Headline, April09, 2014

"' REALISTIC ROLE MODELS "" -

"O'LORD-G​OD!-"" 

NOT DRUG DEALERS "'

There were  277  gun related   crimes in the 12months  leading up to June 2007 in South London borough of Lambeth alone:

Similarly, considering the gang murder of, say, Kodjo Yenga, in the light of the meditated violence of  video games:

Such as  Grand Theft  Auto  or  Manhunt leads a bit too conveniently to the belief:

That among the  "desensitised"  youth, real violence is felt to have no consequence.

Those arguments have some currency, says  Jon Savage.  "For a long time, popular culture really worked. The problem is that it presses all these buttons."

And though he is no supporter of censorship, Savage wonders whether pop culture today isn't  "pressing those buttons that it shouldn't be pressing. It is easier for kids to live in a world of sensation-

To think you're a big man and run around with a gun, than it is to "do the hard work to function as an adult."

In any sense, as Savage writes in  "Teenage" , it is  ^hard to escape the sense that these youths were only acting out what the wider society was doing." All those influences only hold their power when no serious alternative is offered.

""It's a society's collective responsibility to get realistic role models instead of drug dealers," says Trident's DI Tyler.

In April, 2007, shortly after James Andre Smart-Ford, Michael Dosunmu and Billy Cox were murdered, Tony Blair insisted the recent  "severe disorder" was not a symptom of wider social problem but caused by:

Individuals who needed to be  "taken out of circulation". Soon, arrests in all three cases were made, while many prominent gang figures are now also behind bars.

But just after, another  16-year south Londoner,  Abubakr Mahamed, was gunned down in Stockwell after being chased by a group of push bikes. DI Geoff Whitehouse of Operation Trident said the killing was  "almost certainly gang-related." It was!

Both New Labour and the Tories have been big on one reading of the idea of "respect" ,  an equity in decline across the  UK. Alongside a focus police powers, the Home Office launched a series of initiatives on antisocial behaviour-

To tackle the causes of Teenage  crime, including self-esteem building initiatives such as Positive Futures and the   "From Boyhood To Manhood Foundation"  that target the critical   11-18  age range.

"Government alone can't solve the problem," said the Home Office Minister _at the time-  Vernon Coaker. "We need to work in partnership with police, communities, young people themselves. That is why-

We have supported  300  community groups across the country to tackle knife and gun crime and recently made a further pound 500,000 available to support this work."

But how far will half a million quid go when  "respect"  has been bent so far out of shape that it turns into a reason to Kill?

Similarly, it is not hard to look at a certain six-foot gap of  urban-planning nothingness a short walk from Clapham North tube station and  ponder  whether

Those social problems of exclusion and disadvantage common to so many Teenage lives don't also play their part in this teenage conflict.

No more than six feet separates the wall of a pub on Bedford Road in Clapham  -where one London drinks away its affluence   -and the grey brick wall of Billy Cox's home on Fenwick Place.

Through the wall at 3:30pm on Valentine's Day, meters away from drinkers from a different world,  the  gunmen  fired a bullet in to the  15-year old's chest, and Cox died in his sister's arms.

Random psychotic behaviour has always been a feature of the teenage city. There may be some kind of perverse and terrible logic that organised psychotic behaviour:

Of the capital's teenage war is what results  when  two Londons    live ever closer to each other and yet..........so very, very far away!

With respectful and great Honour dedication to  Australia, New Zealand, USA, Japan, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, India for splendid work in the  search for MH 370.

But Then.......Alas....!!!

The World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

"'The Big Push"'

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless