I have pasted an article by my boss, Dave Wiles from FYT.
I want to share a brief personal response to this ridiculous idea on the basis that I have been getting increasingly concerned about the way that young people (especially those who have got into trouble) are being portrayed, labelled and treated in our society.
We routinely display disdain and dislike of teenagers in press stories, for example, ‘Young People Now’ conducted some research which found that in a given period across a wide range of media reporting 71% gave a negative view of young people. I am fearful that we are entering a period of irrational knee jerk actions against young people based upon biased and misleading propaganda. Another recent example of this is the banning of hoodies and baseball caps in the Blue water shopping Centre which The Children’s Society has called a “blatant discrimination based on stereotypes and prejudices”. here
So what about the notion of a uniform for young offenders to wear when they are involved in community service? I think this is demeaning, humiliating and offensive and possibly more importantly it will not work in terms of doing anything constructive about offending. It reduces human relations to the kind of humilating tactics used by Victorian educationalists who inflicted dunce caps on some youngsters.
If a ‘uniform for young offenders’ ever becomes a reality I promise to wear the same uniform through out my work as CEO of Frontier Youth Trust (obviously hoping very much that it becomes a fashion statement!!!!!) I will do this as an act of protest against a government that has lost touch with the notion that young people’s behaviour is more complex than the actions of ‘bad’ individuals who are to be castigated for their ‘bad choices’ and which seems intent on responding to populist media fear factories by endorsing inhumane ideas and actions.
This governments responsibility under Article 37a of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that, “No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Mosquito the Rapist aka Bloodlust download
I have been wanting to post on this myself since i heard of both bluewater and the CPO uniform idea but have struggled to find the right words. I think Dave has summed it up brilliantly and i particulary like the idea of youthworkers weqaring the uniform as a protest. If this atrocious idea ever comes to life i would be more than happy to wear one in protest too.
The scary thing is, when I voted in the ‘is this a good idea’ poll on the BBC website about 70% of a fairly high number of people had voted yet!
I think youth workers wearing it as protest is a fab idea… just I’m a bit to figure conscious and I’m not sure they’d be exactly flattering! :-S
I needed to buy some overalls for our motorbike club, we asked the youngsters what colour, no prizes for guessing Orange!!
The fact that Ann Widdicombe thinks its a daft and unworkable idea shows how far to right this government is.