Scottish government may introduce unlocked housing for young prisoners and nationalise secure care services.

[Scoffingbiscuits]

The Scottish government is extremely kind towards young convicted criminals. For example, until the age of 25, when they're sentenced the judge has to put what's in their best interests first and only sentence them to imprisonment as a last resort. This is what led to a young man convicted of raping a 13 year old girl in a park, twice, getting a community order to do 270 hours of community work.
It seems that they now want to make things pleasanter for young offenders who have, until now at least, been locked up for the safety of the community. It's short on detail as yet, but a warning of what's to come. The SNP are also looking at nationalising secure care services. A young person has to be very dangerous to end up locked up in Scotland these days, so let's hope that when secure care services are nationalised and the doors are unlocked all will go well for local communities.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15484349/SNP-want-young-thugs-therapeutic-hubs-no-locked-doors.html?i

Have you considered that is because every single event is nowadays reported. Because when I was at school if one pupil punched another in the corridor a teacher might have shouted at them but it would certainly not been recorded unless it was serious.

Or that teachers - many of them with decades of teaching experience - are saying that it’s got loads worse because it has?

There does need to be a standardised method of recording, what is recorded and treated seriously in one school can be ignored in the other.

Exclusion isn’t the answer though.

So if someone at your work punched you in the face, or your child got punched you wouldn’t think it serious?

Levels of violence in society have generally decreased over the past few decades.

Yet, levels of violence in schools have increased.

Why do you think that is?

Strangely levels of violence in schools has increased in line with the removal of support resources, which has made teachers the only ones having to tackle it.

In other words the problem has always been there but we are not tackling it effectively anymore.

The solution isn’t exclusion, it’s giving schools and councils the resources to combat it.

Do you think keeping violent children in mainstream school with their victims is the answer? Yes or no?

Teenage boys in school aren’t adults at work.

Trying to compare the two is nonsense.

How many punches do you think are thrown on the football/rugby pitches in the country over the course of a year?

Very few are serious, most of the time there might be a black eye or a swollen lip and that’s the end of it.

There is a world of difference between two schoolboys with too many hormones flying having a fight and adults being assaulted at work.

I’ll happily answer your question but hope that you do me the same respect and answer mine, as you’ve avoided any direct questions all day.

Yes, ideally if there was the necessary support in place the ideal solution would be for the child to remain in school and learn the effects of their actions.

The problem is just now there is no support in school that enables them to tackle the behaviour effectively.

There will always be fights/physical confrontation in groups of young males, we can’t just exclude them from society as a first line of defence over it.

None of the teen boys I know punch anyone. My brother never punched anyone growing up and was never punched. Neither did my husband. We’ve clearly been living different lives but living a life free from violence should be a basic expectation. My nephew has been seriously physically assaulted despite never having flung a punch in his life.

We need to move away from your style of living where violence is an expectation. We are not farmyard animals, teenage boys or grown men!

What support do you think would help?

and what harm is society storing up for itself when all these outcast children grow up?

How many murdered partners?

Abused wives?

Assaults, drugs & misery?

Fortunately most realise that if we are part of a society we have a duty to dispassionately help guide young people, even when it is morally hard to do so.

We have prisons. Violent people belong in prisons, not roaming around in our society. People can decide whether to be violent or not, but if they choose violence they belong in prison. I am EXTREMELY happy to fund extra prison spaces to house these people in order to ensure the good people in society can live in the safety they deserve.

Apart from the obvious such as specialist classroom support, campus police, psychologists and social workers to try and assess and improve home life I think we need to learn lesson from the success that police in Glasgow has had from the violence reduction unit.

The success the had in reducing knife crime was absolutely unparalleled and has been studied throughout the world.

We should use that expertise to tackle the culture of violence at source when we still have a chance to do so.

But alas, funding!

There are all of the above assigned to Edinburgh schools already obviously. Have been for years. It’s not helping. Things are getting worse.

Why are you assigining a support role to a child

Why give such a role to a teen boy/girl who
• has no training at all
• is not being paid a penny
• who access to learning is being removed by staff having to manage violent teens in that childs classroom
• is at risk of violence on a daily basis?

I really do think anyone defending keeping violent kids in mainstream schooling really does need to reassess their moral compass. It’s truly disgusting behaviour. No surprise that this is a Scottish government policy.

We are not talking about fights!!

We are talking about unprovoked physical attacks.

Eg a child working and another walks behind them, snacks their head off the table and punches or kicks their head when they're lying in the floor.

But yes, that child should get to stay in school to learn the effects of their actions?! What absolute garbage.

I find it funny as well what parents of the victim are supposed to tell their kids understandably reluctant to go to school.

‘Oh I know he broke 3 of your ribs as the school stood by, but he comes from poverty and if we removed him from the school to protect you he might end up costing the state more’.

Oh that’s aright mum, makes me feel so much better!

Morally hard to do so? How about physically hard to do so, when you're approached from behind, punched to the ground and kicked in the head. And then have to continue sharing a classroom with the attacker, who at worst gets a couple of days' holiday from school. How do you fancy your employer treating the situation that way when you're violently attacked by a random colleague at work?
And how does the attacker see the consequences of his actions and learn from them? He suffers no consequences. And if he cared about the victim I'm guessing he wouldn't have beaten him up for fun. All he's taught is that he's in some dream fantasy world in which he can enjoy perpetrating violence with a guarantee of no punishment. He, for some reason that is very unclear to everyone, is far more important than everyone else and can do what the hell he likes. A great lesson to learn, isn't it?

They need to be in a special school designed for violent children. Those schools exist. They have specialist staff and very small classes. They benefit the children who are there, who really get the chance to change and to learn something, and they benefit non-violent children in ordinary schools.

Can you explain please?

That sounds like you think I’ve stated other children should help with the behaviour.

@Meeplemakeglasgow
I'm guessing you've not had a daughter have her head banged off a walk and then be viciously battered by a male, in a classroom. Otherwise, you wouldn't be spouting the rubbish you are.

This is an example of a school for children with social and emotional needs. It's in England. Some schools also talk about problems with "interacting". This kind of school is designed to give highly troubled children a chance to turn things around. Very different from just keeping them at the back of the class in mainstream school with free rein to disrupt the class and attack other children - not exactly great training for their life after school, is it?
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Admissions - The Promise School

Your post is well written, but says nothing.

It’s a masterclass in rhetorical manipulation, you deliberately use emotional language to create a shield and avoid engaging logical arguments about rehabilitation/intervention.

The false equivalence is what’s known as adultification, by comparing school to a workplace you try to disregard the developmental phases/context of childhood.

The hyberbolic language is off the charts, everything you have written is extreme. “Punched to the ground and kicked in the head”.

The dysphemism you used with the ‘days holiday’ comment is almost impressive.

We get the fact that you want to go straight to extreme punishment, but this straw man argument of no consequences you’ve created in your head is bizzare, you have no way of knowing what the consequences are at home/through social work/courts that some of these kids have.

Are you advocating to have the violent child placed in isolation with only paid (professional) adult contact?

With no contact with any child in the school?

If not?
You are placing a violent teen in a mainstream school classroom in the halls in the toilets and every or any place where a student can be.

So the question is why are you assigining a support role to a child?