I didn’t do it, society did
Teen girls – and boys — have been responsible for recent acts of violence in Halifax recently: at the Busker’s Festival where Police were swarmed by a youth mob when trying to make an initial arrest following a fight between girls; outside the Halifax forum, which began, apparently, when girls started fighting and ended with four security guards getting stabbed. A 16-year old male teen has been charged with attempted murder; and a bizarre attack in the Halifax Common on a 65-year-old woman by two 15-year-old girls who allegedly beat her with metal table legs for kicks – not even asking for money.
None of this is very new.
In addressing youth violence or crime in general, the right side of the political spectrum, typically, wants to see more police, tougher sentencing, corporal punishment, active deterrence; the left side of the political spectrum is the providence of the ever-present “ounce of prevention”: increased welfare, increased social services, more education, more counseling, etc
Social factors such as reduced welfare and parents that are busier and more preoccupied (but with less or the same money) also contribute to the societal malaise, a sickness cariactured and captured so well in 1962 in the novel by Anthony Burgess called A Clockwork Orange. Stanley Kubrick later made it into a 1971 film starring Malcolm McDowell.
The story deals with a sick socio path named Alex who belongs to a violent youth subculture with their own dress and language (a jingoistic idiom inspired by Soviet Russia), who, upon capture for raping 10-year-old girls and others (Alex is 15), is subjected to the “Ludovico technique” which involves inducing nausea at the idea of committing a violent act (think of a similar treatment for alcoholism where the patient vomits if consuming alcohol due to a chemical reaction).
In a way, violence is an insobriety and these punks in Halifax and in A Clockwork Orange are drunk on their own ephemeral physical power. But what author Anthony Burgess was getting at in his 1962 novel was more of a demographic fear of the coming wave of baby boomers that were washing over the system, as well as a fear of Soviet inspired mechanical violence — cruelty for its own sake.
The fact of high per capita violent crime in Halifax is of particular concern. But is pointing fingers the answer? Is compassion for the victimizers sensible? 15-year-olds know right from wrong. Why should we be making allowances by creating, assuming, a context for punk actions? Who cares? If someone is throwing a brick through my window I don’t care if he had a bad Mamma or not.
At the same time, if most these kids really did have love in their home or had been respected and returned it, they wouldn’t be getting their kicks by acts of gratuitous violence — power would come from other sources, other places. However, when a youth is lost, society must then be the parent and the prison-maker and should contend with both youth crime approaches: more policing and tougher youth crime laws, and more social services spending.
No one can take the place of a parent (or medication if the kids need it), failing that, throwing money at it is the only other way. Please don’t tell me about “values” as they are not abundant anymore, nor did values ever serve as a corrective. The act of gratuitous violence itself only exists in the awareness of its moral opposite.
If only we could capture them like in the novel and play Beethoven loud, and make them sick. And make them stop; hearts may be black, self-preservation may be blacker.
August 30th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Today Tom Young Picked up where you left off(sorry missed your show today) on the youth violence issue.Where do I start?As you correctly pointed out crime and punishment is a big hitter for the right wing. Or should I say that this is the commonly believed myth. The truth is that reseach shows that centralist left parties have a better record on these issues when it comes to policy. The right wing tends to be more reactionist and populist about the issues and therefore more well known for its stand on the issues.
Harsher punishment longer sentences are the reaction of most listerners and definitly those who called in on Toms show.
Where is the evidence to support the idea that these options work?
If you have spent time in the cells in Glasgow you would witness the violence handed out by MR Policeman.You would also note that becoming hardened to violence is something that happens almost without knowledge. Amoungst my friends when I was a youth the violence you could take was a messure of character.To get a good hammering from the bobbies was a right of passage. To fight back was to become a man.
At school I was flogged until I bled and then had to endure the punishment from my father for bothering the teachers. It was all part of life for me and I never questioned it, I grew up realising that the world is violent and that my only protection against it was endurance.
Longer sentences? In the UK and many other parts of the world including our neighbours to the south believed this was a solution.
The truth is that it only makes things worse. Prisons are for apprenticeships and developing networks for the return to the streets.
Crimes and violence are proportionally related to the gaps and differnces between groups within society. Glasgow remains the violence capital for europe not because of lack of punishment or prison time but despite it.
To believe that a youth will become less prone to violent actions by being locked up in a prison shows ignorance.
There are solutions to the ills we face but until we can face ourselves and find our faults nothing will change.
In Glasgow the sectarian tension remain lodged in the ignorant mind.
I asked a neighbour who owned the large tract of land next door. His reply was typically Nova Scotian. Oh a bunch of jews. What would his answer have been if the owners were catholic or babtist? My geuss is “Oh Mr and Mrs Smith/Jones “etc.
Discrimination and prejudice are blatant in Nova Scotia. We must resolve the ignorance in our society .
Youth violence is not the illness merely the symptom of a desease.
We surrendered all values when we accepted the systems to replace them.
September 9th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
It’s as simple as structure. Give a viable platform for all to succeed.
Uniforms in all schools, no iPods, no phones.
Parents today can’t enforce structure, however, a school with consistent rules that are enforced can. Can’t save them all but it certainly would improve their chances.