How youths are portrayed in the media?

The first article is telling that the two youths are no nice people and that they are a couple of trouble makers. This is true because the title for the article is ‘brothers in crime stay at large’. He also uses pictures of the two boys that are not very suitable. These pictures are possible used from a photo album when the kids are messing about. The writer says that they were put on anti behaviour orders (ASBOs) that banned them the centre in the town of Weston-Super-Mare in Somerset. He also said that their joyriding, harassment, intimidation and shoplifting crimes reached nearly one hundred.  The writer also uses past criminal offence that they have been charged for like ‘the brothers appeared before flax Bourton magistrates after breaching behaviour orders imposed two years ago. They were prohibited to go in the town centre and they broke the ban many many times. The writer only looked at the boys from one angle, he only writes about how bad they are and giving the impression that they should be locked up somewhere, anywhere.

Further development 2

The second article is telling that how much crimes rates are decreasing, not increasing and how tagging young offenders send the wrong message to the public. Ms Monagham gives the message that youth crime is decreasing and that the public are only concerned with the crimes that are going on and not enough concern for how much crime has decreased by youths. It also speaks about how offenders come from a background of no love given to them by there families. It says that young offenders haven’t been given much attention and they commit crimes to have some attention of people and especially by their families. The attitude towards this article is that it is trying to put across the message that youth crimes are decreasing and the approach that the writer is using is by giving an example of a 10 year old and asking if it if fair to prosecuting someone of such a young age and what affects it will have on that person later on in life. The statistics show that Ms Monagham uses such places and people as the writer of the ASBOs, Apex Scotland, Audit Scotland and the Scottish exclusive on youth crimes.

Own enquiry    

I have gave this matter further research and I have found that information given on the first article comes manly from politicians and they have either said that of wrote and just some common factors that has gone around on papers of on television. They have said that youth is on the rise and most extreme measures need to be taken to stop it from happening. Some parents say that it is on the increase because they have disturbance around their neighbourhood by gangs and trouble makers. The information that has been said in the second article is manly said by people who work with children or on jobs that involve children and some parents show the truth that it is on a decrease and extreme measures like tagging in not necessary, all they need is some attention so they know it is wrong what they are doing wrong. Youths like attention, and they get it when they do something wrong. If adults ignore youths when they do something wrong and give attention to them when they don’t commit a crime they might realise that crime is not the answer for attention.

Conclusion

My views on this matter are very similar to those of Bernadette Monagham. Crime was going on a lot in my area and now there is none what so ever so I think youth crime is on the decrease especially in drugs drinking and smoking underage. I know some people with their tags and they say to me they will collect as many as possible, they think the more they get the better it is. I think that the BBC are writing what they think is the truth and get the public to see their point of view, which is that all youth criminals are horrible thuds that go around causing trouble where ever they go and thinking the worse the consequence the better they are doing. But they don’t realise that all they are doing is creating a stereotype which will not only be used, it will also be remembered for many years to come. However the Monagham article has highlighted all of the above points that I have made as well as putting forward some more. E.g. she says that “we need to remember that the child of young person who is persistently offending today may become tomorrows neglecting parent,” what she is saying here is that a child seeking attention and committing crimes may well be the parent who is ignoring their child and not showing love for them. If we keep saying that crime is increasing then it will increase because we’re are showing weakness. We have to cover all the leaks and make no opportunities for this to happen and tell the truth in the articles and the press so that every one knows what is actually happing and have a better chance to stop their child falling down that road, or stopping them committing crimes.