In Your Face

In Your Face
Thought provoking opinions on topical issues.

Friday, August 17, 2007

The Yob Epidemic

The British media is making much of the current "yob" epidemic, that is allegedly engulfing towns and cities throughout the UK.

Scarcely a day goes by when the media, and publicity seeking politicians, aren't "tut tutting" about yobbish drunken behaviour perpetrated by youths on the streets of Britain.

Whilst it may vent their spleens to "tut tut" about it, very little constructive solutions are produced as to how this behaviour is to be curtailed and controlled.

The refrain is usually:

1 Something must be done

2 Society is to blame

3 The parents are to blame, and

4 Let's ban something (eg drinking under 21, yet we are still happy for 18 year olds to die in Iraq)

The root cause of the problem is varied:

1 Lazy parenting

2 The granting of "human rights" to an ill disciplined, moronic mass of teenagers who have yet to develop intellectually or socially

3 Too much money being given to children by over indulgent parents

4 Lousy role models in the media

5 Invisible policing from the local police forces

The solution is difficult, but not impossible:

  • Those yobs that create a disturbance and a nuisance on the streets should be punished in a way that hurts them the most, ie hurt their egos. They should be sentenced, not to prison where they learn nothing more than how to commit more crime, but to a period in the stocks where they can be humiliated by their fellow citizens.


  • Drunken yobbery can be resolved by a session in the stocks, and by the tattooing (for say a month) on the foreheads of the yobs the following phrase:

    "I am a drunken yob"

    Any shop or pub found serving people with said tattoo on their heads, would immediately lose their licence.


  • Parents should stop giving their children so much pocket money. A child/teenager with too much money in their pockets will simply buy shit or booze/drugs. Therefore take their spending power away from them, and they won't be able to buy booze.


  • Parents should be made fully responsible for the behaviour of their brats, up until the age of 18. When their brats are caught breaking the law, the parents should have what is most dear to them confiscated by the state; namely their TV's, CD's, pc's and mobile phones. Should that not work, then their benefits should also be targeted.

    Like it or not, they should be made to take responsibility for their brats.


  • Local police forces that seek to remain invisible, in spite of complaints by residents of yobbish behaviour on the streets, should be sued for failure to provide adequate police cover.
  • None of the above will be easy to implement. However, it will produce results.