Jeremy is worried about burglary in the island

[Ashley]

Your posts are quite clear.  

So it's a coincidence that you have these personal concerns and your son also received separate notice of others concerns and that's what prompted him to raise the issue of more police on the streets?

Is that's the honest truth then please accept my full apologies regarding any thoughts I may be having about you influencing your son's political decisions for you and your neighbours exclusive benefit.

 

[Ashley]

Nellie,

I take it from your comments that no windows were actually broken. Either you have very thick glass, the stones were very small or the kids in question were so enfeebled by the ravages of the recession that they could not throw the stones hard enough to break glass. Just what did you expect the Police to do? No crime waas committed and the days are long gone where a copper could give a kid a clip around the ear just because they were annoying adults.
The recession has not impacted fully on Jersey yet and, when it does, it will mainly affect middle class families working in the finance industry. Unless you are predicting a sudden crime spree led by ex bank managers turned burglar, things will not change significantly other than a massive shortfall in tax income for the Island. Most of the petty crime and burglary in the Island is committed by drug addicts supplementing their States benefit to feed their habit. If Jeremy is looking for a cause, why doesn't he look at the rising levels of drug addiction in the Island and what can be done about it? This is a subject that the States have, for years, swept under the carpet and refused to address because it makes the Island look bad. Anyone can get by asking the easy questions, the test of a true politician is whether they can ask the difficult ones and get a straight answer.

Well said.

[Nellie Macon]

Thank you for your apology Ashley - it wasn't a coincidence - his electorate expressed their concerns to him themselves - nothing to do with my input. Living where we do it would be impossible for anyone to not be aware of the concerns of people in our area but they made this clear anyway at our hustings.

If you are all pretty young you may not be frightened or intimidated by groups of teenagers / children congregating outside your house and throwing stones but I certainly was. I'm just grateful their aim wasn't too brilliant. All I wanted was for someone to make them go away - is that too much to ask? That much at least we can expect from a police presence.

If you want to find out what Jeremy's motivation was, why don't you ask him (j.macon@gov.je)? I'm sure he'll be really happy to discuss this with you.

[Ashley]

I'll have to take your word for it - you wouldn't blatantly lie, woudl you. Too much to lose. I wont be wasting his time with it.

I guess the answer is 'give the kids something to do'.  I really don't see how getting the police involved is in anyway the solution.
And why were these kids throwing stones anyway?  There's just no way they would pick your house at random. I can only assume that you naively confronted them over another smaller issue - something I certainly wouldn't do in a hurry.

[boatyboy]

Nellie is spot on and correct. Obviously those that have not been confronted by a gang of kids have no idea. Firstly, an adult cannot touch in anyway a kid and kids are savy enough to Know this. So if the kid and his drunken twelve year old mates are kicking and denting your car, if you pull them off, they will probably have evidence that you attacked them using a mobile phone camea, when all you were doing was protecting your property in a non violent way. The police or the parents are the only authority to stop drunken kids carrying on. It is a disgrace that they Nellie phoned them and they did not respond, thats another issue though.

I am sure many of you think that Nellie and Boatyboy are wrong. Thats OK cause your day will come, lets see how you sort out the problem without getting arrested ?

Boatyboy

[Nellie Macon]

No, I don't tell lies - that's one reason I upset certain senatorial candidates so much they set their pet media person onto me - because I confronted them at each husting over lies and misleading statements they were making when I knew the real truth.

As for upsetting the youngsters in our district - actually I have gone out of my way to be pleasant to them - giving them sweets etc at Halloween and for carol singing at Xmas - always contributing to any collections they're making etc. I don't confront them when they congregate in groups or do anything to upset them and neither have other people who have suffered at their hands that I know of. I cannot understand what gets into their heads to do things like this. They just decide to pick on someone completely at random and then you're victimised unless you can get it sorted. In this instance it was just my bad luck that there were stones in front of my house - that's all it took.

A few years ago another group decided they had to smash all the flower troughs on my wall and caused a lot of damage until the worst offenders were moved away (one thing TLS has done right - shame he put them here in the first place as they had created havoc where they came from...but that's another story). Luckily for us, the housing association was started up round about then and they are very good at liaising with the problem families but even then, every now and again the problem reoccurs.

I certainly do believe that giving the youngsters something constructive to do is the right approach and I am an avid campaigner for revamping the Fort. The Fort was converted into a leisure centre when I was in my mid teens and we used to spend most of our free time there when we weren't at the beach. There were a lot of youth clubs as well in those days and we seem nowadays to cater for sporty people but very little else, so generally you either play sports or go clubbing as there's not much else going on which is a real shame.

When my childrren were little we used to spend a lot of time at the Fort in the big playground and on the funfair type amusements as well as the other amenities - mini golf as well - it was a great venue until they made it so expensive we could only go once in a while. The youngsters now have really missed out on this type of facility and I'd like to help bring it back.

[Fritz]

Most mums, having trouble with naughty, "Yoofs",would just send their Lad to sort them out.
No difference, eh?
Except ,your, "Lad", costs the tax-payer in excess of £40,000 per year.

[Nellie Macon]

Fritz - you are so out of touch with reality - you try "sorting out" anyone who is legally a child and you'll end up in prison - never mind the provocation. Anyway, reciprocating violence is hardly the answer to this kind of anti-social behaviour and not the sort of thing I advocate.

[Fritz]

I live my,"Reality", Nellie.
I do not try to live a ,"Lost Dream", through my children.




Note to MODS. This is a direct reply to: "You are so out of touch with reality".

[Ruddler]

Ah, yoof crime, the hot topic of the last year or so:

Howard League/SSS - hold their hand and ask them nicely not to do it again;

Oligarchy - flog 'em and bang them up at Greenfields in Abu Graib style shackles.

The truth/solution is as usual somewhere in between, thank goodness I'm not a parent!  Bafflingly, our States decided to give 16 year olds the vote but in truth most have no interest in dreary politics and a few prefer to hoon around the streets causing general mayhem (being the ones who need to be asked nicely not to do it again).  We have a truly schizophrenic attitude to da yoof, although I'm coming to the conclusion that Jeremy may have got in on the young persons vote alone (and well done for getting your vote out!) as well as that of the extended Macon clan.

Seriously?  Most young people are as good as gold and no better or worse than we were at the same age despite attempts to demonise them.  It's when they go off the rails and start experimenting with "hustings" or "manifestos" at a young age that they need some friendly guidance such as "anyone whose ambition to be elected to the States when still an adolescent is absolutely 100% the very last person you should vote for".  Even Nu Labour MP's generally have some prior life experience (alright, usually former union officials/think tank policy wonks).  So, unless Jeremy has any concrete practical solutions on how to tackle youth crime, I really think he needs to keep more of a watching brief for a while longer before popping up with any more facile questions.  Anyway, isn't he supposed to be on the Planning Applications Panel?  That should keep him busy for a while, although I'm unclear as to his depth of knowledge regarding local architecture!

Pip pip!

[Nellie Macon]

Well Fritz - if you think the answer to vandalism is beating the little darlings up then I expect to see you sentenced in the courts one of these days - as far as I am concerned, I have no intention of going there.

Apart from being the authority on dealing with vandalism, I note that you are now into telepathy as well, since never having met me, you appear to know what is going on inside my head. How do you know what I have or have not achieved in my life? The main reason I did not run for political office during the last elections is that I am perfectly happy with the job I am doing at present and find quite enough fulfilment in that, thank you very much - so actually I don't have any failed dreams - apart from maybe winning the lottery at some stage - that would be very nice and then maybe I could contribute towards the local community centre that they haven't got enough funds to finish - that would be a really constructive way of keeping the local youngsters out of trouble.

[Fritz]

Could you show me where I mentioned the use of violence in my post Nellie?

Do you presume yourself to be, "Telepathic"?
Is that how you communicate with Jeremy when he is in the house, and when he,s In The House?
LOL.

[Nellie Macon]

Fritz - "sending my Lad to sort them out"? What's the definition of sorting out then?

In our road we've had one old man whose windows were smashed and had paint thrown at his house. Another family who were terrorized by a gang of youngsters who kept banging on their windows and climbing over their garden wall to smash up everything in their garden, windows smashed in blocks of flats, eggs etc thrown at houses. The victims have done nothing to provoke this kind of behaviour. The gangs just pick on someone at random and make their lives a misery.

It is a major problem because these "children" know their rights and unless they are actually caught in the act - if you see them and can identify them is irrelevant - the police now want evidence eg photographs of them committing the crimes - which is practically impossible and of course the police take so long to answer a call (if they do at all) that they rarely catch them in the act.

[Ashley]

If you confront naughty children being naughty they'll just be even more naughty - they'll then remember who you are and make your life a misery for ever more.

You must have wound them up with empty threats.

What's this about now anyway? Is it about being affraid of burglary or is it about being affraid of naughty children?  If there were exra police put on especially for all the naughty children then the whole island would look like it was under martial law.  The kids would become tougher, not better behaved and then we'd all have something to be scared of.

Like I said, and I think you agreed with, give the kids more options.  Give them something to do!

[Shiva]

Why is it "practically impossible" to take a photograph? At least you would then have some evidence to show them. If the Police had to turn out "Blues and Twos" for every old biddy who thinks that a bit of horseplay by kids is the equivalent of the Toxteth riots, it would fill up their entire shift pattern.
When a group of kid's behaviour becomes threatening or dangerous to others (and themselves) the Police must intervene and will respond rapidly. But this whole thing has to be put into perspective. Have you ever stopped to think that the kid's behaviour isn't getting worse, it's just that you are getting older and less tolerant? Kids have always congregated together, they have always broken windows, egged houses and teased old people. (usually, the older and more miserable the more fun it is). Yes it's unfair and unkind to old people but, when you were13 or 14, did you care whether you hurt some old person's feelings? Kids are, by their nature, cruel little bastards, I should know, I went to school with them. But they do not, for the most part, set out to hurt and terrorise, to them it is a bit of fun.
So, if you really are that worried, take a few photographs and get the Honorary police to have a word with the kids and their parents. Community Policing inside the Parishes is what the Centenniers are supposed to do. Failing that, why don't you complain to your local Deputy?