To ask how you think social issue arise?

[BloomsburyNook]

I'm nearly 50, so have seen a few decades. When I was young, if you visited a small handful of rough or run down places, you might see a few drunks or 'miscreants' or young lads messing around, but never anything really threatening or visible.
So it might just be me, and I've led a fairly quiet life, but there seem to be a hell of a lot more issues out there now, especially in ex industrial places and urban towns around the UK. I see a lot more homeless people, many who have evident addiction issues: women as much as men, and there are more gangs of teens smashing stuff, shouting, fighting, etc.
However, in many areas you hear that crime rates have dropped over the years. Perhaps it depends where you go, and many people in bad areas won't report to the police anyway.

I often travel with work, and see this across the uk, much more dereliction and dying high streets, and in many towns there's literally rubbish piling up along embankments and street corners that the councils never clear up. And it's not simple enough to say it's because these are run down areas - they were run down decades ago but not like this.

I know there are many lovely places, and I've lived in a few of those, too, and some go downhill a bit, some remain safe. So if you don't get out a lot you might not know it's going on? I don't know. I asked a few older friends recently had they noticed and they did admit that there were elements of this knocking around in the 70's, 80's, etc, but not to this extent.

How did it become worse? What is your opinion? What could be done to help? Are people generally poorer than 20 yrs ago? This is presuming poverty as a causation - is it? The news headlines often affirm this, but I don't really know across the board. I know there are a lot of very closed off towns that might make these issues worse due to people rarely leaving them, but is the issue more cultural than economical?

I think people are generally angrier and less satisfied on the whole, we are all a lot more stressed out even if some of us report we are doing great and don't notice it! It just seems like a different world from when I was in my 20's. And of course, it is! Imma gettin old!

If we go down the tax route then it has to be a wealth tax. Why should my aunt who has a 2m house not pay anything towards the NHS? There could maybe be a charge on something so houses don't have to be sold.

Imagine the sudden inrush of interest to care work if those people were given career prospects and a good wage.

But what will that do to care costs? People don't want to pay it. There is thread after thread on here about avoiding costs, IHT etc

Yes it's very complex :(

My opinion is back down in early years family support.

That's how it starts. Not saying single parents. Am saying the foundation that causes the issues is lack of support within the early years.
The dynamics used to be generations would support each other and pass down values and core beliefs. Help to guide offspring to get a comfortable life.

The value being respect for others, work hard and look after things as you worked hard for them.

Due to family breakdowns the values don't stay. Add that to loss of industry. Loss of recreational activies such as working men's clubs and services for youths.

It then becomes no wonder you get a disfunction in society.

Problems now all all secondary ( mental health, crime, poverty) because they were never fixed at a primary source. ( government investing money into early years, making working more beneficial fo couples rather than if single, wages being a certain amount not requiring top up benefit just so some people can live. Affordable rents.).

The infrastructure in these places have broken down due to a number of reasons but mainly because the government was not really bothered about these areas and putting things in place in the primary problem.

So instead they have a secondary problem.

I wonder what cost more? Keeping petty crime down or investing in early years help.

Investment in affordable rents/living wages which would mean passing laws. Or putting someone in the rundown mental health services.

It will all be about money. S**t rolls down the hill.

Breakdown in families*

the problem with increased taxes is that the money generated is often misspent, and doesn't address the problem.

which may also include how offenders are released early.

there is just no trust in how politicians spend the money received.

Perhaps resitting your year at school if you fail until you reach a certain level would pull up some kids. We all get 13 years of free education. What percentage benefit fully from this.
Obviously if there are mitigating factors the facilities need to be there to help the child achieve what they can but we are all paying for this education for all and are we getting our money's worth.
In the past there was a stigma to not following rules, that's no longer the case, people do what they want but there is no downside to eg being the parent who berates and complains loudly to the teacher.

I think PPs have pretty much answered this question, so I will just add a couple more points.

Obviously the cycle of deprivation which some families get into is at the bottom of the problem, but also...

There may not have been a 'golden age' of law-abiding in this country, as some people might think, but attitudes to anti-social behaviour have changed. We are much more tolerant, and I don't think it does any of us any good (including the perpetrators).The permissiveness of the 60s brought many good things (enlightenment and toleration in sexual matters for example) but inevitably, the non-judgmentalism has eroded social taboos which were probably useful in terms of public conduct. Overseas teachers I've worked with are often shocked at what is tolerated in UK schools, for example. Teachers being told to fuck off by students is a day-to-day experience for many of them, where once it would have meant expulsion/exclusion.

Public facilities such as playgrounds and bus shelters are often seriously vandalised. Who would have thought say, 150 years ago, that if you had a society in which such facilities were provided to make everyone's lives better, that elements within that society (and often the very people they are created for) would try their best to destroy them? It would be incomprehensible to people in the past - so why does it happen?

Not expecting answers - politicians and sociologists wrestle with these issues all the time. I suppose I would sum up by saying that you can take non-judgmentalism too far. As a society we need boundaries and we do need to show disapproval for anti-social behaviour which actually makes the lives of the most vulnerable people (not the elites) harder.

Perhaps resitting your year at school if you fail until you reach a certain level would pull up some kids. We all get 13 years of free education. What percentage benefit fully from this.
Obviously if there are mitigating factors the facilities need to be there to help the child achieve what they can but we are all paying for this education for all and are we getting our money's worth.

Totally agree. I've been saying this for years.

It would also teach responsibility, the law of consequences, and the value of applying yourself and trying hard. Just about the main thing school should teach.

But support for parents and children during early years is probably the most productive thing for the money for improving lives, o as suggested by previous posters.

You are absolutely correct in my opinion.

If people are born in to hopeless environments they will be hopeless people. There is a need for education and also nurture to have generations grow up with self belief.

I didn't think I could be anyone. I didn't think I could do anything. I was one of the kids that was left out, and when I wasn't people felt sorry for me because my parents were poor.

I now have a great career. I have a first class degree. I try to inspire my kids as I send them on school ski trips I wouldn't ever have done.

I am not a big earner in MN terms but my kids will be because they have the belief that they can. I always thought I wasn't worth anything, didn't deserve anything and would always be poor because my parents were. Let's change this. @