Scottish Equal Parenting Alliance
Scottish Division of Equal Parenting Alliance Party
www.equal-parenting-scotland.com
Focus on : Youth Crime and Family Breakdown
50-strong armed gangs of youngsters roam the streets of South London with total disregard for the law - and Glasgow is not far behind.
Cathy Jamieson (Scotland’s Justice Minister) promised to reduce hardcore youth offending by 10% last year. Instead it rose by 16%!
She called this "bitterly disappointing," but she still has no answer, and neither does any other major party.
Of course, we would not suggest that all youth crime is a direct result of the failure of the government’s policies on family law.
But families are falling apart under Labour. Divorce rates are around 50% and about 25% of Scottish children live with a lone parent.
As if this isn’t bad enough, estimates of the proportion of children completely cut off from one of their parents range from 20% up to 60%!
The evidence suggests that it is these youngsters who commit the majority (around 70%) of all youth crime.
If this startling statistic is true, then clearly there is a need for government policies which help separated parents maintain a meaningful relationship with their children after separation.
Unfortunately, government policies, with the help of a failing and dysfunctional family law system, encourage the exact opposite.
But why on earth would anyone want to exclude perfectly good fathers? Because that is Labour Party dogma. Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt are on record as questioning the need for fathers at all!
"70% of youth crime is carried out by fatherless children and young adults (under 18)." Audit Commission report on teenage crime 2004.
"It cannot therefore be assumed that men are bound to be an asset to family life, or that the presence of fathers in families is necessarily a means to social harmony and cohesion.”
The Family Way: A New Approach to Policy Making, Coote, A, Hewitt, P. and Harman, H. 1990
Families are the foundation of our society and now we are seeing what happens when they fall apart, encouraged by government policies. With such an obvious lack of respect for parents and families from ministers within our government, it’s no wonder kids are running wild!
New Cumnock
Same Old Story
Ray Barry surveys the remains of a vandalised bus-shelter on the outskirts of New Cumnock. An all too common sight.
A symptom of a bored and directionless youth lacking respect for themselves or for others?
