Is this gang thing happening in your Town Centre?

[GangsinTown]

I’m really concerned. There are gangs of young people dressed in black with hoods and caps that are frequently in our Town Centre going into McDonalds and KFC late at night trashing the place for no reason. I’m talking throwing tables and chairs, smashing windows creating as much carnage as possible.

My son works at McD’s and this has happened twice in the last month. His friend who works on the other side of town in KFC has also experienced this. It’s just happened again tonight and my son’s manager was punched in the face whilst pushing a thug out to lock the door to protect people inside. Customers are terrified asking to hide behind the counter.

He said it happens everywhere because these are young teens (under 16) who think they’re untouchable from the law because of their age, they record it on their phones then post it all over social media - mainly Tik Tok for kudos.

I’m now terrified for my son going to work. We live in a small town, it’s not a large or capital city where maybe you’d expect higher crimes rates.

While the bus operators have to protect their staff, cutting "the ghettos" off would have an awful impact on those decent, law abiding people who happen to live there and need to get to work, college, hospital appointments etc.

And if you're a social housing tenant, it's not that easy to move, no matter how much you want to. The council won't rehouse you, and it's near impossible to get a mutual exchange from an estate with a bad reputation.

A curfew on the kids might work though, unless they're running riot all day long.

Agree. It's perfectly possible to be stuck in one of these places.

I think curfews would be impossible to police and most of the troublemaking kids would need it to apply from what, 3pm?

i still think a night in jail would help. The kids are often uploading the evidence. Can't we make use of it?

Before Christmas I was in town and there were two young lads (one about 11, the other a couple of years older) both with hoodies and they were vaping. I was amazed when one addressed a lady walking with her friend as mum asking if they were going to grandmas for dinner.

Plus video games, streaming services, more tv channels than you can shake a stick at ...

I don't buy the boredom thing. There was far less vandalism when I was growing up 50-odd years ago, and we only had 3 channels of tv and very little else.

I live in a small village in France.

To cross the threshold of the school every child must be insured by the parents, which includes civil responsability. In addition, parents are legally responsible including financial reparations for any damage their little darlings commit. In line with this minors must obey their parents. By law.

There seems to be a greater emphasis on personal responsibility, rather than the 'I know my rights attitude.'

However, my dd lost no opportunity in telling all her friends how many rights she had had in the UK and that parents could be taken to court for smacking a child. With social media being international it may change.

However, the gendarmerie are still a 'force', not a service, and are armed to the teeth, forming part of the army.

The next generation.

www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/1050rkf/london_girl_angry_after_being_told_to_not_vape_on/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x

The criminal age of responsibility is 10.
They can be arrested, even fir swearing at the police officer.
They can be taken to court.
Unfortunately they will see it all as a badge of honour.
Nightmare. I hate what we have become in the UK 😞

Granted, but unless the government are going to fund losses on specific routes, its up to those neighbourhoods to decide if they want to behave in a civil manner and join the rest of society, of live in mahem and filth.

No-one is obligated to serve or work in neighbourhoods where the locals cannot control their behavour or the behaviour of the young. The failure of local people to address the worst of their kind in their own societies is how ghettos develop.

Wider society tries to engage, reaches out and extends services, but as a collective these communities do not want what is being offered.

Maybe if the Police put officers on every bus, then I could see that working, the same way they put Police in every school. But then all youre doing is penalising the whole of society for how some incertain neighbourhoods choose to live and raise children.

A better solution is to just leave them to their own way of life. Ghettos form, and they rejuvinate in a cycle. Those who want to live a different way of life will leave. Or they will stay and just phone the Police a lot and use Uber. There are some neighbourhoods where certain supermarkets will not go. If you live somewhere where the people around you are so awful that a supermarket dare not drive to your home, you do not have the right to feel entitled to anything. No-one has the right to expect anyone to put their life on the line for them just becaise they live somewhere shit.

It reminds me of a young baby in Glasgow that took a housebrick in the face thrown by the local lads through the bus window. Two weeks old if I recall. Stopping bus services stops the problem. Everyone knows why. They can grumble all they like, but a bad community is a bad community, and if you live in it and allow it to be that way, turn a blind eye so to speek, you are part of the problem.

How many people on here have said they know exactly who in their community is causing the problems, have the video footage, talk about it on FB?
How many of them are just veting and tutting about it, but would never dream of doing anything to address the problems? That's the problem. They hear nothing, see nothing, and say nothing.

We live in a democracy.
This is what the majority of people want.
If people didn't want it this way, it would not be this way.

If a 14yo is caught breaking into a car, or stealing from a shop, etc. and the Police took him to the station, and then went to the father's work and took him to the station for questioning too, the father would make sure his son didnt do that again, because his father would know that if the Police kept turning up at his work and carting him away, he'd lose his job.

Same with the mother. Go to her work and pull her in for questioning. If shes a teacher the school have an issue and all the kids know that teacher had to leave with the Police, again. If she has other children cal Social Services and have then pick up the rest of the kids.

They get their kids back a few days later, but the parents would deal with the kid or they will lose their income and their family. They get to choose to discipline one child or continue with their parenting methods and lose all their kids.

Society needs to force parents to do their job. Too many mummies doing duckface on snapchat and not enough mummies looking after their children i soem of these neighbourhoods.

Could you imagine telling parents in this country that they had to take responsibility for their children in school?! They's be livid!

It's happened quite a few times in McDonald's and KFC in the nearest town to where I live (west London). Scary. They've employed security guards at the McDonald's now because things had got so bad there.

Yes, and we have increasing amounts of knife crime to go along with it!

They remind me on the wooden Russian dolls dressed identikit in the North face /Nike get up, hand down joggers, up turned cig in other hand and what's with the constant spitting. Minks that are going on to create other minks.

@FrostyFifi.. Agree we do.

I can't remember the last time we saw any police walking around our way at all.

Where they hell are they??

Touch wood nothing nasty like that here but the macdonalds is always the source of trouble locally. In fact dd went there last week and I drummed it into her, be vigilant.

However we do have issues with teens throwing things off high roof like car park. We have lots of high rises being built and my worry is things being thrown off them.

I don't know why we have so many troubled children but with the Advent of phone addiction it's going to get a whole lot worse and worse.

@newtb

Goodness that sounds wonderful!. What a brilliant idea!

I don't think most of the kids involved have fathers in work and mothers who are teachers, tbh.

I think now it is far more likely that the Dad would march in and thump the teacher!

We regularly have small groups of teens marauding around our school site, refusing to go to the internal room and their parents won't answer the phone to come and collect them for a fixed term exclusion. It is also common for parents to ring up and be fairly combative wanting to overturn sanctions such as detentions for lack of homework. There are a surprising number of parents when you call them who just sound broken 'He won't do anything I ask, he just shouts and swears at me', when you ask what consequences they put in place there are none.

Single motherhood and absent fathers are definitely a dominating factors in childhood lawlessness. I'm sure there will be plenty who will argue that there are exceptions, which obviously do exist.

I agree.

agree so many women are on their own today and trying to bring kids up without help.

wiat till your father gets home dosent really mean anything now.

went pass MDs today and saw a sign in the window say we dont tolerate anti social behaviour or something like that so there must have been some trouble.

Cut the parents' benefits if the kids get in trouble. You'd be amazed how quick that would sort it out.

I've seen videos of this sort of behaviour from gaggles of screeching juveniles on Tiktok, all egging each other on with the most destructive behaviour being seen as the most popular. All of them are dressed in black with their hoods up and masks so they're not identifiable, they physically attack anyone who tries to intervene and stop them.

I feel awful for the employees just trying to earn an honest wage, often in jobs that are already busy and stressful without the addition of a bunch of poorly-trained crotch goblins physically and verbally intimidating and assaulting them. I've also heard of members of the public being injured, both intentionally and unintentionally when being swept up in the moving swarm of aforementioned scrotes.

I'd like to think that as they get older they'll look back and think "Wow, that was really pathetic of me, all we did was embarrass ourselves and make life much harder for everyone we assaulted, the people we terrified, those who had to clean up the wake of destruction we left in our trail" but something tells me they won't, I don't think the sort of person capable of this behaviour is capable of such a 180 degree switch on their views.

exactly. boredom is an excuse. Some people get bored but would never cause trouble.

yes or make them sign some sort of behaviour contract for their children and themselves, we are so soft, no wonder the country is a mess.