As a parent hearing a voice on the other end of the telephone telling you that your child has been in an accident is something we all dread. The worst news I've ever received about Nathalie was when she broke her thumb the day before Christmas Eve three years ago. I cannot therefore even begin to know or understand how the parents of eleven year old Rhys Jones must have felt on Wednesday night when they received a knock on their front door and moments later were informed of the fatal shooting of their son.
Liverpool occupies a small part of everybody's heart, either because they produced the best football teams this country has ever seen between 1965 and 1990 or because of the musical legacy that has enriched our lives from The Beatles down through Julian Cope, Echo and The Bunnymen, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, The Mighty Wah! and The La's. But the word Liverpool is also a shorthand for lawlessness from the riots of the 80's through to the almost casual way in which the drug and accompanying gang culture has been allowed to take hold in certain areas of the City.
The boy's death has triggered a wave of revulsion and also moral indignation and outrage. Some of our newspapers have focused on the simmering feud between two local gangs -- the Nogzy and the Crocky -- in the area where Rhys was shot, suggesting that the killer may have links to them. The Sun, not the City's favourite newspaper after its Hillsbrough coverage, has offered a 100,000-pound reward for information that leads directly to the arrest and conviction of the killer.
On Friday night, despite the City still being in an apparent state of shock, two doormen were shot and injured, one critically, outside a nightclub in Penny Lane. The local police chief appealed for public help on Friday when he said "They (the public) must look to themselves and examine their conscience and if something else happens think 'if I hadn't given that information as quickly as possible can I live with myself?,'" he said.
Gun crime actually represents less than one half of a percent of all crime in the U.K, although the incidents of gun crime have been steadily increasing since 1997. To listen to the radio this morning though you would have thought that every corner of every neighbourhood had a hooded gunmen standing on it, suddenly this green and pleasant land has become the West Bank. People were, rightly, asking questions of politicians, demanding to know where our taxes are being spent - as if there is some direct correlation between increased public expenditure and crime. What nobody said was that people must stand up for themselves, reclaim the moral high ground. Yes that's easy for me to say sat here in warm sunshine in front of a keyboard, I'm not likely to get shot, but by saying is enough is enough to anti-social behaviour at a low level we can put a stop to it before it gets out of hand.
The Chaplain of Everton football club spoke of our responsibilities as citizens, he said how can you tell a 12 or 13 year old that drugs are wrong when every day they can read in the newspapers that another pop star or model has been arrested on drugs charges but let off with a caution. We hear endless arguments about decriminalising drugs, why not make the sentences for possession with intent to supply longer? Why not say enough is enough, we aren't going to bend in the wind with popular opinion that says this drug or that drug won't mess you up, let's hand some sentences out now that show intent and argue about the medical and ethical arguments later. For far too long we have turned a blind eye to what is either socially unacceptable behaviour or criminal behaviour on the basis that it's 'what kids do' or 'it's what pop stars do' as if that makes it right.
Little Rhys Jones was killed because society has for the best part of thirty years chosen to see drugs as somebody else's problem, but we must remember the old saying that somebody else's problem will inevitably become ours. We surround ourselves with gadgets and locks that protect us from hidden (sometimes imaginary) threats: the car alarm, the mobile phone alarm, the security locks on our windows, the anti-porn software on our computers, each little device ensuring that as an individual we can sleep more easily, whilst ignoring those things that really do have the power to hurt us.
2 comments:
I think I agree with you. We've had these problems for quite a while now and nothing that successive governments has tried seems to have worked. Perhaps it's time for a new approach. Personally, I think longer sentences would be appropriate especially for murder. Also, I don't think we should shy away from giving long sentences to teenagers. No-one can tell me a fifteen year old doesn't know how bad murder is.
I agree Shy. If the age of responsibility is 10 in the eyes of the law why should 14, 15 or 16 year olds be protected unless psychiatric reports suggest they aren't able to cope.
Post a Comment