How to stop teenagers getting involved in crime

prunudo · 16-01-2020 01:20PM

Given that there seems to vidoes and photos of the young lads death doing the rounds on social media I think society has tougher questions to answer than a simple 'how to stop teenagers getting involved in crime'.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 16-01-2020 01:21PM

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

I wasn't joking.

They are part of the strategy which Iceland has used to vastly reduce youth alcohol abuse.

"Ah, jayz - wanna really go out an' rob a feckin' car and mug some 'aul wans, y'know? But it's ten to bleedin nine and I'm nah' allowed out after nine..."!

Iceland is a moot point because 1) causation =/= correlation, 2) it assumes police have the time to caution and return all offenders to the home, and 3) alcohol abuse is not automatically linked to teenage crime.

mlem123 · 16-01-2020 01:28PM

Taking away child support would only make the problem worse, a lot of these kids feel like they need to provide for their parents so there's not much point making financial pressures worse.

Most importantly though is to target the groomers - if kids are in their school uniforms they are under the radar of the Gardaí and are often used as drug runners from primary school ages. Even if they are doing more nefarious crimes as they grow older, a 17 year old's brain still hasn't matured fully, so although they think know what they were doing, the consequences aren't always so clear to them.

Good article interviewing a 16yo gang member: https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/shane-dunphy-youth-gangs-ireland-4495487-Feb2019/

I saw people saying that his uncle is a well known criminal so if anything that makes this more sad to me, the child never had a chance to escape the life

whelo76 · 16-01-2020 01:29PM

Make the parents responsible for their children. If they are up in court as a juvenile the punishment should be that the parents get fined. People only respond when they're getting hit in the pocket. If they're on the social make sure it comes out of their payment

DelBoy Trotter · 16-01-2020 01:31PM

Graces7 wrote: »

A child is dead.

Bollox. He was 17, he knows right from wrong and he decided to get involved in drugs. 17 year olds are a lot more grown up these days than they were 20 years ago. He knew what he was getting involved in

KWAG2019 · 16-01-2020 01:32PM

mlem123 wrote: »

Taking away child support would only make the problem worse, a lot of these kids feel like they need to provide for their parents so there's not much point making financial pressures worse.

Most importantly though is to target the groomers - if kids are in their school uniforms they are under the radar of the Gardaí and are often used as drug runners from primary school ages. Even if they are doing more nefarious crimes as they grow older, a 17 year old's brain still hasn't matured fully, so although they think know what they were doing, the consequences aren't always so clear to them.

Good article interviewing a 16yo gang member: https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/shane-dunphy-youth-gangs-ireland-4495487-Feb2019/

I saw people saying that his uncle is a well known criminal so if anything that makes this more sad to me, the child never had a chance to escape the life

The view that having children is an income has to end. It is possible to have methods of continuing supports for current families until legal age of adulthood achieved.

16-01-2020 01:36PM

mlem123 wrote: »

Taking away child support would only make the problem worse, a lot of these kids feel like they need to provide for their parents so there's not much point making financial pressures worse.

Most importantly though is to target the groomers - if kids are in their school uniforms they are under the radar of the Gardaí and are often used as drug runners from primary school ages. Even if they are doing more nefarious crimes as they grow older, a 17 year old's brain still hasn't matured fully, so although they think know what they were doing, the consequences aren't always so clear to them.

Good article interviewing a 16yo gang member: https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/shane-dunphy-youth-gangs-ireland-4495487-Feb2019/

I saw people saying that his uncle is a well known criminal so if anything that makes this more sad to me, the child never had a chance to escape the life

That interview is the scariest thing evey, well worth a read.

Cee-Jay-Cee · 16-01-2020 01:51PM

mariaalice wrote: »

That interview is the scariest thing evey, well worth a read.

This line >>> “I’m not stupid. I’ll say we operate with a loose interpretation of the laws of the land, and that many of my associates are known to the gardaí. Does that explain it for you?” which is supposed to be direct quote does not strike me as something an uneducated little scum bag gang member would come out with so therefore the whole story falls and is probably something made up by the author to get a reaction.

mlem123 · 16-01-2020 01:54PM

mariaalice wrote: »

That interview is the scariest thing evey, well worth a read.

Agree, it really is scary!

It's not that different to how the girls in Rochdale were groomed.

If you watch the BBC series "Three Girls" (it's on netflix and is essential watching imo), the girls weren't groomed by being offered the moon and the stars, they just let them hang out in a room above the fast food place they owned, gave them free food, some free cheap alcohol and a place away from their homes which were dysfunctional.

gerarda · 16-01-2020 01:55PM

Years ago a friend of mine had problems with youths who congregated at the back of his house which faced onto a soccer pitch and a back lane. They vandalised property, lit fires and locals stopped using it. He got so sick of it he asked me and a few other friends to 'congregate' their too in the evenings when they usually showed up. About 15 of us (grown men) where there, when they turned the corner and saw us they got a sharp shock! We didn't need to say anything or interact with them in any way, we just stared. They never returned!

seamus · 16-01-2020 02:03PM

prunudo wrote: »

Given that there seems to vidoes and photos of the young lads death doing the rounds on social media I think society has tougher questions to answer than a simple 'how to stop teenagers getting involved in crime'.

Yeah. The death of this 17 year old is quite a bit beyond ruminating on "problem kids" here on boards.

The barbarity of what they've done, and taunting eachother with videos and photos of it over messaging apps, is just next level stuff.

KWAG2019 · 16-01-2020 02:07PM

Read the interview. Classic dysfunction. Psychiatric issues meets alcoholism ends in abusive home.

suicide_circus · 16-01-2020 02:08PM

KevRossi wrote: »

Bigger issues are the number of scumbag kids from good and bad areas vandalizing the place, throwing their weight around and threatening and intimidating people.

They do it because they know they can get away with it. That needs to stop.

there are solutions but none that are politically feasible. So what we're gonna do is, drop trou, grab our ankles and live in fear of gangs of kids.

NickNickleby · 16-01-2020 02:18PM

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

This line >>> “I’m not stupid. I’ll say we operate with a loose interpretation of the laws of the land, and that many of my associates are known to the gardaí. Does that explain it for you?” which is supposed to be direct quote does not strike me as something an uneducated little scum bag gang member would come out with so therefore the whole story falls and is probably something made up by the author to get a reaction.

Indeed, I stopped after reading that quote and re-read everything again and agree its quite striking and stands out . I'm not going to say the whole interview is BS, but if this isn't a direct quote, it should be highlighted as such. Sloppy more than anything else. (I hope).

TwoMonthsOff · 16-01-2020 02:18PM

NickNickleby wrote: »

Indeed, I stopped after reading that quote and re-read everything again and agree its quite striking and stands out . I'm not going to say the whole interview is BS, but if this isn't a direct quote, it should be highlighted as such. Sloppy more than anything else. (I hope).

I thought exactly the same myself.

CrankyHaus · 16-01-2020 02:24PM

Teenagers are always going to be attracted to breaking the rules and acting up, so a certain amount of teenage petty crime is unavoidable. Keeping it to manageable levels and preventing teenagers being inducted into career crime can be accomplished by :

1. Proper penalties for adult criminals. Currently a life of crime seems attractive to teenagers in rough areas because they see career criminals with hundreds of convictions waking free and living a comfortable life where they rule their areas with no fear of the law. This would change quickly if they only saw them through plexiglass during prison visits.

2. Restructuring the benefits system to remove "motherhood" as a well remunerated career for those unwilling or incapable of proper parenting or anything productive. Many problem children have the odds stacked against them coming from parents who only saw them as a passport to a forever home. We should help the ones we already have but spending enormous amounts of public money to create more is madness.

3. Proper penalties for parents or any adults who expose their children to crininality or encourage them to commit crimes. Anti-grooming laws would be a good step. Currently merely confiscating scramblers is seen as an extreme measure, only embarked upon by the authorities after several serious accidents.

4. Proper penalties for juvenile criminals. A de facto criminal immunity for juvenile criminals for several years, reflecting a muddled de jure situation, has removed any deterrent from breaking the law.

CucaFace · 16-01-2020 02:32PM

What do we expect really? We are into maybe the 3rd generation now of complete and utter wasters who have been brought up in Ireland at a time in our history when things were never as good (full employment and no need to emigrate) and still they cannot go and find a job or do anything positive for society because everything has been handed to them for free.

We have copied the UK on this and look how bad area's are over there now. We are going the same way. We have basically sponsored the creation of a feral race of humans in this country over the last 30 years and of course they will act like the wild animals they are, with very little effort to make them responsible for anything they do in life. In fact they try to play the victim card that they are the under privileged when they have caused all this themselves by their behaviour and attitude going back over generations.

There is no responsibility taken in their lives by these people at all.

Deebles McBeebles · 16-01-2020 02:40PM

prunudo wrote: »

Given that there seems to vidoes and photos of the young lads death doing the rounds on social media I think society has tougher questions to answer than a simple 'how to stop teenagers getting involved in crime'.

There are also videos doing the rounds of himself and his buddies smashing peoples windows in with crowbars. Which is partly how he got himself in trouble in the first place.

SusieBlue · 16-01-2020 02:43PM

DelBoy Trotter wrote: »

Bollox. He was 17, he knows right from wrong and he decided to get involved in drugs. 17 year olds are a lot more grown up these days than they were 20 years ago. He knew what he was getting involved in

By all accounts from what I've heard and read, he didn't get involved, he was born into that lifestyle and was failed by all the adults who raised him.
He didn't have a hope.

I'm not excusing anything he did but no child should ever by so deeply ingrained in that kind of life that they risk being murdered in such a brutal, barbaric and violent way by an adult.
He may have been 17, but at 17 he was still more vulnerable with less life experience and cop on to help him navigate the serious dangerous situations he found himself than your average adult.

That's what the problem is here, generations of lawbreakers & scumbags producing children who aren't parented properly, who have little to no opportunity to have a normal upbringing, and they end up in horrific situations like this.
Addicted to drugs/alcohol, violent tendencies, no education or employment, domestic abuse and zero respect for the law is the norm in these circles and something has to change.

Ray Palmer · 16-01-2020 03:06PM

There will always be these kind of people about. Nothing new has happened other than filming and posting up stuff.
Suggestion of conscription are just stupid. France started to phase out conscription in 1996, they had the same issues before and after.
A family member married a guy who was connected to the criminal element but not directly involved. A mini riot broke out at the wedding. Many of us left early next morning due to it.
He had a son from a previous relationship who seemed nice enough at 10. Watched as he became a little scum bag. His step mother tried to help him but his mother and father just made him like them. He left school at 16 before he was kicked out, scummy behaviour is all I will say. 18 now working as a labourer and calls people every name under the sun. All women are b*tches, gay people should be killed, immigrants etc...Reckons he is a hard lad but keeps getting beaten up after starting fights. Won't be surprised if he rapes somebody.
The only thing that would have saved him is his parents were never involved in his life. Neither of them care about him in any real sense but they go on about how family are so important. The type that say they would do anything for their child but resorted to corporal punishment over the slightest thing as it did them no harm

DelBoy Trotter · 16-01-2020 03:08PM

SusieBlue wrote: »

By all accounts from what I've heard and read, he didn't get involved, he was born into that lifestyle and was failed by all the adults who raised him.

He smashed up houses of people who owed drug money. There are rumours of worse stuff he did (I'm not going to post it, as it will probably get the thread closed), again to somebody who owed drug money. If that isn't getting involved, I don't know what is

SusieBlue · 16-01-2020 03:36PM

DelBoy Trotter wrote: »

He smashed up houses of people who owed drug money. There are rumours of worse stuff he did (I'm not going to post it, as it will probably get the thread closed), again to somebody who owed drug money. If that isn't getting involved, I don't know what is

What hope did he ever have of being a well adjusted, moral child when you look at who raised him?

I'm not excusing him I just think its a really sad and depressing reality that there is no hope for the kids of these scumbags.

mlem123 · 16-01-2020 03:39PM

DelBoy Trotter wrote: »

He smashed up houses of people who owed drug money. There are rumours of worse stuff he did (I'm not going to post it, as it will probably get the thread closed), again to somebody who owed drug money. If that isn't getting involved, I don't know what is

I don't think anyone denies he was a violent or that his loss will be a loss to society, what most people are lamenting here is how someone so young could be so deeply involved in gangs and how grooming children into gangs is prevalent an easy to do.

It just really got to me as he was only 17 (whether posters agree or not, it is technically a child) and lacking a fully developed brain and education to help him realise the consequences of his actions, he essentially never had the chance to have a childhood

DelBoy Trotter · 16-01-2020 03:40PM

SusieBlue wrote: »

What hope did he ever have of being a well adjusted, moral child when you look at who raised him?

I'm not excusing him I just think its a really sad and depressing reality that there is no hope for the kids of these scumbags.

I agree that is it sad and depressing that he was brought up in that environment. But he still made his own choices, which led him into the drug world, and those choices have repercussions

Deebles McBeebles · 16-01-2020 03:41PM

SusieBlue wrote: »

What hope did he ever have of being a well adjusted, moral child when you look at who raised him?

I'm not excusing him I just think its a really sad and depressing reality that there is no hope for the kids of these scumbags.

100% Susie. Although there is some hope as you often see kids that age doing something better with their lives than their parents did. The only solution is for said scumbags to stop having kids that they don't want and/or won't raise properly.

But you can't say that.

Ray Palmer · 16-01-2020 04:05PM

DelBoy Trotter wrote: »

I agree that is it sad and depressing that he was brought up in that environment. But he still made his own choices, which led him into the drug world, and those choices have repercussions

You see that is where you are making your mistake. If you were brought up believing green and blue were the same colour it wouldn't matter if somebody explained them as different colours you would see them as the same colour.

Go look up Japan where they think they are the same. Orange and red were seen as the same colour in English too hence Robin red breast when it is clearly orange.

Then you have probability and odds. Sure you have options but some people have less options. Instead of playing Russian rullete with one bullet some have 5 bullets.

By 17 his options were severely restricted and he had little options to get away. He may very well made some choices to get there but from limited options and life tends to be made up of a lot of small decisions.

DelBoy Trotter · 16-01-2020 04:13PM

Ray Palmer wrote: »

You see that is where you are making your mistake. If you were brought up believing green and blue were the same colour it wouldn't matter if somebody explained them as different colours you would see them as the same colour.

Go look up Japan where they think they are the same. Orange and red were seen as the same colour in English too hence Robin red breast when it is clearly orange.

Then you have probability and odds. Sure you have options but some people have less options. Instead of playing Russian rullete with one bullet some have 5 bullets.

By 17 his options were severely restricted and he had little options to get away. He may very well made some choices to get there but from limited options and life tends to be made up of a lot of small decisions.

You start off your post by saying I'm wrong, but by the end of it, you are saying he would have made choices from a limited set.

People need to cop on and stop making excuses for all these scumbags. It is for this very reason the country is being overrun by them. It's the usual sh!te every time one of them is killed......"ah he was only a kid", "he didn't know better", "he was a lovely young lad and used to bring me smokes from the shop every two days when I was too sick to go out". Bollox. He acted like a scumbag, got mixed up in drugs and has nobody to blame but himself. There is always a choice. It might not be an easy choice to see or even take, but there is always a choice. If there wasn't always a choice, then every single kid born to scumbag parents would turn to the drug world

Cee-Jay-Cee · 16-01-2020 04:26PM

DelBoy Trotter wrote: »

You start off your post by saying I'm wrong, but by the end of it, you are saying he would have made choices from a limited set.

People need to cop on and stop making excuses for all these scumbags. It is for this very reason the country is being overrun by them. It's the usual sh!te every time one of them is killed......"ah he was only a kid", "he didn't know better", "he was a lovely young lad and used to bring me smokes from the shop every two days when I was too sick to go out". Bollox. He acted like a scumbag, got mixed up in drugs and has nobody to blame but himself. There is always a choice. It might not be an easy choice to see or even take, but there is always a choice. If there wasn't always a choice, then every single kid born to scumbag parents would turn to the drug world

I agree, he got a 4 month suspended sentence last year for waging a terrifying campaign of violence and intimidation of people with drug debts. No doubt his state provided Free legal aid solicitor stood in front of the judge and pleaded leniency and explained how he came from a broken background, suffered from learning difficulties and had a drug problem. The judge suspended the sentence on the basis he didn't commit any further crimes or get involved in criminality.

He had his chance, he ignored it and continued with his life in crime. It caught up with him and he paid the ultimate price.

I'm sorry that a 17 year old got so deeply involved in criminality that he ended up being murdered. I'm not sorry that there is one less scumbag committing crime on our streets.

the.red.baron · 16-01-2020 04:47PM

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Tell me, have any of you asked the question as to why teenagers are getting into crime in the first place?

why are teenagers are getting into crime in the first place?

Raconteuse · 16-01-2020 05:21PM

'Tis grand and easy to say "conscription" when you are too old to be conscripted yourself. In an Irish context, it's irrelevant anyway.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Tell me, have any of you asked the question as to why teenagers are getting into crime in the first place?

Today's teenagers - poor, neglectful parenting, the culture of their environment (not saying all come from tough areas because some definitely don't, but most are likely to), often a lack of positive parental figure (people talk about lack of male role model for boys which is true, but there are violent criminal girls too), their destiny - it's in their family history, poverty, boredom, no emphasis on education/training/working, welfare dependency, addiction passed down the generations, growing up in a place that's a rundown kip, and... choice and having a sh1tty attitude. These have to be acknowledged too, because there are those from the above backgrounds who don't go on to become scumbags.

How to stop teenagers getting involved in crime

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