Parents blamed over Gang Culture

Parents blamed over gang culture

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7393466...

Paul Erhahon and Kodjo Yenga were both killed by teenage gang membersA senior police officer has called on parents to take more responsibility after 10 teenagers were sentenced over the murder of two schoolboys. Sixteen-year-old Kodjo Yenga and Paul Erhahon, 14, were stabbed in separate incidents in London last year - both had been set upon by teenage gangs. Det Supt Matthew Horne said some were only 13 when the crimes took place. "To their parents I would ask them this: what were your kids doing? Where did you think they were..?" he said. Paul Erhahon was stabbed in the heart with a sword by teenage gang members who wanted to "earn their spurs", the Old Bailey heard. Father's tears Many wore hoods and masks and were armed with baseball bats, knives, swords and a bicycle chain when they carried out their attack near Paul's home in Leytonstone, east London, last April. Paul's father, also called Paul, wept as he read out a victim impact statement in court. He said: "People who have been nurtured to live outside the realms of a decent and law-abiding society murdered my son." Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Interesting isn't it.  Whenever something goes right, everyone takes the credit.  Whenever something goes wrong, discredit and culpability is localised (or 'microcosmicised'). 

“Det Supt Matthew Horne said some were only 13 when the crimes took place.

"To their parents I would ask them this: what were your kids doing? Where did you think they were..?" he said.”

All it takes for many to start cheering when England scores a goal in the World Cup, or some bloke sprints past all others in a 100 metres scamper in the Olympics, is for an association to be made, however tenuous, between themselves and the ball-kicker or scamperer.  Well, how about the case of the 'sword death gang' then? 

To err on the side of caution and consider collective collusion in the above, amongst others, is to acknowledge the infallibility of human society and ready ourselves to do our utmost to undermine the foundation upon which such events see repetition in the future.  To ‘localise’ problems and delegate responsibility to, for instance, ‘families’, can only be at the expense of ignoring the symbiotic nature of human society; the sociological consequences of life within a class-based system; and the myriad of psychological consequences that immediately move from the ‘possible’ to the ‘probable’ within such a scheme of things.  I can understand when a significant mass of Americans and American-led peoples do that since they are trained to do so from childhood by sociologically nonsensical American productions that basically localises ‘evil’ in the ‘here and now’, or in individual characters, and thereby subtly compromising the viewer’s ability over time to recognise causes as effects of other causes.  But to see such a tendency here amongst a people who are generally inclined to stave off their first reactions in favour of self-critical evaluation is quite disconcerting. 

But, as is generally the case here, Justice Keith appreciated the culpability of the collective in the evils in society by recognising the relevance of professions well-versed in the art of detecting social culpability in such situations,

“Addressing Paul's attackers, he said: "So what turned you into the would-be killers that you became didn't start at home.

"There is self-evidently a culture among boys of your age to do with the carrying of knives which needs to be changed.

"How that change is to be achieved is for educationalists, sociologists and politicians to decide.”