UK Commission on 2011 Riots Points to Poor Parenting Instead of Police Violence

The Riots, Communities and Victims Panel released its final report yesterday, concluding, “after the riots, we must give everyone a stake in society.”

The panel, appointed by British Prime Minister David Cameron to examine the August 2011 riots that Scotland Yard described as the worst urban violence in the UK in living memory, focused on the country’s “500,000 forgotten families,” arguing that a lack of institutional support for young people, as well as poor parenting, were among the factors that led to rioting in Birmingham, London Manchester and other English cities. Darra Singh, Chair of the Riots Communities and Victims Panel, said in a press statement:

There are people ‘bumping along the bottom’, unable to change their lives. When people don’t feel they have a reason to stay out of trouble, the consequences for communities can be devastating – as we saw last August.

The report estimates that up to 15,000 people, most of them under the age of 24, participated in the riots.

On broad youth participation in the riots, the report notes:

Read on....

Spanking your kid: Does it help or hurt?

Spanking is a thorny issue. Has what seems like a Dickensian practice been slain by liberal parenting practices? Or is it Canadians’ dirty secret?

Whatever the case, the issue is on the table again, courtesy of outspoken London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Mr. Johnson has sparked a debate in Britain by suggesting that worrying about fine distinctions – a smack on the hand. A spank on the bottom. When is it okay, when is it bad parenting, and when it is outright assault? – limits parents’ right to discipline their kids.

“People do feel anxious about imposing discipline on their children, whether the law will support them...,” he told the BBC. The comments were in support of other politicians’ statements that last summer’s London riots were, in part, caused by lax parenting.

Here in Canada, the issue of spanking children remains a relatively private and elusive issue.

Read on...

Public Enemy

by digby

They would have had to shoot him:

An "out of control" 10-year-old foster child was shocked with a Taser and arrested by sheriff's deputies Monday in Pueblo West.

Capt. Jeff Teschner, head of patrol at the Pueblo County Sheriff's Department, said Wednesday that the deputies involved were justified in their use of force.

[...]

Mondragon said that when deputies arrived, the boy ran away from them holding a 2-foot-long pipe.

"This lad, we have a long history of (him) running away. I don't know what his entire psychological profile is, but obviously he has emotional distress," Teschner said.

Read on...

The police seem to be getting more and more comfortable using Tasers for more and more reasons. Tom