On Mon, 28 Feb 2005, James Christie wrote:

In message net.com,
Roger T. may have written...

They are a product and reflection of our society and of their
parents. They're not going to to be the offspring of wealthy,
attentive parents, I wager, but the offspring of the those parents
who couldn't give a damn (and have probably never talked to them
nicely in their life). We need more information before we can draw
any conclusions about how to deal with it... but actually catching
the culprits would be a good start!

It's societies fault. It's their parent's fault. It's the
environment's fault. It's the school system's fault. It's everybody's
and everything's bloody fault but it's not their fault.

With attitudes like that, no wonder many kids are like they are.

Funny, when we used to beat the crap outta kids who did this sort of
thing, kids didn't do this sort of thing.

I've a feeling that there's a correlation in there somewhere.

I should think so Roger. When I was a lad (now theres a cliche!), I
would never contemplate breaking windows, vandalism by way of graffiti,
or mugging/attacking OAPs.

Same here.

The thing is, i'm 24, so 'when i was a lad' was within the last decade.

I mean, do all the people who make todays policy think that it was a
total coincidence that when we had things like corporal punishment in
schools, or getting 30 days in jail for stealing a bag of coal from the
Pit, that these "barbaric" practices had nothing to do with the virtual
absence of graffiti/vandilism etc?

I don't believe that there was an absence of vandalism. Graffiti was
perhaps less widespread, but i suspect that has more to do with the lack
of readily-available spray paint. Old people such as yourself often bang
on about how much better life was in the past, but every time i've seen
this looked into objectively, it's turned out to be rose-tinted spectacles
in action.

tom

--
skills to pay the bills!