13 year old arrested in the East Wall shooting (2 Viewers)

[rettucs]

interesting - did the level of policing drop and the crime stay down? did some people move from/to the area? were new groups formed?

people just didn't hang around the streets as much. Whether it was because it wasn't deemed acceptable generally, or whether there was something else going on (like the cops round people up or whatever) I don't know. The change was quite stark though.

The guy that was convicted of the murder was a well-known local too. For something like that to happen in a middle-class area causes a severe ego-pounding. The area becomes tainted. All of a sudden people care what happens on the streets around then cos of some superficial shit like it affecting the value of their houses, etc. Like, people start caring, but only for selfish reasons.

 

[jane]

interesting - did the level of policing drop and the crime stay down? did some people move from/to the area? were new groups formed?

I think what Jane is getting at is the need for a more fundamental change in how dublin people look after each other. More cops is fine but it is only temporary displacement tactic and all the structural, cultural and socialisation issues aren't changed by a few more bobbies on the beat.

What brokey said.

One thing that was kinda cool around election time in Boston was "Question Two", which decriminalised the weed. I fuckin hate stoners, but it's dumb as shit to put kids in jail for smoking a joint. I didn't meet a single person who thought it was a good idea to lock people up for having a dimebag (although it's fair to say I don't exactly hang around with McCainiacs), especially people like community organisers, like one dude I talked to who was saying how much easier it will be to help kids get their shit together when they don't have a conviction following them around, especially if it's just for a couple of joints. He said he felt like it would free him up to focus on the important shit. It passed by a landslide, and the weed was (sort of) freed.

I was talking with a friend of mine about this stuff, about why it is that in Massachusetts, we have married gays, semi-legal weed, universal health insurance, and all this shit that no one else has. We're not any better than any other state -- we are exactly the same kind of random collection of individuals barely united by a geographic boundary, so why do we seem so different from, say, even Rhode Island, our tiny asshole neighbour to the south who hates our freedom? We haven't had a string of lefty governors -- in fact, we're weird and frequently elect Republicans to that job. We have boring John Kerry, and AWESOME Barney Frank. But that's not sufficient. We also have shitty fucking racism that people pretend doesn't exist.

Part of that is the type of people who moves to Massachussetts, but it's also that maybe our social contract is just that bit different from elsewhere. I dunno what it is. It's far from fucking perfect, that's for sure, but it made me think a bit about the amazing complexity of why one random collection of people is different from another.

What I'm getting at is this, which is the most important thing you or I ever saw in our lives:

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[rettucs]

Scutter - I think the carry-on in the middle-class area you speak of was just that - carry-on and messing that eventually got out of hand. It wasn't a deeply ingrained societal problem. It was acting-up by little pricks who reckoned they could play at being from tougher areas.
I'm not as familiar with the area as you are, but the fact that that particular murder hasn'r been followed up by any more in 10 years probably shows that the problem wasn't 'real' as a social issue in the first place.

fair point. There is a huge difference in the sense that these little scrotes would return home after a night's mayhem to their million-euro abode with mercedes-adorned driveways.

 

[broken arm]

where could I get crime stats (i know they are fundamentall messed up) output to excel file that go back further than 2004?

http://www.cso.ie/px/pxeirestat/database/eirestat/Crime and Justice/Crime and Justice.asp

 

[Froog]

how about replacing the working classes with robots? the money for these would come from shrinking the police force to about an eigth and a "factory tax" that manufacturing places would pay as they no longer pay wages. this does leave us open to sentient robot rebellion tho, nothing a few inbuilt "kill switches" couldn't solve.

 

[jane]

To jump from point to point, answering some people's posts:

Ah, there's always someone who uses an incident like this to call for the legalisation of various drugs. Any violent incident will do, generally.

As far as I know, very few new football pitches have been provided in older areas of the city in recent years (in fact they are more likely to be built upon), so I wouldn't go blaming football just because you're not sporty.

Writing off murderers is fine by me, whatever their age.

And this guy who got killed, he wasn't an 'outsider', he wasn't the other. He was a local. So insularity doesn't come into it in this case (though I do agree that there is a definite and unwelcoming clannishness in the culture of Dublin).

In general, Jane is speaking a lot of sense on this thread - there isn't a top-down approach that will make kids less violent. There does have to be some level of responsibility taken by these populations, where bullies basically have the run of the place. Nobody came forward to identify those murdering kids in Drimnagh last year, even though plenty of people knew who they were. Easier said than done, but that kind of submissiveness and cowardliness speaks of a demoralised community.

I was being sorta flippant about the football pitches, but only partly. I interviewed a lady a few months ago who lives in O'Devany Gardens, and she was fucking ripshit about the state of the place, and was going on about how they built a football pitch that is now just a place for kids to cause more trouble. She was very adamant that a lack of facilities was not the cause, it was a symptom of something much deeper.

They just renovated the park behind my house, and the local kids still litter all over it, burn bicycles and whatever else they can find, the local people of all ages let their dogs shite all over the playing fields, and people still throw shit at the runners and let their shark-like dogs run off-leash. And I get a weird sense that if I wanted to use the tennis courts, I would be....quietly discouraged from doing so, that these are things for 'local' people, which I am not, despite living in the area for almost 5 years.

The guy who was murdered in East Wall was only living in the area for about a year, so he was an outsider. I mean, a lot of the tighter communities in Dublin still consider you an outsider if your parents weren't born there, and despite the population becoming more mobile in recent years, that attitude remains the same -- there are just a greater number of people defined as 'not-locals'. They might have liked him fine, especially because he fixed bikes and stuff, but I don't imagine he would dare call himself a local. Mr Jane is Dub, and he definitely feels like an outsider here, even though he only moved from Dublin 11.

I will say that coming forward about a crime is a scary thing. I witnessed a random stabbing of a homeless guy on the steps of the Boston Public Library when I was about 14 or 15. No one fucking did anything and the guy was just laying there in a pool of blood that was all coming down the steps, and I was horrified because holy shit, TV does not prepare you for how much blood comes out of a human body. My friend and I went into the Copley Mall and asked a security guard to call an ambulance -- we weren't stupid enough to call the cops. We thought the guy was a goner, but within a few weeks he was back drinking his bumwine on the steps with his pals. For probably a full year afterward, that gang had a price on our heads for doing it, and they'd come around looking for us if they got bored and felt like cashing in some street-justice chips. And all we did was get the guy an ambulance.

When you've got a gang of people, no matter what their age or background, you're putting yourself in harm's way if you speak up against them. Look what happened when the first people spoke up against the church -- and the priests were hardly little tracksuit scroungers. So none of those explanations really address teh complexity of the problem, let alone hint at a solution. A guy gets shot by a minor, and while the immediate reaction is the hang the kid as an example to others, that's never worked as a long-term solution.

And yet! There's something weird where I saw a fuckload of violence in Boston, but I don't feel unsafe there. I can't figure out why. I probably should feel a bit unsafer than I do, and I'm sure I will once I live there again.

Although I wouldn't agree totally about the class issue. I think middle-class people have no better sense of consequences, accountability or responsibility than people from deprived areas. They jsut get away with more. They might have fewer opportunities to bash people in the face, and they might not use guns, but I don't think they have any stronger a sense of community responsibility. I'd say they have less of one than a lot of people in deprived areas because they can afford to live behind gates that make community well-being into someone else's problem.

 

[Froog]

how about replacing the working classes with robots? the money for these would come from shrinking the police force to about an eigth and a "factory tax" that manufacturing places would pay as they no longer pay wages. this does leave us open to sentient robot rebellion tho, nothing a few inbuilt "kill switches" couldn't solve.

just had another thought: how about burning the poor for fuel to power the new robot class?

 

[jane]

A Robot Proposal, indeed, Froog.

A genius idea from a genius. As long as we don't start burning geniuses for fuel, you should be safe, Froog.


Froog?



Froog?


OH MY GOD, HAS ANYBODY SEEN OUR FROOG?

Oh, there you are. Fucking phew.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

just had another thought: how about burning the poor for fuel to power the new robot class?

Been thought of.
The Wachowskis would want their cut.

 

[robitusson]

But given how common and seemingly accepted it is to attack randomers in this city, this should not surprise anyone.

Yup.

 

[aoboa]

Although I wouldn't agree totally about the class issue. I think middle-class people have no better sense of consequences, accountability or responsibility than people from deprived areas. They jsut get away with more. They might have fewer opportunities to bash people in the face, and they might not use guns, but I don't think they have any stronger a sense of community responsibility. I'd say they have less of one than a lot of people in deprived areas because they can afford to live behind gates that make community well-being into someone else's problem.

My two cents.

I went to primary school in the 70's in Drimnagh, secondary in the 80's in Templeogue.

Primary was a mixed bag of kids with most from really poor backgrounds. Despite that the majority were cool - smart and decent - knew right from wrong. There were a tiny group, two guys in particular, who were flat out evil though. For sure they knew the difference between right and wrong but they just didn't give a shit. They were well used to setting traps to lure kids out of the yard and beat them up or steal what they wanted by the time we were in second class - about 8 years old. Really street smart and wickedly clever but acedemically thick - they'd be friendly with a kid for a few days while they were setting them up etc. By the end of primary they were seldom in - bunking off all the time but their little gang was now about 12 people. I know for certain that one of the original two isn't around anymore.
There were also a couple of kids who carried knives at all times, one was from a pretty well off family but he was a total loner.
There were a lot of these kids in the school in all the classes. You could spot them a mile off. Pasty faced, eagle eyed little f**ks - constantly on the look out for an opportunity to cause trouble. Sharp eyed where the rest of us still had a bit of innocence in our eyes.

Secondary school was pretty much exactly the same cross section of people with about the same amount of shitty behaviour as witnessed in primary school despite the majority being from middle class families. The one thing that was missing was the pasty faced eagle eyed little f**ks, replaced with a less street wise or nasty version - a more typical school bully.

Not sure that it proves much but for me personally I reckon environment and upbringing has a huge affect - particularly in relation to the more evil/violent streak. You get the same bullshit antisocial behaviour everywhere but the truly horrific shit happens in the same old areas. You can quote isolated incidents from middle class areas but they are the minority.
No amount of hugs or rehabilitation was gonna make a difference to the 2 kids mentioned above. They were broken long before they even came to school. With people like that I think they need to be taken out of society for good. Not talking death penalty here just proper preventative measures to make sure they stopped making peoples lives a misery.

 

[Froog]

My two cents.

I went to primary school in the 70's in Drimnagh, secondary in the 80's in Templeogue.

Primary was a mixed bag of kids with most from really poor backgrounds. Despite that the majority were cool - smart and decent - knew right from wrong. There were a tiny group, two guys in particular, who were flat out evil though. For sure they knew the difference between right and wrong but they just didn't give a shit. They were well used to setting traps to lure kids out of the yard and beat them up or steal what they wanted by the time we were in second class - about 8 years old. Really street smart and wickedly clever but acedemically thick - they'd be friendly with a kid for a few days while they were setting them up etc. By the end of primary they were seldom in - bunking off all the time but their little gang was now about 12 people. I know for certain that one of the original two isn't around anymore.
There were also a couple of kids who carried knives at all times, one was from a pretty well off family but he was a total loner.
There were a lot of these kids in the school in all the classes. You could spot them a mile off. Pasty faced, eagle eyed little f**ks - constantly on the look out for an opportunity to cause trouble. Sharp eyed where the rest of us still had a bit of innocence in our eyes.

Secondary school was pretty much exactly the same cross section of people with about the same amount of shitty behaviour as witnessed in primary school despite the majority being from middle class families. The one thing that was missing was the pasty faced eagle eyed little f**ks, replaced with a less street wise or nasty version - a more typical school bully.

Not sure that it proves much but for me personally I reckon environment and upbringing has a huge affect - particularly in relation to the more evil/violent streak. You get the same bullshit antisocial behaviour everywhere but the truly horrific shit happens in the same old areas. You can quote isolated incidents from middle class areas but they are the minority.
No amount of hugs or rehabilitation was gonna make a difference to the 2 kids mentioned above. They were broken long before they even came to school. With people like that I think they need to be taken out of society for good. Not talking death penalty here just proper preventative measures to make sure they stopped making peoples lives a misery.

 

[nlgbbbblth]

II think middle-class people have no better sense of consequences, accountability or responsibility than people from deprived areas. They just get away with more.

Not always
http://www.thumped.com/bbs/showpost.php?p=489452&postcount=276

 

[Lili Marlene]

the community should burn them

 

[aoboa]

Not always

They mostly got away with it though.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

Long term, couldn't we just legalise abortion?

It's not a cure-all but it would help.

 

[orange pekoe]

A lot of the thuggery I see in my area stems from a sense of entitlement and self-importance. These are kids so spoiled and pampered that they think they can do and say whatever the fuck they want and no one can do a thing about it.

 

[rettucs]

And yet! There's something weird where I saw a fuckload of violence in Boston, but I don't feel unsafe there. I can't figure out why. I probably should feel a bit unsafer than I do, and I'm sure I will once I live there again.

I think you might have inadvertently answered your own question there. You don't feel like an outsider, hence don't feel as threatened.

Plus, when you're surrounded by what you're unfamiliar with theres a sense of being outside your comfort zone, regardless of how safe or otherwise your surrounds are.

 

[platters]

I think what Aoboa said about kids like this rings true for me. If the likes of Jane and other adults are afraid can you imagine what it's like for the wee ones? From my experience if a kid stands up for what's 'right' they'll be a pariah. Children are smart and they intuitively pick up on the way things work around them.

Just a thought, but maybe if we could show vulnerable kids and teenagers that society does care they will start to police themselves. Obviously the issue is that either they believe that society does not care or that society does actually not care. Personally I reckon it's a bit of both and a better education system is required. An education system that is not just geared towards the people on the top of our society.

 

[jane]

A lot of the thuggery I see in my area stems from a sense of entitlement and self-importance. These are kids so spoiled and pampered that they think they can do and say whatever the fuck they want and no one can do a thing about it.

I also think that while middle-class kids might not resort to guns, it can be pretty traumatic for the person on the receiving end of their spoiled thuggery. They have the same ridiculous attitudes and sense of entitlement, just different ways of expressing it.

I wouldn't even see that whole Anabels thing as 'they should have known better', I just wonder why we weren't asking about the problem of violence across society and how they clearly felt such a crazy, disgusting act was within their rights. Most of us with half a brain wouldn't walk up Leeson Street at 3am or through Ringsend Village at midnight, for similar reasons: the increased likelihood of being kicked in the face for sport without anyone being held accountable.

People don't talk as much about the background of your stereotypical 'thug' because we've got to a point where we just expect poor people to be more thuggish. It's not news.