I like to think of myself as quite a liberal and open minded person, who values human rights and freedom. I’d never advocate capital punishment, but sometimes it’s hard to repress it as an answer to dealing with some of the utter scum roaming the streets of this country.
A couple of weeks ago I made note of some mindless young vandals who had been urinating into fresh water tanks, or piercing them to deprive people of supplies during the flood crisis that had affected parts of England. As much as those idiots are contemptible, a story I read today about the actions of a gang of youths closer to home makes my blood boil with anger.
Say you were sat in your home, minding your own business when you heard something of a disturbance outside, you’d probably investigate, right? Now, imagine you take a look out of the window and see a gang of youths hanging around your property and vandalising your car… what would you do? Maybe you’d do what one poor chap in Warrington did this weekend and go outside to confront the gang and ask them just what the hell they’re doing. I doubt you’d expect to be killed for doing so.
What an appalling series of events, a man confronts a gang who are on his property, who are vandalising his vehicle and while he might have expected some cocky response before they moved on, instead they pounced on him like a pack of wild animals, beating him to the ground and assaulting him repeatedly, kicking him, punching him and stamping on him, until they killed him. Just a few feet away, probably pleading helplessly with the gang- a group of fifteen hooded idiots, were his wife and three daughters. Fifteen boys versus a forty-seven year old man, with his family in audience.
I can’t even begin to comprehend what is going on in the minds of these people, one can grasp at straws and try to blame alcohol, or drugs and sure, maybe that was a factor. But I drink, and get sometimes I get very drunk… but I’ve never felt the urge to do anything violent, ever. There’s more to the rise of this kind of anti-social, sometimes shockingly sickening behaviour than alcohol and drug abuse, there must be.
I often scoff at the stories of times passed that my granddad tells me, about the different kinds of punishment and deterrents in place which apparently controlled the behaviour of youths to some extent, at times it sounds barbaric. But have we gone too far in the wrong direction? I’m not suggesting ‘bring back whipping’ or any kind of heavy corporal punishment but there’s no escaping the fact that the vast majority of these crimes are committed by the under-20’s- and we don’t seem to be doing anything about it. What happened to this man in Warrington at the weekend wasn’t a one off, and it’s only a matter of time until it happens again, and again- they’ll catch some of the perpetrators I’m sure, throw them in prison with sentences of ten years or less then let them out after serving a third of that to commit more crimes. Something has to change… my sensibilities are just in conflict as to suggest what it is that needs to be done- what do you reckon?
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