Is a centre owner responsible for anti-social behavior there?

Spirogyra

Hi there's a shopping centre near me. There's a well known gang of teenage boys loitering there and frankly intimidating a lot of people, general members of the public and some people who run the shops. A shop manager said there's nothing anyone can do, but surely someone must be responsible for the prevention of such? The managment company? I know for fact the cameras are not working.

Thoughts appreciated
Thanks
Sarah

Beano

What about the gardai? If they are committing offences then the gardai should be the ones addressing it.

coylemj

If the youths are hanging around in the car park then the security people can ask them to leave. If it's a line of shops on a street then there isn't much they can do.

SMJSF

if they aren't verbally abusing people or causing trouble they have every right to stand their like everyone else.

Spirogyra

They are verbally abusing people, or at least some people , and intimidating others, that's the whole point of this post, and have been barred from the chemist, bizarrely.its a shopping centre, but there is no mall, shops are facing the car park

coylemj

If they're standing in the car park then it's up to the shopping centre owners to appoint security people to enforce reasonable behaviour and tell people hanging around to move on. If you're in a McDonalds and see a group of young people overstaying their welcome, you'll see them being told to move along, the SC needs to do the same in the outdoor areas.

They're on private property so unless someone makes a complaint to the Gardai and points out specific individual(s), there isn't much the Gardai can do about it.

Little CuChulainn

It's a public place for the purpose of the Public Order Act so if you get hassle just call the Gardaí.

Spirogyra

ideally the Gardai, but the reality is they haven't the resources and the boys are not afraid of them, have emailed a local councillor,see what he thinks

Losty Dublin

Spirogyra wrote: »

ideally the Gardai, but the reality is they haven't the resources and the boys are not afraid of them, have emailed a local councillor,see what he thinks

But they will be afraid of a councillor?

MarkAnthony

Losty Dublin wrote: »

But they will be afraid of a councillor?

Depends on the councillor, I'd imagine!

Del2005

Spirogyra wrote: »

ideally the Gardai, but the reality is they haven't the resources and the boys are not afraid of them, have emailed a local councillor,see what he thinks

And here's the problem. They aren't afraid of the only people who can actually do something about them, so why should the centre waste their money on a security guard to get at best verbal abuse off them?

Until the law is changed so that parents of feral children are made responsible for their children's actions our public places are lost to the public and the businesses are also being affected by lack of trade in these areas.

Johnboy1951

Del2005 wrote: »

And here's the problem. They aren't afraid of the only people who can actually do something about them, so why should the centre waste their money on a security guard to get at best verbal abuse off them?

Until the law is changed so that parents of feral children are made responsible for their children's actions our public places are lost to the public and the businesses are also being affected by lack of trade in these areas.

For those parents who know about the behaviour and do nothing I would tend to agree, but .....

there are parents who are not aware of what their 'darlings' get up to when out of sight, and unless the Gardai are involved it is likely they never will know.

there are parents who know about the mis-behaviour, but who have no control over their little 'darling', and apparently there is nowhere they can turn to for help in correcting this bad behaviour.

Then of course there is the personal responsibility aspect ...... surely those 'darlings' have responsibility for their own actions?

MarkAnthony

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

For those parents who know about the behaviour and do nothing I would tend to agree, but .....

there are parents who are not aware of what their 'darlings' get up to when out of sight, and unless the Gardai are involved it is likely they never will know.

there are parents who know about the mis-behaviour, but who have no control over their little 'darling', and apparently there is nowhere they can turn to for help in correcting this bad behaviour.

Then of course there is the personal responsibility aspect ...... surely those 'darlings' have responsibility for their own actions?

A good parent will know that when they release little Johnny or Jilly into the wild there is a small chance that even the most well behaved child might do something stupid - the difference is that if a business owner approaches a good parent and about Jilly booting the football through the shop window they will pay for it.

I'm with Del on this one - where the gardai are involved with dealing with kids the parents should find themselves presented with a bill and an invitation to parenting classes. Failure to do either should land them with a few hours community service cleaning up the mess. Social services should be properly resourced and involved with repeat offenders.

I might as well be asking for a wrestling match between Selma Hayek a Cameron Diaz because that's going to happen long before the average Irish voter decides to spend money on our broken social structure.

Del2005

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

For those parents who know about the behaviour and do nothing I would tend to agree, but .....

there are parents who are not aware of what their 'darlings' get up to when out of sight, and unless the Gardai are involved it is likely they never will know.

there are parents who know about the mis-behaviour, but who have no control over their little 'darling', and apparently there is nowhere they can turn to for help in correcting this bad behaviour.

Then of course there is the personal responsibility aspect ...... surely those 'darlings' have responsibility for their own actions?

The problem is that the Gardai won't get involved so the parents never know that their children are feral. The whole system of dealing with juvenile delinquency, and adult, in this country has to change. The Gardai can't be bothered as when they do their job the justice system breaks down, no one should have convictions in double digits, our jails don't reform and I've no idea what community service entails.

I had the misfortune of having to go to court for the prosecution involving a juvenile. My day in Smithfield was an eye opener to how messed up the whole system is and when I was summonsed to the adult court for the same case it showed me that the whole system is broken. I don't know the solution but I know that the current situation is a joke.

Johnboy1951

MarkAnthony wrote: »

A good parent will know that when they release little Johnny or Jilly into the wild there is a small chance that even the most well behaved child might do something stupid - the difference is that if a business owner approaches a good parent and about Jilly booting the football through the shop window they will pay for it.

I'm with Del on this one - where the gardai are involved with dealing with kids the parents should find themselves presented with a bill and an invitation to parenting classes. Failure to do either should land them with a few hours community service cleaning up the mess. Social services should be properly resourced and involved with repeat offenders.

I might as well be asking for a wrestling match between Selma Hayek a Cameron Diaz because that's going to happen long before the average Irish voter decides to spend money on our broken social structure.

I was not disagreeing, but was pointing out it is not possible to treat all parents of 'feral children' the same.

Would you think it right that parents who have no control over their children, & are prepared to admit to that officially, should still be held responsible for the actions of those children?

I wouldn't .... but that would mean some serious changes to our support services as you pointed out.

MarkAnthony

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I was not disagreeing, but was pointing out it is not possible to treat all parents of 'feral children' the same.

Would you think it right that parents who have no control over their children, & are prepared to admit to that officially, should still be held responsible for the actions of those children?

I wouldn't .... but that would mean some serious changes to our support services as you pointed out.

Absolutely - parents can't abdicate responsibility be simply stating they have no control. That said this would only ever work with a properly funded social support system. The ability would have to be there for genuinely responsible parents to get social services involved early to support them. In that scenario (I'd say that's less than 5% at a guess) then I could see that being taken into account.

Instead we throw €188 a week + a cheap/free house + an encouragement to keep squatting them out at the lowest echelons rather than actually tackling the problem. Why? Because it's actually cheaper to do that than actually tackle the issue.

I'm sorry but I'm very jaded in this regard - I live in front of social housing flats and for the most part the people are great - there is a core element though that simply refuse to properly raise their children and seem to kick them out for the day while they go down the pub.

I actually feel really sorry for the kids.

Another digression - I grew up in a small village, granted it was near a small city and then we moved out to a satellite market town as a teenager. This was in the UK. The village had two scout troops, church activities and a 'boys club' (I think girls were allowed) with boxing, films and activities. The market town which was notorious for 'not having anything to do' had two cadet squadrons (Army and RAF), Scouts, Venture Scouts and a youth centre. The RAF cadets taught me to shoot, fly and sent me off on annual camps once a year.

The reason I'm saying this is in a city the size of Dublin I don't see a fraction of this level of activity (compared to a small village and a market town). Perhaps I'm not looking for it - I did a brief stint as a Civilian Instructor while I was working towards my VRT commision but ended up moving here. Long ramble, short - what the feck is there for kids to do?

Johnboy1951

Long ramble, short - what the feck is there for kids to do?

Whatever they want to do -- within the law!

I do not 'get' this necessity for society to pander to the perceived needs of 'kids' who are 'bored'.

What did kids of previous generations do?

Maybe it would do those kids some good if they were transported to a place with no modern conveniences such as internet, mobile phones, TV etc etc ..... and there they might learn how to overcome their boredom without being a menace to society.

Yeah, I know .... my attitude is not PC ......

You provided the ideal solution ...... send them all off to boot camp for three months if convicted of a serious transgression.
You might even get grateful parents

MarkAnthony

It's not pandering - there has to be a framework in place. Kids need to be given things to do and not every kid wants to play football.

I despair, frankly, the average voter won't vote for anything that spends money on the bottom as they all think that one day they'll be at the top. At the same time we've managed to create a leisure class at the very bottom of society; which in many cases has no intention of being upwardly mobile.

While I don't know about boot camp we need to do something constructive and think outside the box. The current system doesn't work.

Del2005

MarkAnthony wrote: »

It's not pandering - there has to be a framework in place. Kids need to be given things to do and not every kid wants to play football.

I despair, frankly, the average voter won't vote for anything that spends money on the bottom as they all think that one day they'll be at the top. At the same time we've managed to create a leisure class at the very bottom of society; which in many cases has no intention of being upwardly mobile.

While I don't know about boot camp we need to do something constructive and think outside the box. The current system doesn't work.

Disadvantaged areas do have facilities for kids they just don't use them or more usually a few destroy it forcing it to close. To be fair it's not the children's fault it's the parents who let them go feral and its not just children from "bad" areas. Which is why we have to place the responsibility for children causing damage back onto the parents, if the parents had to do community service because they don't control their children then we might get children who respect other people's property and more importantly the law enforcers.