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If this doesn’t make you very worried for the country that was supposed to be a bastion of democracy and freedom, like ours, then there’s something wrong with you.
THOUSANDS of the worst families in England are to be put in “sin bins” in a bid to change their bad behaviour, Ed Balls announced yesterday.
The Children’s Secretary set out £400million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV super-vision in their own homes.
They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.
Private security guards will also be sent round to carry out home checks, while parents will be given help to combat drug and alcohol addiction.
Around 2,000 families have gone through these Family Intervention Projects so far.
But ministers want to target 20,000 more in the next two years, with each costing between £5,000 and £20,000 – a potential total bill of £400million.
Ministers hope the move will reduce the number of youngsters who get drawn into crime because of their chaotic family lives, as portrayed in Channel 4 comedy drama Shameless.
Sin bin projects operate in half of council areas already but Mr Balls wants every local authority to fund them.
He said: “This is pretty tough and non-negotiable support for families to get to the root of the problem. There should be Family Intervention Projects in every local authority area because every area has families that need support.”
And the families in England will just roll over and accept it. These are “bad” families, it’s OK! So, the families in this program are apparently drug-addicted parents whose kids aren’t going to school. So, are we going to see clean and sober parents put on this program one day because their kids are truant? How about if they get too many speeding tickets? What if they have too many carbon emissions? But of course, we have to make sure that these families eat properly and go to bed on time.
So what happens if they stay up until midnight chowing down on some McDonald’s?
This is a very, very dangerous program and I cannot believe it is being allowed to happen. Although, if it was going to happen anywhere, of course it was Great Britain.
It’s sad. It was once such a strong, proud country, and now look what liberal, socialist policies have done to it.
1984, here we come.
Hat Tip: Rachel Lucas
Knightbrigade says: If we don’t change the Liberal/socialist wave that is trying to strangle this country, that will be America in 20 years…..
BobV says: Well, as long as it’s being done for their own good . . .
ZJ says: That’s a slippery slope fallacy. Just because they are doing it with some families, does not mean it is going to happen to everyone. If you’re going to comment on a country that isn’t your own, I’d suggest maybe speaking to people that live there or know a lot about the culture of the place. I’ve been in the UK for quite a few years now as a medical student and I’ve seen the effects that many of these families have. There is a huge culture in certain areas of families where parents are working multiple jobs and can’t take care of their kids. They can’t cook proper meals and ensure healthy nutrition for them due to expense. It is much easier and cheaper to send them to a chippy (ie fried food) for dinner. Parents don’t monitor the activities of their children and alcohol is easily accessible, so kids as young as 12 will go out on school nights and get drunk. Many children (and parents) have little to no sexual education, so teen pregnancy is a huge problem. Kids leave school at a young age and work low-income jobs because they don’t have the education to do anything else. This creates a vicious cycle. Low socioeconomic status is an issue that ties all these things together. I have been to schools and seen the effects of these problems.
I think it’s great that the government is doing something to try to change the problem around. Not only are they helping the children, and trying to ensure that they get a good education and proper nutrition, but they are also going to help the parents combat drug and alcohol additions – both habits that result in many other issues (health and economic, for example). Kudos to the UK for taking a step in the right direction.
ZJ says: Also, I did a bit of research and came up with this (from the department for children, schools, and families website)
Families will not be monitored by CCTV in their own homes. Through Family Intervention Projects (FIPs) we are supporting and challenging the small number of families involved in persistent anti-social behaviour. FIP workers spend time observing families in their own homes, helping them to recognise that their anti-social behaviour is unacceptable. They focus on the causes of their behaviour, and challenge them to make changes so they can turn their lives around. A very small number of families who need further intensive support are placed in residential units with project workers living with them – this does not involve CCTV.
This is part of the Government’s approach to preventing and tackling anti-social behaviour and youth crime. In the last year alone, FIPs have challenged and supported over 2300 families to turn their behaviour around. Twelve months on from the Youth Crime Action Plan, Ed Balls and Alan Johnson have written to all local authorities in England asking them to expand and accelerate FIPs. Councils and police have reported that FIPs are an excellent way of preventing and tackling crime and anti-social behaviour.
They also said:
These schemes have impressive results – for more than four out of five (85%) families, complaints about anti-social behaviour ceased or reduced and in nine out of ten (92%), the risk to local communities was assessed as having either reduced or ceased completely by the time families left the project. In addition, for four out of five families, there was no further possession action taken against their homes and significant improvements in schools attendance were found.*
You can read about this in more detail here:
http://www.respect.gov.uk/members/article.aspx?id=8678
where they explain the cost of treating vs non treating (this is something that we use in medicine as well, to see if a medication/therapy/operation/etc is worth using, i.e. can it save the healthcare system money in the long run)
Knott Buyinit says: If Wikipedia were not yet another bastion of ultralibtardiness:
“These schemes have impressive results (says who?) – for more than four out of five (85%) families, complaints(from whom?) about anti-social behaviour (as assessed by what authority?) ceased or reduced (this is meaningless…break this down, how much ceased, how much reduced?) and in nine out of ten (92%), the risk(what kind?) to local communities was assessed as having either reduced or ceased completely(see “this is meaningless” above) by the time families left the project. In addition, for four out of five families, there was no further possession action taken against their homes(by whom? why?) and significant improvements in schools attendance(which schools?) were found(citation needed).*
*Is this anther scheme hatched by what David Cameron calls a “Quango“.
ZJ says: Are you assuming I took all that info from Wikipedia? (Excuse me if I’m mistaken) If that is the case though, you should click on the link I attached – that is where I got the info from. The * citation is here:
* Nixon, J., Hunter, C., and Parr, S. (2006) ‘Anti-social Behaviour Intensive Family Support Projects: An evaluation of six pioneering projects’. Department for Communities and Local Government.
at the bottom of that same page if you scroll down. I will be honest in that I have not had time to read that particular piece yet, so I don’t know what it says exactly. At the end of the day though, we can sit here and slander something that could actually turn out to be a great project that could help a reasonable amount of people, or we can applaud the government for actually trying to do something about it. Like I said before, try to find out about a particular area before you jump to conclusions about it. I completely see where Cassy is coming from, but like I said it’s a slippery slope argument that we could apply to nearly anything!
As I’m currently living in the UK and I’ve been to/lived near areas where there are kids that could benefit from interventions such as these, I can see the benefits of it. I have a few personal examples of destructive behavior that school-age kids have done specifically to my friends, and I’ve also witnessed the effects of their behavior in school and on other kids.
Regarding your comments above – obviously I can’t quantify or explain a lot of that as I don’t know – but in terms of ‘which schools’ most kids go to public, government funded schools where many teachers have trouble controlling them. I’m on vacation right now but when I head back I’ll see what else I can find out.
ZJ says: You should really check out that site – they’ve got a lot of information that might help answer your questions. I’m in the middle of exam period right now but I just skimmed through this, it may be of some (more concrete) interest:
http://www.respect.gov.uk/members/case-studies/article.aspx?id=8634
There are a ton of case studies regarding specific events etc.
One thing I saw when I skimmed over this one was about kids congregating outside stores/supermarkets. That was a huge issue in one of the towns I used to live in. Schoolkids were only allowed in stores in certain numbers and there had to be security guards (in addition to other security measures) at the front during peak hours because these kids used to steal really often.
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