WTF is happening in London?!

[AngeloMysterioso]

In the last few days alone, there’s been a stabbing outside Liverpool St station, two moped muggers punched a women to the ground for her handbag and phone, and Michael McIntyre was forced out of his car and had his watch taken off him by another pair who smashed his window in whilst his child was in the back!

Even where I live in a pretty boring zone 4 suburb two teenage boys were stabbed a few streets away last week.

I know it’s never been the safest of cities but it feels like it’s got so much worse in the last year or so. What the hell is happening?

I don't think that people aren't blaming the perpetrators. However, you're being incredibly short sighted if you don't try and look at what the root cause of the violence is.

Also taking your argument to it's logical conclusion, tommarkle, who will pay for the lengthy prison sentences that you're going to dole out when these criminals are caught?

The tories ideological refusal to increase taxation to pay for anything that could help the root cause is a huge part of this problem. And I'm speaking as someone who is politically pretty centre ground.

There is no such thing as society after all.

Look closer to home. Crap parenting, kids allowed to roam about doing as they please, bloody phones and the media constantly promoting aspirational material goods that most teens have no hope of affording. Add to that twitter etc and celebs endlessly bragging about their possessions and their lifestyle - and the gangster rap culture (or whatever they're calling it now) - promoting an attitude of total thuggery, violence and lack of respect for others.

They have not had a poor education. They've been offered excellent opportunities but have refused to take them. There's a difference. Look at he threads on here, parents always knowing better than teachers - showing their child how to disrespect elders and those in authority, parents whining about phones being confiscated. This is the parenting that is modeled to these kids.

Look closer to home. It's lazy to blame politicians. Look at the parents.

EssentialHummus Bloody good point!

And young offenders institutes are next to useless. If you want them to fear being locked up, you need to make the punishment genuinely miserable, not a social club, something to be feared not admired.

The trouble with many youngsters is they don't want to start at the bottom, as if it is below them. They don't want to sweep floors or the do the photocopying or 'serve' anyone.

They don't realise the way to working hard is sometimes having to start at the bottom and work your way up.

And then there are those who don't like exams - I've said to my teens that you never stop learning, there is always another qualification to get, a change of job for more experience. For those who say they can't afford to learn most of the qualifications at my local college are free is you are on benefits.

So it all boils down to those who try and work hard, despite many obstacles, and those who give up at the first hurdle and then complain and blame others for the rest of their lives.

Police not allowed to chase the thugs n mopeds in case the little darlings fall off and get injured- because obvs that would be the nasty police officers fault.

Social issues... where are the parents? What morals are these thugs having instilled in them growing up?
this

Problem is those who want a more tougher stand every time someone tries the liberals
Block it and firmly stand with the criminal

my dh reckons the Russians are deliberately stoking this to make London a less and less attractive city

he spends too much time on the internet

*OMG all the handwringing, lefty apologists on this thread.

Blaming everyone except the perpetrators.*

Okay, so. Have a zero tolerance policy and sling them all in prison. Is that what you want? A US style system where people (overwhelmingly poor and black) are incarcerated in unprecedented numbers, and enslaved by privately run prisons to work for actual pennies an hour and disenfranchised into the bargain? Execution?

For the older of us on here, our parents and their parents generation were engaged in and slaughtered in their millions by 2 wars. Should we get rid of poor young men by using them as cannon fodder again? Gets them out of east London anyway, right?

Again, the older generation were regularly beaten by their parents and teachers to maintain discipline. Should we bring that back?

My father and his cohort grew up in abject, grinding and overcrowded urban poverty, and a relatively tiny proportion ended up in crime, partly due to rigorous and often violent discipline at home and in school. The disobedient kids who weren't beaten at home, were beaten in school. Attainment was driven by fear. Fear of teachers and parents, fear of hunger, fear of being beaten, fear of poverty.

Now, maybe he had a particularly shit time of it, but I think his experience was pretty normal among the poor in Dublin in the 40's and 50's. Do we want that fear back? Surely we can offer kids something better than that now.

Parents and teachers need support in the earliest years of school to teach good behaviour and positive participation in the resources school has to offer (or should offer), not rounding up young men in their early 20's and sticking them in prison. Obv. we have to do something about the problem we have created by giving teachers an impossible job to start with (too many children, too little money), but unless we start caring properly for ALL children from KS1 onwards we're still going to have this problem 20 years from now.

I agree that crap parenting is a big contributing factor.

Where do crap parents come from though?
Why are so many of them around now?

Massive police cuts and a public sector culture which cannot effectively tackle gang culture due to lack of resources and fear of being accused of ‘institutional racism’.

Pickpockets, mugging, a stabbing - friends' report of a weekend break in Paris recently.
It's not just London.

Cuts - police, youth services, educational, mental health are all going to play a part.

I do think perhaps parenting is playing a role – maybe due to family break downs or long work hours I don’t know - IME and my families there seem to be more parents not teaching empathy, respect for other’s property, basic social interactions excuse me past toddler hood not hitting others, queue not just shout loudly and push in – while it’s present in deprived and working class communities we live among it’s much worse at MC attractions where parents seem to smile indulgently on it.

But then low levels of aggression seem to be up on roads and train journeys even in shops – though having worked in few public facing roles there have always been difficult aggressive people to cope with.

I also image drugs may well be playing a part in some areas.

None of that excuses the people involved - they are making a choice to do this.

The trouble with many youngsters is they don't want to start at the bottom, as if it is below them. They don't want to sweep floors or the do the photocopying or 'serve' anyone.
They don't realise the way to working hard is sometimes having to start at the bottom and work your way up.
Having all the X Factor type shows that encourage the concept of fame & money without putting in any effort doesn't help either. And footballers on huge salaries when they're too young & uninformed to cope and therefore give a doubly-bad signal to young people. Parents need to be encouraging their children to work towards goals, not expect everything handed to them on a plate. But some of the attitudes on here make it clear exactly where the problems are coming from...

i think there's an increasing low level of 'acceptable' violence everywhere recently. Even on MN I'm increasingly reading 'I would have punched her/him in the face/throat etc' As far as I'm concerned, unless you are defending your child or yourself against a current physical attack, violence is not acceptable.
If parents are saying such things in front of their children it becomes a normal thing to react to annoyance with violence.

Any excuse for a bit of Tory-bashing instead of taking a long hard look at what individuals are doing in their own homes and societies to sort out the problem. It's that attitude, the whole 'we'll blame someone else', that creates the issues because they're telling their children that everything is someone else's fault and you don't need to take any personal responsibility

Oh, how true I'm always reminded of a lad I know who did absolutely nothing at school, an attitude fully backed by his parents because "there's no jobs to go to so what's the point". Needless to say this "lack of jobs" was allegedly down to Tory cuts, corporate greed, ideological austerity and all the other usual suspects

Asked how he spends his days now (does he hang out with mates or whatever) I was further told that "he can't do that because they're all at work"

I've lived in or near London most of the last 45 years. Yes, obvious crime has got worse than it was say 10-15 years ago, but compared to the 70s and 80s it's nothing. The real change is every stabbing being widely reported as opposed to only being local news. There's still about 2 women a week murdered by partners or exes - when's that going to be on the front of the Daily Mail?

I think most people rely on the police too much and criminals know this, I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to rely on them but the fact is we can't, and if someone tried to rob me I'd bite their fucking nose off before they got anything and they wouldn't try it again.

This has been going on for months, its not a recent thing.

Stabbings barely make the news any more in Enfield.

I heard that Tottenham teamed up with Hackney to fight Wood Green which did happen I believe, based on the locations of stabbings & shootings that happened after I heard that.

It's over drugs & turf apparently.

Exactly, @Nike. Like that stupid footballer that had a tatt of a machine gun on his legs. If you get paid millions be a role model.

Some brilliant posts here, notably frustratedoldbag and happy2bhomely

I fear that London is becoming like many other cities where we'll have to be more aware/expecting of crime. I wouldn't walk around in Barcelona or Southern Italy for example using my iphoneX for maps... or wear expensive jewellery, i would have my bag across my body etc, basic precautions.. but i don't feel like that in London.

Clearly that's changing. Kids all have iphones. I do warn mine that anyone with a drug problem sees a phone and see their next score.

Waiting lists in London are years long, so now imagine you are the son of that family. It's hard to get peace and quiet, so maybe you blow off doing your homework. You can never get any privacy, so you might as well go out. You can hang out on the street for free, so you do that. You see your dad working all the hours God sends and still not being able to afford a decent standard of living, and you think- "Fuck that, what an idiot" when you've seen how your older "mates" have the latest 'phone or whatever. Just by being runners for gangs/pretty crime/whatever.
THIS.

Parents need to be encouraging their children to work towards goals, not expect everything handed to them on a plate

If only

I wonder, too, how much the benefit culture has to do with parental examples and expectations. Though this too had its problems, young pregnant mums were once regarded as the family's issue to resolve, whereas now the first thought for too many is "what am I entitled to?"

I'd hope nobody pretends that all such young parents are feckless wasters, but in the case of those who are, how did anyone ever think that facilitating their choices would end well for themselves or the children they produced?

The media - yes i'm looking at you the Daily Fail - really need to highlight the link between drug use and gangs and violence.

I hope schools educate dcs on the link. Drugs are not just about what it does to you / risks / addiction etc but the whole link to violence and crime on our streets and in the drug growing regions.

Unpopular opinion, but the lack of a father is a contributory factor. Kids cleave to their peers more and "father figures" of dubious character when there is no one at home to give them guidance/give them what for (take your pick!). "Respect" is big among inner-city kids and the trouble is they're "respecting" the wrong kind of people.

I have seen threads on here where a poster says they can't possibly get their teen to go to school/stay in/do as they're told because the kid is 6 ft tall etc etc. Well, whatever else, a father is usually physically a match for a teenager and can at least bar the door effectively or frogmarch them to school.