The View On The Streets: Riot Control

Why have parents and teachers had the right to discipline kids taken away from them by the child protection jobsworths?

Coming from America, I don’t know if I truly understand the riots and what people ultimately want from the British government. The government here is much more invasive in the social sector of people’s lives, but seems much less authoritative when it comes to martial law. The people in this video seem to create a contradiction in what they expect from the British government. They seem to desire less government intervention in their parenting techniques and yet they want more external support for the youth from social programmes. The video focuses on the root of the riots as the growing dissonance between the youth and their community. Many of the people interviewed were nostalgic for a traditional ethnic society, like in Ghana or in Pakistan or wherever else in the world, which seems a strange thing to wish for when they knowingly moved to a major, multi ethnic city like London. People move to big cities for opportunity, and by doing so, they are obviously giving up the small town community feel that they seem to yearn for. Parents and children need to realize that in a city there is obviously more opportunity to get into trouble, as much as there is opportunity to gain employment and education. The general model for parenting needs to change, just as what is expected of young people needs to change

Were the riots just a bad dream, a blip in an otherwise hopeful and confident society? Well, no, and this report reveals what many of us think is at the heart of our ailing society, that is the government's confused idea that if left alone we no longer have the capacity to take care of each other. More and more our instincts and sense of responsibility to our loved ones and each other is being worn down by consecutive governments who just won't leave us alone.

The coalition can't and won't mention the loss of adult authority. They have simply bought into the New Labour agenda of creating a child-centred society that is totally contemptuous of the rest of us, and they will only make this worse. As though they know better than us how to love and discipline our own kids. Give me a break. I totally agree with the people in this video, give parents back their authority to be parents, not more State intervention.

Parents no longer have the right to discipline their own children, neither do their teachers. So todays youths don't know how to respect as we were brought up to. This is a sad state of affairs and authority MUST be given back to the parents and teachers, for everybodys sake.
I think the police handled the riots, or should I say didn't handle the riots at all.
I'm old enough to remember the riots of the 1980's and there were a lot more police on the streets and they didn't stand by and watch looters helping themselves.

I agree with most of those who were interviewed in this video in commenting about the government’s so called ‘kneejerk’ response to the riots. I find it very concerning how some could be severely over punished for their crimes given the circumstance. Fortunately many of these harsh sentences have subsequently now been overturned by the high courts. It is worrying to see the penal system being manipulated because of such hype.
With regards to the underlying issues of parenting and discipline that this report discusses, I think that discipline is a major issue facing young today. There is a lack of respect for authority that I think is evident in many aspects of young people’s lives. I think there should be a greater parental right to discipline their kids but I also think the government needs to focus on creating more opportunities and projects for young people to get involved in. I think idleness is one of the root causes of anti-social behaviour and it is up to all parties involved to step up and do something. One more thing I would have liked to have been mentioned more is the underlying distrust in more deprived areas between young people and police officers.

A very insightful video into how people view government 'child centred' policies as degrading the natural authority of parents to discipline their own children. It seems to me that this level of interference is creating a lose - lose situation for both parents as well as children, whereby parents are dispossessed of their authority, and as a result children are losing out on the guidance and structure they need from adult authority which seems to be adversely affecting the wider community. The government seem intent on parenting the parents rather than enabling them to parent their own children. However, this is not to say that children should have all policies intended to protect them stripped away, but perhaps the balance between children's protection and parental authority needs to be found.

this report had various comments from all the individuals interviewed, however the main issue that had been raised was that the government have taken away the authority from parents, therefore they are no longer able to discipline their children the way they believe is right in case their child is taken away from them. i also believe that teachers and the community they live in need to play a bigger role in the upbringing of children's lives- especially during school, extra clubs after school that all pupils MUST attend, events in something they could get involved in locally so that the whole community (adults and youngsters) meet and speak to each other. i really liked the comment one guy had said 'it takes a town and a village to raise you' i agree.
i believe school plays a major part in children's lives and their future therefore we as a community and society must learn what it is that children do not 'like' about school and how we could improve the way we teach or what we teach so that children fall back in love with learning .
I do not agree with the punishments received for all the rioters- there should have been harsher sentences for some and less for others, however that's a whole new debate on its own- our government needs to seriously think (and change) the sentences and punishments for all criminals (inc rapist, child molesters, murders, thieves etc) in my opinion. to end my comment- the riots had gone way out of control, we are living in England and these riots had taken three days for the government to step in and stop the situation completely, its strange how it started and ended so dramatically, a majority of these rioters had no reason or any purpose of rioting-they went out because they knew they could, and damaged their local shops and looted from their local high street- respect for the community and innocent citizens had been completely lost. it was left up to the local shopkeepers and their families to protect their business and homes from the children of the community they live with. community events and school/college events must be held often so that everyone can meet and engage each other.