How do we reverse the trend of juvenile violence?

It has taken only 100 years for children to develop from the Victorian 'seen and not heard' type brought up to respect elders and authority, into the modern disrespectful gangs with no fear of the police. Where was the happy medium, when children had more freedom but still had respect. It seems that the rapid technological advances in the last century have led to a world where an 11 year old child cant play football in the street and there is no going back.

more police on the streets and proper punishments in the courts. but first of all, they need to ban chav scum from breeding!!!

I agree and it is all very sad.
Personally, I believe it is probably too late to change things in the UK now - they have gone too far in terms of liberalising society, taking away deterrent sentencing etc. There is no respect anymore and it is unlikely to improve. Sorry for the negative response, but if anyone can paint a rosier view, I'd love to read it.

It's up to the parents and the schools. Our culture has become increasingly vulgar, crude, sexually oriented, and violent. Block the following channels on your cable TV: E, Comedy Central, MTV, VH1, and BET. Do not allow your children to purchase Rap music or to play it in your house. Monitor your children's Internet use, DVD.s and music DVDs.

Send your child to a religious school, if you can afford it. You are the parent, be a good role model and save your kids from this Rap/MTV culture.

Sack the social workers, bring back old fashioned punishments and reward good behaviour, not bad.

I totally agree but until there is a very strong deterrent then I dont think things will get any better.

stop making it easy for kids to have kids,

The old fashion way, Belt, stick, kick in the back side and a daily good beating ! It worked then, it will work again.

When will government get it into their thick heads... these young people are bored!!! They need places to go like Go-carting, skateboarding, rollerblading, climbing walls, swimming pools, athletics grounds. The truth is New Labour are spending the tax payers money rebuilding other countries instead of investing in Britain and it's young people.

It needs a complete sea change in attitude. A lesser emphasis on rights and a greater one on duty and obligation. Every right has at least one obligation.
It is noticeable that the lack of the use of minor corporal punishment in schools is reflected in the increase of violence outside school from young people. The corollary may be a false one but it should perhaps be examined

Go back to the days respect elders and athority and when they don't then punish accordingly.
And i don't mean write an essay Punishment should be justified by the crime.
If our laws were more strick then we would have less crime but you can plea bargin or wine or use under handed tactics to get out of almost any thing these days not to include getting the media involved and they help with your appearance of being treated to harsh.

I know you think this may not help but a bloody good old fashioned hiding wouldn't go a miss.These idiots would be terrified if they were given a dose of their own intimidatory tactics.We and mainly the government are to blame for giving these total non entities the responsibilities they have.All they do is savvy themselves up with their own pathetic rights'the little girls.They are gutless weak pathetic wastes of skin,and so are we for putting up with it.Never mind their idiotic "there is nothing I can do about it" parents,makes you wonder whether they should have been muted before they could spawn these scummy little nobodies.

The education system must share the blame,I recently tested some 12- 13 year olds, and not one of them knew the words to Ba, ba black sheep, have you any wool? or sing a song of sixpence. Do they not teach them anymore?

Get rid of the do-gooders. Allow parents to control their children by a good slap when nescessary. Give more control
to our teaching staff, ie. Use of the cane. Bring back execution for murder, long prison sentences for drug related crime. Sounds like a blast from the past? well it worked then.

bring back national service and the cane

OMG you spanked your child! well now you see what happens when you don't correct your kids. Have a real nice life

Give the Law and Retribution back to the Public.

Fear is always the key.

Corporal punishment in the school systems for a good starting point. Nothing like a good swat in front of the class to emphasize the difference between right and wrong.

Spanking a child isn't wrong... It is called being a good responsible parent.

Take the approach that they took in New York a few years back and that now has been adopted in Los Angeles....Zero Tolerance!

Crime decreased drastically in both cities when this approach was used. What is zero tolerance!!? here's the definition...

zero tolerance
n.
The policy or practice of not tolerating undesirable behavior, such as violence or illegal drug use, especially in the automatic imposition of severe penalties for first offenses.

Worked in gun crazy USA so why not here!?

Both the parents and the school system need to be able to discipline their kids again without fear of the social workers and the police! True child abuse does need to be stopped, but our "System" needs to be clear about what child abuse really is and let parents and teachers do what they need to do again.

The parents of these yobs should be sterilised so they can't produce any more. They breed to get as many benefits as they can. If they can't control their offspring then their benefits should be stopped.

There isn't any deterrent.
Society seems to be too quick to blame the parents for children's unruly behaviour. I don't think its the parents fault in most case. Most parents try their best to discipline their children and teach them right from wrong and to have respect for others, but they have had all rights to punish their children taken away. This also goes for the schools and the Police. Kids become very aware at quite a young age that there aren't any severe consequences for their actions and they grow up thinking they're untouchable and can get away with doing anything they like. Grounding children or school detentions aren't any kind of deterrent and alot of rebelious teenagers don't take any notice of these punishments. It also seems that Government reward the bad behaviour of these children, putting them into 'special schools' where they only have to go part time, giving them fun days out or holidays or getting them work, training or apprentiships before the other kids of the same age can qualify for them. What happened to rewarding the good behaviour? These schemes should be seen and used as privillages and given to the children that deserve them, and National Service should be bought back for the unruly kids( They'd soon learn discipline and respect from that!!). The good kids get overlookmed to easily. If the kids that set a good example and are a good role model for others were recognised and rewarded a bit more then maybe more kids would aspire to be like that.
We need to go back to the times when you could punish your child with a light smack without the fear of Social Services turning up on your doorstep.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying bring back the belt, slipper or cane etc, but there's nothing wrong with a bit of fear factor to act as a deterrent. If kids were too scared of the consequnces then alot more would think twice about what they're doing and wouldn't be half as disrespectful and rebelious.
I don't think we will be able to revert back to this. I think the Government is too concerned with political correctness and the rights of this person or that person. This is all very well but they seem to be overlooking the effects on society as a whole and everyones right to feel safe and be respected. If being stricter with children or using smacking as a deterrent works then we should revert back to it in order to make the world a safer and less fearful place.
And afterall I think most of us probably grew up getting atleast one or two smacks on the hand or back of the legs when we were naughty. Apart from throbbing or stinging for a little while I dont think it caused any long lasting damage! But I bet it made you think twice the next time and helped you learn right from wrong.

the Victorians had it right remember their was a lot of rules of etiquette back then but their is no happy medium if you give an inch as the saying goes but children did express themselves and were raised to be well balanced individuals.

We get rid of human rights, we discipline our children and teach them to have respect for authority and for the persistent offenders we make it compulsory to join the forces and send them to war zones.

Riot squads dishing out beatings on the spot, they'd be scared of the police then.

The person above is right on the money, I worked hard at school and never got into trouble with the law ar in classes and what did I get? Totally ignored by teachers who are two busy dealing with ignorant shits who are only going to end up as petty criminals anyway, regardless of what they do.

The specials schools shouldnt be trying to get these people to learn, they don't want to and they're as thick as pig sh*t. they should be knocking all the piss and wind out of them so they can settle into a job at ASDA instead of knicking stuff from them. These people have no potential so we shouldn#t waste time on them!

Or send the bastards off to the army, that will sort them out.

birching sounds like a plan

Public birching would be even better, as a deterrent, then they could show to their peers, just how "hard" they really are, (NOT)

I don't know if anyone remembers an incident in Thailand , I think it was, some 10 years ago, or so.
A nasty little English teenager, whilst living over in Thailand with his family, decided it would be a brilliant idea to go out and vandalise his local area with graffiti, using the medium of spray paint cans.
Unfortunately for our chavvy little friend, he was caught by the local police, and sentenced to 12 lashes from a 10 foot long cane, the standard punishment tool for that type of crime over there.
A big national outcry from our superb(ahem) tabloid media ensued, the government got involved, and our little friend got his public beating reduced to two lashes.
The Thai authorities manged to administer 1 lash, before our little hero wet himself, fell unconscious, and cried when he woke up. Aww, poor boy.
I bet he never did it again, mind you.

The law of the land must be altered, the punishment must more than fit the crime, this is not happening and the situation is going to deteriorate all the time.