Canada: Kid Crime Skyrockets

Well Moon your statement "I think the societal causes of crime, be it 'kid'crime or any other
kind are poorly understood at best, even by those who study such social
issues as experts." Deserves a well thought out retort my friend. Rappers who tell their followers about living in the hood is so friggin "Ghettofabulous" and Jenny from the Block, downhome we jus "Po folk like you", doesn't wash, as does your statement of kids poorly misunderstood. First of all Kids from poor neighbourhoods much like their Rapper Idols know Ghetto isnt fabulous, otherwise Famous Rappers would still be living 6 to a room back in the hood,which we all know they aren't,Rappers live the fabulous wealthy life in Mansions far removed from their Ghettos. Rappers giving Kids a way out of the Ghetto by Rappers giving them false hope illusions of the fast life, quick rich schemes, Guns,Drugs, and all Babes are Ho's to be had at the snap of the finger mentality leaves no room for misinterpretation by anyone,let alone kids.  

No poorly misunderstood issues here Moon, just misguided society, and a idiotic entertainment industry that awards 5 Grammys to a long time addicted Crack  Singer Amy Whinehouse,whilst  another Artist  Rhianna,  a clean  living soul is robbed of grammy's for her belief that  clean living and music is better.  You tell me where is the misunderstood justice in that?  That my friend is society that needs to get back to moral values lost in music.  Kids know right from wrong from a very early age, it is just some use their youth to get away with it, knowing  minors have an easy cakewalk.  Kids grow up to be adults, who still retain their childhood Id, not progressing to the Ego stage and certainly never reaching even a portion of the Superego stage. All these kids, now adults want is what others have, with nary a thought of working for it. I still say Jail em in solitary with counseling, until the brainwashing leaves them, failure to do so will result in adults with a childs Id Mentality.

Not that simple Ruski.  If it was we'd be done with it.

What is the why of the "crap" that the kids are putting in? What are the causes of the street culture that brings us gangsta rap?  Why does it exist if it does not fulfill some social need for a huge percentage of young people?  If those young people had other opportunities for creativity would they be participating in crime or more productive pursuits?  Have we isolated and marginalized large portions of our youth population?  Why have we done so?  How have we done so?  Are we providing all our kids with ample opportunities and options?  Have we lost our ability to communicate with younger people?  Do we even care if their needs and aspirations diverge wholesale from ours?

Could it be that these behaviors by our young people are just symtoms of deeper challeges within our societies, the tip of the iceberg so to speak?

There are many professionals asking these questions and others relevant to this discussion who are far better equiped to begin the process of providing us some answers than you, me, or Barry.

The discussion is great.  The "It's very simple...put crap into your brain, crap comes out of your brain." type of statements are of no value whatsoever.  In fact this kind of oversimplification by adults is, in my opinion, one of the root causes of the problem.

You may not have kids but I have two grown ones and I know for a fact that their behaviors, desires, dreams, tastes, and view of our adult world are far from as simple as these sweeping generalities.  In fact they have great disdain for many adults because of these dismissive adult opinions.  They also like Hip-Hop and Rap and are law abiding productive citizens at the same time.  This would indicate to me again that there are levels of causal complexity that we are missing.

Thanks Moon and Ruski for your comments, both are very much appreciated.

In response to your comments Ruski, "giving rap a pat on the behind and send it off on its merry way also pertains to lifestyle as well.  R&B singer and crack addict Amy Whinehouse whose  drug addicted trials and tribulations  have been widespread in the media, on Grammy Night, Gob Smacked Rappers and many other  Singers were stunned, though not surprised when shown the entertainment and music industry "Reward Bad Behaviour". AmyWhinehouse recieving 5 Grammys certainly shows the world were the rot lies andwill most certainly pave the way for any Teen who  wishes to emulate success  like Whinehouse did, with a Crackpipe,How Pretty!!

Hear, hear!  Thanks for bringing this perspective Jordan.

Of course, you are correct Jordan, Yes the suits moved in and changed it, and the Rappers laughed all the way to the bank and got into Girls gone Wild videos and other pursuits, peeing on little girls etc, and one rapper bumping and grinding on stage at a Gwen stefani concert with I believe a 13 year old girl.  Certainly a tasteful performance in their mind, but something I believe those suits would not have approved.Everyone is responsible for their Actions Jordan. I am sure those suits didnt put a gun to a rappers head, but money which they happily took without question about their Craft or musical integrity.

Hear, Hear!

You can't plant anything good these days because of all the people who insist that good is bad - so there's nobody doing any planting. That's why the kids grow wild. Not a complicated relationship, is it?

The world around us is full of negative influence - music is only a part of it. In the early 70's we were talking about how some of the T.V. families were so unrealistic - the kids didn't get into fights with their parents, they didn't yell at each other, the kids were always doing well in school. People used to say, "Monkey See, Monkey Do," and they used to ask for positive role models all around to help the kids find healthy examples to think about - but many people didn't like that (and still work to block anything objectively good.) There were (and still are) so many dummies around who said it would be better if we had more realistic families on T.V. Whenever the topic came up on a news program there was always some lunatic professor who said things like, "There have been no double-blind studies to show that bad examples on T.V. would be copied by children."

Of course there's no shortage of help whenever you ask for something mind bogglingly stupid - so we got Rosanne and The Simpsons to replace Dick Van Dyke. Immediately after The Simpsons hit the air the teachers in every school in North America complained that all the young boys were emulating Bart Simpson. In response, they were chastised by the lunatic professor community who insisted that there were no studies to support all this anecdotal evidence being provided by the teachers (as if you need a tenured position in a university to know something about kids.)

I enjoyed Rosanne and The Simpsons but I miss Dick Van Dyke and his like. I've stopped watching T.V. now but a friend told me a couple of years ago that there are some good shows available these days. Still, mostly when I visit my friends I see the kids into Family Guy and do-gooder vampires and other stuff that doesn't look very encouraging to me.

By the way: I walked into a department store once and decided to see if there was any interesting music on sale. I never found out... There was a teenage girl working in that department that day. She had chosen to play a song that featured young men rapping about how much fun it is to sexually abuse young girls. I was so mad that a young girl would listen to such crap that I had to leave the store. The way I see it, that's the real problem: the kids get so used to seeing and hearing things that should offend them that they stop being offended.

Still, as Gerald Ford said, the kids are brighter than we realize and they'll work things out.

Yup.

Then there's parents that beat, imprison, starve, and physically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically torture their kids, or their spouses in front of their kids.  There's incest and paedophilia that mom doesn't report because she wouldn't say anything against dad.  There's one's that care more about work and the new car and never give their kids the time of day.  There's ones that screw around on the spouse and steal from the company they work for.  There's alcoholic and drug addicted parents, and parents who gamble their kids futures away. There's ones that tell their kids to just handle shit by themselves because they aren't tough enough to survive if they don't, and then whale on 'em if they don't get it right.  There's parents that sit on welfare and complain endlessly, and expect their kids to take care of their physical and emotional needs.  There's ones that belong to this or that exteme religious group and advocate hatred and rascism and violence.  There's parents that feed their kids speed, and other uppers and downers from the time they are little because they just don't want to deal with an active, enquiring child. 

There's a world out there where its perfectly OK to bomb millions of innocents.  Like the kids can't see that the justifications for that are patent nonsense. There's a world where swinging and sex and booze and speeding and every kind of debauchery one could imagine is glorified and used by adults to sell kids ideas and products.  A world where mom and dad and the adults have a wink-wink-nudge-nudge admiration for gangsters and criminals of all stripes because they are smart enough to get away with their crimes in a society where the only real crime is getting caught, and where if you do get caught the rule is use that to get rich.  There's a justice system where if an adult has enough dough there is no law for that person and they can kill, steal defraud and do exactly as they please and then buy their way out of it.  There's a world where cops, elected representatives, teachers, preachers, priests and other supposed responsible adults partake in criminal activity of the most vile nature on a regular basis.  There's a world where corporations can kill, maim, and displace people anywhere on the globe and then just flee to another country or use money to interfere with litigation in any court in any country.

Oh yah, we'ver set such good examples, and given them such a fair and honest caring worlod to grow up into.  Give me a break.  We don't hold ourselves and other adults to account but we expect children to have it all worked out and to be 100% responsible.  After all they should know all this stuff 'cause we told 'em, right?

Give me a break.