London Riots Report States Poor Parenting a Cause.

**Trauma Fried Brains** · 28th-March-2012

For those that remember the London Riots of last summer, the report has just been issued. BBC News - Riot report reveals '500,000 forgotten families'

Firstly though, with London being my home city, I’d just like to express my simple take on all this because of the disagreeable use of the word riot by all and sundry. You see, I don’t believe we actually had any riots last year. Riots take place and are motivated by many reasons spanning a wide range of issues, but generally one feature they all have in common is the feeling of some injustice perpetrated by the establishment. Some perceived socio-political issues of unfairness are what cause rioters to riot.

This is not what I saw happen last summer in London. There was no riot; there was a violent disturbance that I am aware of that was labelled a riot, but as far as I can see none of the constituents that qualify the definition of riot to me, were present. To call the violence of last year a riot, to me, smacks of the typical spin that our culture routinely applies to re-label the truth of what people don’t want to face as the nature and dynamics of our society.

In my opinion, the disturbances of last year in London were simply a mass opportunist thieving frenzy – not riot.

Anyhow returning to the report, in a feminist ‘liberal-left’ society I am too used to perceiving what we on AM usually regard as the single biggest reason for this sort of lawlessness – lack of a father figure in the upbringing of those who turn to criminality. We are too used to the establishment pretending this most obvious cause doesn’t exist, because it would label their beloved [father excluding] heroin single mothers as the single biggest cause of fatherless and delinquency in society. I don’t mean to ignore that irresponsible fathers abandon their families for selfish reasons, but I do not believe this amounts to the main cause of fatherless children.

So although I am not satisfied with the report, in not making clear what most here know of as the largest cause for lawless youth, I notice a relative improvement in the bollucks the establishment usually gives. Poverty, race and low social ranking were not given as the main reasons this time, as the liberal-left usually do to overlook the damaging indulgence of toxic mums.

‘Poor parenting’, has for once been cited as the primary reason much to my relief. Ok that’s not the same as toxic mums excluding a father figure and raising the kids on a diet of mental abuse that renders them so likely to engage in criminality, but it is a small move in the right direction.

Perhaps it’s still a long way off for our feminist liberal-left society to come to terms with the notion that the overwhelming majority of these looters were not raised by a father, as at this point they will only voice that it was poor parenting. But we all here know that the poor parenting in question was usually toxic single mothering. [I use the word toxic, to exclude those genuine single mothers who are single through no fault of their own, even though most falsely claim that.]

**Bigger Brother** · 28th-March-2012

Fathers 4 Justice have expressed their dismay at the total absence of the recognition of fatherlessness as a major factor in the 'riots'.

They make a very good point.

But despite the findings of this government panel set up at great expense, I still believe that they completely missed the real cause of the trouble. I set out to find out for myself and interviewed one of the looters, 18 year-old Winona, while she was watching 'Loose Women' one afternoon on her stolen 42" widescreen LCD and while she was skulling her 4th can of Stella. This was her rather concise and articulate view of why British society so spectacularly broke down last August:

"Dey is totalee rong innit. It waz August wannit. So it waz da wevver's fault. Warm day innit, nuff said. Me isn't gonna go nickin trainers when itz cold an' rainin. Me rahver stay in bed and watch Jeremee Kyle innit. My ambition innit, to get on Jeremee Kyle. Got any ciggies?

And so I thanked Winona for her time, not that she knew what 'thank you' meant, and departed the filthy hovel she called 'home'. As I left I couldn't help but think "why didn't she nick a vacuum cleaner?"

**FirehoundTRIDN** · 28th-March-2012

The blame for bad parenting should be entirely on the single mothers. They either choose men of poor character to mate with or exclude the man from the life via legal techniques, emotional coldness/shaming etc. The mothers themselves are often incompetent anyway themselves and teach bad morals to their children so the deadbeat dads and fatherlessness demonization of men is IMO a red herring.

**Douglas** · 28th-March-2012

Quote from Bigger Brother

"Dey is totalee rong innit. It waz August wannit. So it waz da wevver's fault. Warm day innit, nuff said. Me isn't gonna go nickin trainers when itz cold an' rainin. Me rahver stay in bed and watch Jeremee Kyle innit. My ambition innit, to get on Jeremee Kyle. Got any ciggies?

And so I thanked Winona for her time, not that she knew what 'thank you' meant, and departed the filthy hovel she called 'home'. As I left I couldn't help but think "why didn't she nick a vacuum cleaner?"

Yeah, I knew it was made up. A young Londoner wouldn't say "ciggies," let alone "Got." It would have been more like "Go' any fags, mate?"

**Bigger Brother** · 28th-March-2012

Quote from Douglas

Yeah, I knew it was made up. A young Londoner wouldn't say "ciggies," let alone "Got." It would have been more like "Go' any fags, mate?"

Chill bro .... I mean, yes I know but I was bearing in mind our transAtlantic cousins for whom 'fags' has a slightly different meaning!

**Douglas** · 28th-March-2012

The Riots, Communities and Victims Panel, set up last year, highlights "500,000 forgotten families".

It is not that they are forgotten. I'm sure there are records of all these families in the social security payout system.

It is that they exist as they are that is the problem; that society "forgot" to prevent them.

The full report is available from the Riots Panel Website (4.8MB including the pretty pictures of politicians and the panel wandering around streets).

The report contains recommendations throughout the text. While this makes it harder to understand what the findings are, it at least makes it harder to take them out of context. Most of the common areas of blame are addressed, including education, big business, and families. On page 88 there is a summary of their hopes:

We hope that the recommendations in this report will help to build communities with greater resilience, through addressing some of the key risk factors that can lead to a person’s engagement in criminality, including:
– low educational attainment and a low commitment to education;
– family problems (including failure to set clear expectations for behaviour and inconsistent or harsh discipline);
– favourable parental attitudes to crime and high levels of family conflict;
– a low resistance to peer pressure and association with friends who engage in criminal behaviour; and
– growing up in poverty and living in a socially disadvantaged area.

Each section of the report has a picture. The "Children and parents" section kicks off with a picture of a happy mother (only) with a child. It's a pity that an aspect that many independent people have clearly addressed was not reflected by the panel even in a picture. There is an emphasis on state support, state intervention and state involvement, with fathers getting sideline mentions.

There is a lot of talk of 'forgotten families' but if they are defined anywhere, I didn't see it in a skim through the document. 'Forgotten families' are apparently (p39) a super-set of the government's Troubled Families Program but on the previous page they state "our evidence suggests that a significant connection between those families subject to troubled families’ interventions and the rioters’ families, has not yet been established" so it is especially hard to see what the panel is actually trying to achieve.

Mentions of 'father' in the report

Page 7 has some 'key principles' for public services that engage with 'forgotten families'. Included is:

Widening inclusion – Some children grow up without a single positive adult figure in their lives. Public services should take steps to ensure all children have a positive role model (from a child’s wider family or from the local community). Where it is in the best interests of the child to do so, we recommend that absent fathers should be contacted by statutory social services and schools about their children as a matter of course.

On page 29, David Lammy's book gets a mention:

there were a variety of long-term causes
which lead to the riots including:
• poor education;
• ineffective parental guidance;
• poor role models;
• father absence;
• ill-discipline;
• unemployment; and
• a variety of social and developmental problems;

(YOT is 'youth offending team' but other than that it seems to be part of the justice system, I know nothing else about it.) A chart on page 35 includes the information that:

Residents expressed concern about poor parenting. In our survey 56 per cent of YOTS rated systems to engage absent fathers as Bad or Very bad

On page 41 one of the case studies starts:

Jane had a difficult start in life, her father abused alcohol and her mother had depression.

The report has 'principles of intervention' which starts "Raising a child is and should be ‘everyone’s business’." And they really do mean everyone. Principle 6, 'Widening inclusion' starts on page 45 (my emphasis):

It is important that all those who can impact positively on a child’s life are encouraged to play a part. Professionals the panel has spoken with point to significant numbers of vulnerable children in some communities without any positive role model in their lives and particularly no male role models.

Practitioners have highlighted to us the positive and supportive role a child’s wider family members can make, such as non-resident fathers, siblings and grandparents. For example, children with positive attachment and engagement with their fathers (resident or non-resident) tend to have:

I find it regrettable that a child's wider family includes a non-resident father but that might just be sloppy grammar preceding a more important point. Whether it is advantageous to society, or men, that there is no distinction made between families with resident fathers and those with non-resident fathers is hard to know. I suspect that more accurate surveys on that aspect need to be done.

Principle 46 contains a paragraph that, all by itself, should kill off the "deadbeat dad" concept for most absent fathers in one swoop. This should be quoted time and again at every relevant opportunity, including every time someone mentions absent fathers or "deadbeat dads":

Around absent fathers, professionals informed us that those who lose contact with their children generally do so because they are vulnerable themselves, and have issues such as mental health problems.

The next paragraph makes a damning statement in favour of dads:

However, research shows that practitioners and policy-makers usually approach father-child relationships at best casually and at worst with hostility, and this is particularly the case when fathers are vulnerable.

Page 47 has some recommendations. (These are repeated in a table on page 121.) The first four of the six are:

The Panel recommends:
– Where it is in the best interests of the child, public services should work to facilitate the inclusion of all members of the family who can make a positive contribution to a child’s development including fathers and grandparents.
– All targeted support, including Family Nurse Partnerships, should seek to engage with fathers around their responsibilities and provide support and advice.
– Where safe to do so and in the best interests of the child, there should be a presumption that schools and statutory children services should, as a matter of course, contact fathers at the same time as mothers about their children. This should be considered by inspectorates, as part of wider engagement strategies, for example by Ofsted [the official body for inspecting schools].
– There should be a presumption that public services should share data about vulnerable families. Using this information, local public services should seek to provide high risk groups of fathers with support and guidance about their rights and responsibilities.

On page 118 a chart contains the suggestions for "Building community resilience" which include:

Community volunteers to become positive role models where fathers are absent

and

Fathers at risk of losing contact with their children provided with support, guidance and reminded about their responsibilities

**Richard** · 28th-March-2012

And who said violence does'nt achieve anything?

To the barracades!!!

**Marx** · 28th-March-2012

In today's society we educate our children with history, showing how women (only) were mistreated in the past. It is my hope that the world looks back on this time and tries to educate tomorrow's children with similar passion, to educate them about the horrific mistreatment of men in today's world.

**nevosopelo** · 28th-March-2012

I disagree!
The word "RIOT" is correctly applied to the violence which took place on Agust 2011. It is also clear that people who are power still have not gather enough courage to tell the truth and that is, esentially, fatherlessness is the main reason for causing such a civil disorder. Morals has been destroyed in the altar of feminism, and that is what they need to address urgently. Until then, they will deal with more of the same.

NEVO

**Douglas** · 29th-March-2012

Quote from Trauma Fried Brains

I don’t believe we actually had any riots last year. Riots take place and are motivated by many reasons spanning a wide range of issues, but generally one feature they all have in common is the feeling of some injustice perpetrated by the establishment.

Quote from nevosopelo

The word "RIOT" is correctly applied to the violence which took place on Agust 2011.

The Public Order Act 1986 defines a riot as:

[1986 c. 64 Part I Section 1 (1)] Where 12 or more persons who are present together use or threaten unlawful violence for a common purpose and the conduct of them (taken together) is such as would cause a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for his personal safety, each of the persons using unlawful violence for the common purpose is guilty of riot.

Dictionary definitions include:

1. a noisy, violent public disorder caused by a group or crowd of persons, as by a crowd protesting against another group, a government policy, etc., in the streets.
2. Law . a disturbance of the public peace by three or more persons acting together in a disrupting and tumultuous manner in carrying out their private purposes.
3. violent or wild disorder or confusion.

Looking at these definitions, the events in England that August were mostly riots and the ones in London particularly so. Unusually for this kind of thing, the media headlines seem to have been correct.

__________________________________________________ ______

Quote from Richard

And who said violence does'nt achieve anything?

Unfortunately, when it comes to fatherhood, the Panel's recommendations centre around the state involving fathers more, especially absent ones. While that would be better than the current situation, it is nowhere near as good as the state doing what it can to prevent families being fatherless in the first place.

**Celtic Druid** · 29th-March-2012

It seems the liberal establishment would rather a deeply ingrained social dysfunction continue, rather than admitting it had been integral in its making.

**Zuberi** · 29th-March-2012

Quote from Celtic Druid

It seems the liberal establishment would rather a deeply ingrained social dysfunction continue, rather than admitting it had been integral in its making.

Of course! They're objective is very clear.
Stimulate social decay while laughing all the way to the bank.