29 July 2019

Thugs or snowflakes?

Compare and contrast these Times reports

Here:
More than 17,500 boys aged 14 have carried or used a knife or other weapon, according to research for the Home Office.
A judge who jailed two boys after the death of another 17-year-old boy has condemned a “warped culture” in which possessing a knife is seen as “cool and aesthetically pleasing”.
A report looking at people born in 2000 and 2001 said that about a third of those who said they had carried a knife had also been attacked.
Patrick Green, chief executive of the Ben Kinsella Trust which campaigns against knife crime, said: “This report signals that unless we act quickly we risk losing a generation to knife crime. Our focus must shift to prevention and more support for children.”
 And here:
As police forces prepare for the government’s ambitious recruitment drive, they have identified a formidable new challenge: hiring millennials.
The Home Office has been told that rookies have been “wrapped in cotton wool”, are routinely shocked that police are expected to work nights and weekends and “do not like confrontation”.
Police officers and staff told the Front Line Review that such expectations “may be a generational phenomenon related to people who have recently reached adulthood — a ‘millennial thing’ — and not unique to policing”.
The report added: “Participants gave examples of recruitment interviews where candidates had stated they do not like confrontation or were shocked by the need to work different shift patterns and possibilities of cancelled rest days.” One senior officer said that many recruits had “no idea what they’re coming into; they’ve lived in a society where they are wrapped up in cotton wool an awful lot . . . their mental health or their ability to cope with certain situations is just not evident from day one”.

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