Political Thoughts

Youth Crime

Amid Tony Blair’s comments on criminal justice this week was a suggestion that young people might be tested or monitored in schools to identify those who were at risk of becoming criminals. At the moment there are not too many details of how this might work and I write this from the fortunate position of being in Scotland where such proposals wouldn’t apply – the Scottish Executive is yet to display quite so much lunacy in its thinking. However, this suggestion is not only misguided, it is deeply concerning to me on a number of levels.

1. Could it actually be done? Is there any accurate way of predicting which young people would become criminals? Well, firstly lets face it, we’re not talking all kinds of crime here – they won’t be going round private schools trying to identify children at risk of becoming high level fraudsters. It is largely blue-collar crime they will be thinking of. Yes, there are risk factors for these things, which are similar to the risk for many other problems – we might think of poverty, family breakdown, social isolation, violence in the family, parental drug or alcohol misuse or low self-esteem. But the truth is that not everybody with these factors in their lives will embark on a life of crime. Many manage to negotiate a way through to adulthood.

2. Having identified these young people as potential criminals, is there any way of intervening that doesn’t bring with it a stigmatisation? A stigmatisation that would make it harder for the young people to follow a constructive path and further increase the likelihood of their getting involved in criminal activities. Thus the policy becomes self-defeating and the label put on the young people becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You don’t need to be a genius to see that young people who are viewed in an almost entirely negative manner will develop the behaviours to match.

3. There is something about the whole idea that sits very uncomfortably with the idea of innocent until proven guilty (an idea which the current government seem to have done more to undermine than the governments on the previous 100 years put together). How can young people be brought into contact with the criminal justice system on the basis of what they may do in the future? They’re not criminals and that’s certainly not justice.

If the government is serious about doing something about this issue, then they need to accept that there is no short-term fix. They need to get serious about tackling, not the young people, but the factors that put them at risk in the first place. They need to put effort into promoting the factors that have been shown to provide resilience for young people – positive relationships with adults, positive involvement in their community, having their voices heard and being able to hold a positive idea of themselves. Unfortunately this wouldn’t necessary bring results in convenient time for the next election and may lack the attention-grabbing headlines.

It is my privilege to work with young people, most of whom would be affected by many, if not all of the risk factors that could be identified. Of those young people, some will flirt with crime as part of their teenage years, but only a very small minority of them will end up getting heavily involved. However, all of them have interesting things to say and a contribution to make if we only take the time to listen. Much though I cringe at David Cameron’s “hug a hoodie” sentiments, his attitude does seem closer to the mark than that of Mr Blair. We already live in a society that is marginalizing and stigmatising our next generation. We seem caught in a vicious circle where we fear young people who in turn (justifiably?) feel that they are not welcome in our society and act accordingly. We don’t need to go further down that road, Mr Blair.

Sound Bite Culture

Of course, all of this is further example of how our politics is governed by the soundbite. The thing that nobody will tell you is that it always has been, even before we had sound media. “Workers of the world unite – you have nothing to lose bit your chains.” – great soundbite there. “We shall fight them on the beaches…” and so on.

At the risk of putting on my rose tinted spectacles, the difference to me seems to be this. In the past there seem to have been more people who actually stood for something and then tried to distil that idea, philosophy or ideology into a soundbite that would grab people’s attention. Nowadays, we seem to start by trying to find a good soundbite and then drawing up a policy to fit it, hence some of the crazy ideas that float around Westminster.

The depressing thing is that it seems unclear what many modern politicians actually stand for – Labour lurches right, the Tories drift left, the Lib Dems feel squeezed in the middle and flap about trying to work out who they are. They all seem to want power, but aren’t conveying any clear sense of why or what they want to achieve. For example, David Cameron got himself elected leader of the conservative party and then started thinking about what the party would campaign for under him. Have we not got things a bit backwards. And the politicians wonder why nobody can be bothered to turn out and vote.

Elections.

Which brings me on to elections. On May 3rd in Scotland we have elections both to the Scottish Parliament and to local councils – this means we have 3 different votes to cast, all using a different system of voting. First we vote for our constituency MSP on a first past the post system, then the regional MSPs on a top-up list system of proportional representation, finally the council will be elected on a single transferable vote system. When the European elections roll around they will use yet another system. I’m all in favour of PR – I think electoral reform is long overdue and its about time Westminster elections were part of it as well, but does it need to be so many different systems. My head’s beginning to hurt just thinking about it.

Meanwhile, at the moment I’m still a floating voter – the last few elections I’ve despaired at how little I’ve been told about what those seeking my vote would actually do with it should they get in. They’ve seemed more interested in telling me what the others had done wrong. The last European elections, nobody seemed to tell me anything at all – it seemed that even the parties couldn’t be bothered with the elections and then have the audacity to complain about low turn out. Come on guys, my vote s here to be won.

So, a final encouragement – if you have a vote on 3rd May, use it, but use it for somebody who’s setting out a positive agenda you can agree with, not throwing stones from the sidelines.