Why do we not make as much fuss about the 14 year old boys being stabbed as we do about girls being groomed and sexually abused?

I know the majority of these cases involve young black men from dysfunctional homes.
I am one person who knows 2 families that are going through hell with their teenage sons.
One moved to a much smaller area in another county. This family are very affluent and could afford every help available.
It didn’t make a scrap of difference.
The other family are Christians attending church every Sunday.
If I know 2 families how many more white affluent families are going through this? A lot 😥

I’m afraid they have gone past that point. Nice idea but gang members and county lines dealers are unlikely to change their ways with a bit of fresh air or an apprenticeship (even if someone were willing to take them on). Nor are they likely to make nice new friends in their nice new environment. It’s a way of life, and many have no father figure or other male role model who might have set an example and instilled discipline to keep them in education and on the straight and narrow.

But why is it only the grooming gangs attract the public enquiries, the political hoo haa and all the rest. Surely it is time the problems of the gangs and the stabbings was given the same priority attention and money.

Let there be a specific sum of money and a unit set up whose only purpose is to address these gangs, the drug running, and the exploitation of young boys for criminal purposes.

Let the papers demand explanations and reasons why it hasn't been dealt with at all. Let us all see the problem as being as urgent as dealing with childre grooming for sexual purposes.

Barleyfields

I’m afraid they have gone past that point. Nice idea but gang members and county lines dealers are unlikely to change their ways with a bit of fresh air or an apprenticeship (even if someone were willing to take them on). Nor are they likely to make nice new friends in their nice new environment. It’s a way of life, and many have no father figure or other male role model who might have set an example and instilled discipline to keep them in education and on the straight and narrow.

I don't know why farmers should be expected to be responsible for them either.
They have enough to do without taking on errant, possibly dangerous, youths especially with all the dangerous farm equipment around.

I would say that on X the discussions snput boys and knife crime have been happening for months.

I knew someone who'd spent his youth in a Borstal.

Certainly it seemed to be the making of him.

I agree with the OP, there seems to almost be a shrugging of the shoulders as yet another black child loses their life to knife crime. I don't know what the answer is, but suspect that there is not one move that would change what has been an evolution of behaviour. Maybe more Surestart centres, maybe less acceptance of men fathering children and leaving the mothers (and often the state) to raise them, not just blaming the single mothers left to get on with it. More day care so that said Mothers can get a decent career going, or even just a decent job, encouraging young girls to look beyond the latest boyfriend, encouraging them to see having children as something you do as well as have a career, not instead of.

More black and mixed race role models? Not just high profile footballers and rap artists. How many black male teachers are there? Not many I expect.

idealistic.

All I know for sure is that I would be terrified if I was a parent of a black or mixed race child in a major city, terrified every day they set off to get the bus to school. very few have the opportunity or financial means to move away from the frightening influences on their sons.

Allira

I knew someone who'd spent his youth in a Borstal.

Certainly it seemed to be the making of him.

Mr Petra was on his way to Borstal. It was only the fact that a friend of his mother knew the owner of a local printing company who were looking for an apprentice compositor.
Everything changed.

I have to hang onto the belief that it’s lack of money because the alternative is unthinkable. from what I see and know.
I could take you to a housing estate where there is open drug dealing. I’ve seen it more times than I care to remember.
A couple of years ago my daughter was parked outside my granddaughters school.
The scum were openly offering children vapes. She called the police. Bear in mind it would take you 10 minutes to walk to the police station.
She waited and waited. Nobody came.

The pattern of growing up in a home where generations haven’t worked needs to be stopped. Labour have promised a crackdown on dishing out benefits to people who can work. As did the last government. Fathers have to be made to financially support their children the Child Support Agency failed miserably in that regard). School attendance has to be enforced, as it was years ago. Easily said, I know …

It's a vicious circle. Some of them carry knives because they feel it keeps them safe.

Hmm, I'm not so sure that we do make less fuss over stabbings than grooming, do we? Personally, I'm appalled by both, but I do recognise that these two things are caused by somewhat different social situations. Young gangs tend to stab each other (a warped kind of territorial West Side Story scenario) whereas young girls (and boys, btw) tend to be groomed by adults. Maybe it's that which might make grooming look worse than stabbing - children are meant to be able to trust adults, whereas kids fighting among themselves is perhaps seen as "boys being boys"). Just a thought.

“Petra. Why would you think Christian’s who attend church every week e just witnessed the Archbishop who basically ignored abuse that was committed on his watch ….. when it happpens that high up the tree it certainly happens at grass roots.
Christian’s are not superior beings ,not morally or in any other way .I reallly get offended when I read things that suggest they are .Do Christian’s not fight wars ,commit crimes on a daily basis and still attend church…well I know Christian’s who have done. And some who still do.

petra

Allira

I knew someone who'd spent his youth in a Borstal.

Certainly it seemed to be the making of him.

Mr Petra was on his way to Borstal. It was only the fact that a friend of his mother knew the owner of a local printing company who were looking for an apprentice compositor.
Everything changed.

I didn't meet him until he was in his 20s, he was our neighbour in a nice neighbourhood, hardworking husband and father.

Not Mr Petra, obviously 😂
At least, I don't think he was.

M0nica

But why is it only the grooming gangs attract the public enquiries, the political hoo haa and all the rest. Surely it is time the problems of the gangs and the stabbings was given the same priority attention and money.

Let there be a specific sum of money and a unit set up whose only purpose is to address these gangs, the drug running, and the exploitation of young boys for criminal purposes.

Let the papers demand explanations and reasons why it hasn't been dealt with at all. Let us all see the problem as being as urgent as dealing with childre grooming for sexual purposes.

There are dedicated, funded units nationally and locally to share information, resources and strategy to address gangs/knife crime and county lines. They just don’t get so much media exposure, particularly at the moment, as the grooming does.
‘Rhyl has reduced its illegal drug suppliers so successfully that addicts have no supply’- BBC news today is one example.
Plenty of information online and perhaps it’s a good thing being implemented quietly, not splashed all over the front pages.

Thanks JaxJacky. It’s the dedicated, funded, well supervised and supported Units that make the difference. I’m not wanting a row about national/local inquiries on this, or any thread. I simply add, we know what the main issues are. For the sake of vulnerable children, let’s set up dedicated units.

On sending eg County Lines kids to farms or rural specialist placements away from the inner cities many of them grew up in.
Mobile phones make keeping them safe from their handlers and abusers nigh on impossible. There are good reasons we try not to lock children up. We need to front load services into Early `years. All the evidence says that;s where significant improvements are made. Children from EYears programmes - less drug use, less teenage pregnancy

We also need to ensure that children leave school fully literate and with sufficient skills to be job-ready.

Many of these children take to dealing drugs and running in gangs because they lack the attainments and skills to earn money any other way.

But the main problem is that this problem does nto get the same publicity, good or bad, that the grooming gangs get.

It is simple to say that the media doesn't publicise them and write about them the way they write about grooming gangs, the question to ask is why they don't - and that is because people as a whole are not interested in young black boys getting into trouble and knifing each other, saving white girls from sexual abuse is just something people are more prepared to get worked up about.

It's not just young black boys getting into trouble and knifing each other

Those two lovely, innocent Bristol boys, both white, were killed by white youths aided by an older white man.

No, just like not all grooming gangs are Pakistani, but many are.

We need to do something about legalising some drugs. While ever there's money to be made from the supposedly illicit drugs trade we will have this problem

It’s ridiculous, we know drug use permeates the whole of our society. It’s joked about when it’s Elon Musk off his head on ketamine, or Michael Gove ‘throwing shapes’ in a night club, but heaven forbid that we should bring it all out into the open, regulate the trade and eliminate the gangs.

Legalising a crime has never been a satisfactory way of dealing with it. Once started where would it stop?

Not to mention the harm that wide use of drugs will do to society. The extent that weed can cause serious lifelong mental illness and psychosis is well documented.

MaizieD

We need to do something about legalising some drugs. While ever there's money to be made from the supposedly illicit drugs trade we will have this problem

It’s ridiculous, we know drug use permeates the whole of our society. It’s joked about when it’s Elon Musk off his head on ketamine, or Michael Gove ‘throwing shapes’ in a night club, but heaven forbid that we should bring it all out into the open, regulate the trade and eliminate the gangs.

I’ve advocated that for years. It’s not going to happen though.

M0nica

Legalising a crime has never been a satisfactory way of dealing with it. Once started where would it stop?

Not to mention the harm that wide use of drugs will do to society. The extent that weed can cause serious lifelong mental illness and psychosis is well documented.

Drugs are already harming society, MOnica. From top to bottom.

Wringing hands over these senseless murders isn’t going to make any difference.