cartoon:

^This text is taken from the e-petition on the government web site that is currently proving so popular:

No tax payer should have to contribute to those who have destroyed property, stolen from their community and shown a disregard for the country that provides for them.

Could just about apply equally well to bankers.^

Inthenightkitchen - a few trainer shops?

Don't know what planet you've been on this week? People have lost their homes, businesses, a 5-generation family business that survived the WWII bombing was razed to the ground, a woman jumping from a second floor window into the arms of firemen, a car driven into a group of men killing 3 of them? People have been mugged and murdered on our streets.

To name a few. I have watched in tears as a city I love was burned and looted, and then have to listen to media interviews where people shamelessly come out with such gems as 'we're getting our taxes back' 'everyone hates the police' 'we're showing the rich we can do what we like' 'it was fun though' etc etc.

Then you have the 'professional apologists' - oh yes, we must understand them. Society has made them that way.

It's a disgrace. The bleeding hearts, namby pamby liberalism on these threads are making me sick. It's blatant criminality - but as some bright spark in Manchester said ' nothing will happen to me - it's a first offence innit?'

Gah.

FWIW, I don't agree with the more extreme methods of punishment being suggested by some. I just think that long custodial sentences are needed here. That kid who came out of court laughing after his hearing, I mean, what do you do with someone like that? No morals in the first place, no fear when he is brought to answer to the law.

Sprogger - the justice system should punish Laura Johnson particularly harshly. She is intelligent, educated and old enough to have been fully aware of the consequences of her actions. The very fact that she had gloves, a balaclava and bandanas in her car show that this was not unpredmediated, either.

As these criminals appear in court it is becoming more and more difficult to draw conclusions about the particular demographic (whether age, ethnicity or socio-economic status) of those involved in these incidents. One consistency however has been the reactions of those parents who have spoken to the press. I have yet read about one case where a parent has said "I am ashamed at my child's behaviour. I hope the courts punish them fully, and then when that's over they will wish they were still in prison" - which is certainly how my parents would have reacted. So far I've heard "It's not his fault, I blame Facebook and Twitter", "He didn't do it, the police are wrong", or "He's a good boy, he just happened to be there and got caught up in the moment".

Sorry, should be "I have not yet read" not "I have yet read".

Morloth I don't have all the answers, but I believe it's a better start than hanging/stoning/sterlisation.

Maybe we need more money for mentoring programmes throughout the country. We cannot continue to ignore some of these people who are on the edge of society.

But what if this is a shift in the culture of the UK?

What if now that the mob has had a taste of its power, the 'new' culture decides that they will not submit to the old one's laws and courts and prisons?

Will you force them sprogger? How far are you willing to go to enforce the rule of law?

Too true Eric. Although I would love it if we could send them away to our aid overseas projects and let them see what it really is like to have nothing. I think it would be the making of them.

I think that the OP is NBU at all and I have been really shocked and angered by the number of people I know on FB filling their status updates with the words scum and the like. I couldn't agree more with Lola about this feeling like large scale child abuse. So, I would not stone them, lock them up and throw away the key, tkae away any benefits or homes etc. In fact I feel compassion for them even whilst watching the images of rioting/looting.

HOWEVER...how do we stop people who are deeply unsuitable to be parents creating more and more children who have a strong likelihood of ending up as disenfranchised "feral youths"? Oddly, it was after listening to Camila Batmanghelidjh on Desert Island discs that I immediately thought "sterilisation"...I quickly reigned myself in because I realise how abhorrent/illegal etc. etc this idea is and how impossible it would be to judge who falls into the net but I still wonder how you stop addicts who have already had numerous children taken into care from continuing to get pregnant? (this is just one example) Once a child is born it is their family's and society's role to make the most of that child but is there any argument that we should try to prevent children being born into situations that are very likely to create damaged children/adults? We have a state system that is cracking at the seams (DH works in social care) and we just don't have the resources to help them enough once they are so badly damaged. I'm genuinely interested in opinions as I struggle with my instincts on this intellectually.