Actually I think that all parents who let their underage children watch porn, feed them...

[duchesse]

...cannabis, play inappropriate computer games (eg GTA), let them get drunk, etc... should be prosecuted for child neglect. Not just the ones that nearly kill people.

oh i dunno awas fighting the crowds in a supermarket with a hangover could push a person to who knows what.

oh it's not me with the hangover - that's H who will be at home with the kids while I do a nice leisurely shop.

back to the low paid thing - you do realise it's not just shop workers that have to work on Sunday's for low pay??

LEM- that's my point. Is it judgey? I don't think it is actually to say that some types of parenting are just wrong by any standards if they leads to shattered lives. I agree with whoever said it that these boys will never recover, probably any of them. I also agree with with mii about living by society's codes. They are not especially stringent ones, and I don't think it's unreasonable to draw a line in the sand and stop saying it's cultural differences when lives are being ruined. The victims are more likely to recover from this than the perpetrators because they at least have their family's backing and love. And while people keep thinking that these boys are "just evil", it detracts from the real issue of appallingly neglectful parenting which is a lot more widespread than this sudden media-driven prosecution for neglect might suggest.

I suppose what I actually think is that social workers are being made to handle cases that would be better dealt through the legal system imo. I think that SWs' panoply of responses is not able to deal with families like this one, and nor should not be expected to be able to deal with it, when removing children and prosecuting neglectful parents might be a better response. I actually think that a few high profile prosecutions might help draw the societal line in the sand, and define some minimum standards. Of course it's contentious to say that someone is bringing up their children badly, but objectively, these people were. These children would have had to be growing up in the midst of a war zone to have had a worse deal.

This would obviously require resources however, which is always contentious in UK public services as nobody wants to pay any more taxes for it. Also there are not enough foster parents, but then can you really blame good people for not being able to handle such difficult children?

Exposing children to porn is an offence, and it is child abuse- you can b e prosecuted for it.

YABU. Its one thing to behave like that with young (pre-teen and young teen) DCs but I would be surprised if a lot of 16 yos didn't play cert 18 computer games/ watch cert 18 films and occasionally get drunk with or without parental sanction.

How do you police this? Isn't it likely that if you relax the criteria for interventions by SS that the really serious cases like baby P will still fall through the net? In any case, inadequate parenting isn't actually a crime. The upshot of it is that children get taken away. SS have a finite no of people who can deal with these problems and they generally and rightly concentrate on the worst cases where there are additional issues like children being exposed to violence at home as well.

YABU
my 5 year old wacthes debbie does dallas whilst playing gears of war ans smoking a joint.

never dun me no harm

Hold on.

Re the OP.

These things are classed as abuse and neglect, and I'm sure they are prosecutable.

But the cases usually get into the legal system via social workers who contact the police so it would create a huge resources problem for them particularly with lack of foster carers.

I know you can be prosecuted, it's just that hardly anybody is. I can only wonder why these parents are being prosecuted now for things that presumably have been knowledge about the family for a while. I think that the prosecution is being brought in response to the outcry about their children, not genuinely to help their children (both these 2 and their other chidren).

And it's adults (most often parents) who buy these films and games for their children. We know a girl ("nayce" private school pupil) who is not allowed to walk up the High Street alone by her cautious mother yet had seen more horror films by the age of 12 than anyone I know. I think it's completely skewed.

Its neither pointless or judgey, its blatantly obvious that if you abuse and neglect children, teach them cruelty and provide them with no empathy or love, its not much of a stretch to them being cruel and uncaring and violent.

Those boys were 10 and 11 years old. they're not monsters, they're not born evil, they are a product of their parents and their lifestyles. IMO the suffering of their victims is at least of equal responsibility of the parents and the social services that missed scores of opportunity to help or intervene.

I think that social services try their utmost to keep children in their families because in most cases it is truly better for the children to stay with family (be it immediate or extended). I couldn't work in childrens' services for anything- it is most often a thankless task, and your only reward is when something bad that might (or might very well) have happened, doesn't. Hardly headline-grabbing or even provable. But by god does everyone know about it when it goes wrong.

Yes duchesse. The parents are the criminals as much if not more than the children.

Erm... hang on! I have just condemned myself. DS#1 plays Gears of War.

Oops.

chocrabbit- I'm not really talking about 16-18 yr olds, more about the 10-15 yo age brakcet where such an enormous disparity of permissible behaviour and freedom exists. 16+ yo are all different- some like mine are fairly young in some respects, yet more mature in other respects. By 15-16 most children have developed a good awareness of what right and what's not, what's permissible and what's not. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that they're far more fully formed than a 10 to 15 yr old who are still working out how the world works and have no reason to think, if they see and experience violence at home and are exposed to violence on the screen, that this is not the way things should be. Children of that age would just take it for granted.

I'm not for a moment saying that the things in the op are okay, or that the parents in the Doncaster case are anything other than hopelessly inadequate, but there isn't the capability either in SS or in the courts to deal with the increases in cases.

What about where the children take cannabis without the parents' knowledge, or watch inappropriate films which the parents have bought for themselves, again without their parents' knowledge? Do you get prosecuted for failing to lock things away adequately?

It is also worth bearing in mind that life chances for children in care are substantially worse than the chances of surviving poor parenting (not the sort of hopelessly inadequate stuff seen in Doncaster) so it wouldn't necessarily remedy the problem.

duchesse, in answer to your original question, a resounding YES here. YANBU.

well then by your lights half the kids i went to school with were 'neglected'.

or possibly they were normal kids that don't commit horrific crimes.

enormous numbers of pre-teens drink, stay out late and play computer games. two of them were evil little scumbags - i think something above and beyond the things you list went on in their lives.

duchesse the damage was done to these children way before they were 10-16.

I have read (not going to link peer reviewed studies sorry ) that the first couple of years of a childs life are vital in that their brains are being wired up (as it were) and if they are abused/witness abuse a lot in that time then their brains are wired in such a way that they are less able to empathise etc. and it's not something that can be fixed. I would love to think that was cobblers but...

I doubt very much that a child who has been "well" brought up with compassion and kindness is suddenly going to become a violent psychopath because they play a few computer games when they are 13. That is the wrong focus IMO.

The fact that these children were shown porn and violent films is probably secondary to the fact that they were beaten and witnessed their mother being beaten and god only knows what else.

Although obviously showing porn and extremely violent films to young children is just wrong.

Talking about violent films etc detracts from the real problem which is that many many children in this country (and all over the world) are being abused by adults. That is where the problems lie. It has always gone on and it gets covered up/people turn a blind eye etc. Just look at what happened in Jersey, in care homes here in the 60s and before, in the Catholic church globally.

The fact is that some adults like to abuse children, and when children are abused bad things happen. Depression, suicide, people growing up to abuse themselves, and rare cases like this one.

I don't know what you do though

i think children as young as 3 or 4 can differentiate between what is real and what sn't eg computer games ,Tom and Jerry (and you don't get much more violent than that BTW)
I think it unlikely kids from a loving happy stable background would be much affected by playing violent computer games

If they raised a dog to attack and kill they would be prosecuted if the dog attacked someone.

These are vile "people" who will continue to breed and raise more vile offspring need to answer to someone.

well it depends on whether you are talking about porn or Japanese porn

tispity, you've been on the other thread haven't you

its a non debate though, i think i may have misunderstood your OP, was in foul mood this morning and in marginally less foul mood now having shopped for DDs shoes AGAIN without success.

FWIW i think playstaion games etc have a lot to answer for. DP has a couple, graphic violence, sexual content - wouldn't dream of letting DD2 anywhere near it.

My mum has NO IDEA what its all about though and are there people out there who still just assume because its a game it can't be that bad?

I remember being properly frightened playing tomb raider, which of course is graphically violent - but it seems to be a step away from reality, fighting dinosours etc, does that make it less damaging than things like "the getaway" and "grand theft auto" which are the ones DP has? I actually find those disturbing.