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1976 by the Prince of Wales (reported in The Times of 8/8/08) shows that many youngsters do
not regard their parents as role models. The report claims that just
over one third of 16 to 25-year-olds say they do not have a parent
they consider a role model and so turn to their peer groups in gangs
for guidance. More than half say friends are their main role models
and two thirds say that they would go to a peer first with a problem.
Less than a third would turn to a parent.
Of course, we must keep this in perspective because
most parents are good role models and make considerable efforts to
teach their children right from wrong. However, the disappointing fact
is that many teenagers and adults involved in crime come from dreadful
homes where parents are continually drunk on alcohol or drugs, are
violent to their children and to each other, make a joke of never
having worked and openly encourage and partake in criminal behaviour.
It must be terrible for a youngster to feel that
the people who brought her into the world cannot help her any more.
It’s also disappointing for the future well-being of society because
if youngsters are getting guidance and support from fellow-gang
members, it is going to be difficult to get them to avoid a life of
crime?
What are the lessons for crime education?
Putting parents through crime education
workshops
It is difficult to know what to do about parents who themselves are
criminals or condone criminal behaviour or just don’t care about their
children. An extreme solution would be to identify these families
early, insist on the parents undertaking some values education and if
there is unwillingness to do this, taking the children away to be
fostered. No doubt this would meet much resistance. Alternatively,
perhaps when children get into trouble the parents could be made to
undertake classes on how to listen to and help their children.
However, would this crime education work? Perhaps many of the parents
we are referring to would not be mentally capable. If the parent-child
relationship had already broken down, would children be willing to
take advice from parents? This is why crime education must start now
with youngsters who will become parents.
More resources for voluntary youth organisations
to do crime education
Perhaps a more practical option is in quadrupling
the effort into providing and publicising places young people could go
for advice. There is already excellent work being done by charities
and youth groups in this regard. Even more could be done to make these
places welcoming advice centres, but they would have to be publicised
extensively. Have a look at Values education: the contribution of some
voluntary youth organisations (available on the CAVE website) which
describes only a fraction of the good work already being done.
However, the funds should be spent mostly on training youth workers to
be facilitators of values education classes.
Training gang leaders and older peers to be
crime educators
Paul Brown, a director at the Prince’s Trust, says
that, “If young people do not have parents who are good role models
and have no other adults in their life to look up to, gangs fill the
vacuum …Gangs are very attractive to young people if they have no
sense of direction or motivation.” Trained adults usually facilitate
crime education because they are more experienced and skilled at
communication. However, who says that some bright teenagers cannot be
trained in the same way? In some schools older children are asked to
“buddy” or mentor younger children. This could happen in gangs. I
guess this would be difficult to do in practice because it would
mean finding gang leaders or members who would be willing to undergo
training and in the end influence (without telling) people they mentor
not to commit crimes. This would be a very worthwhile challenge.
Dr Bill would be delighted to talk at
your next conference or event and give more details on how a values
education can improve the effectiveness of crime education. Contact him
on bill.robb@valueseducation.co.uk
Copyright © 2008 Values Education Ltd
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