I.e. areas where deprivation is high neighbouring others with levels of opportunities not available to the socially excluded, leading to diminished social cohesion. As a result of this, these areas may suffer from higher levels of crime and the fear of it. This fear can manifest itself in various forms such as limited mobility around the area where there are high levels of groups of youth’s. The actual financial costs to the tax paying public is growing rapidly as a result of the vast amount of young offenders especially in the 15-17 age group, as a consequence of this more police have been recruited in order to curtail the growing tide of crime. Other strains on taxation are teenage mothers, the homeless and truants.
There are two individual yet tied causes acknowledged as economic and social change together with inadequate government policy’s, working practices and poor interdepartmental communication. The economic driving force behind social exclusion can be seen as greater competition on an international level, together with the necessity for a constantly changing and evolving workforce to meet the growing market for technically skilled employees. This need will continue to rise as thee “old” industries diminish such as mining and ship building. The needs of future industries will be based on greater technical skills and qualifications with greater adaptability of the individual. In the case of the UK we are at present falling behind almost all other countries in recruiting training and educating this “new work force”. In order to achieve the necessary levels of a skilled workforce to insure future economic stability and security, we must first deal with the problems of high rates of truancy that creates a youth with a lack of education and training. This creates a lack of skilled and an educated workforce at ground level, therefore employers can not warrant employing completely unskilled and unproven workers, hence creating a group which is socially excluded from the rest of society. Individuals who have been geographically excluded from society who reside in sink or dump estates containing a large proportion of unemployed, single parents, ethnic minorities, and drug or alcohol abusers. These people will find it very difficult to obtain training, employment and education resulting from their anti social geographic circumstances.
Social exclusion can occur under many different circumstances such as the failure of governmental departments to take responsibility for an individual. This arises through a lack of communication between departments i.e. if a youth is still at school, is a truant with a drug habit, has a string of petty criminal offences and lives in care, and was attempting to change the direction of their life while also looking for support from governmental resources, where would that youth look? and who would accept them under their wing?. The reality of this situation is that this youth finds themselves in a “pinball” situation, being sent in all different directions until they loose hope and or belief in the system, finally at 16 being classed as a juvenile delinquent the difficulties that arise within the agencies are a result of their limited remit i.e. they maybe deal with only sections of the problem and not the whole. They might deal with the problem of truancy and not the underlying issues such as the drug habit, if the agency had the power and resources to deal with all of the youth’s issues perhaps a better future could be secured for them.
Individuals who are social excluded need not necessarily be living in relative poverty. There are circumstances which will create social exclusion as a result of factors other than those of a financial nature. Youths who have been excluded from education as a result of truancy are excluded from job opportunities due to their poor track record achieved at school and lack of basic skills. The disabled are another group who are socially excluded resulting from the stigma attached to their disabilities, providing a barrier to inclusion. Single parents may also be socially excluded in the sense that there is not enough provision of adequate and financially viable childcare readily available, and more importantly, lose out on possible employment or even interviews when a prospective employer is aware of the single parent status. Youths or disabled people leaving care are also socially excluded from many avenues of self edification and proper housing. Teenage pregnancies under sixteen face social exclusion resulting from the view that they have brought this upon themselves, also they are unable to continue with a full time education.
All of these individuals can be placed in social exclusion through biased attitudes and mis-information of conditions or through lack of resources that will enable them to better themselves, rather than purely being based on the condition of relative poverty, although relative poverty can arise as a result of some of the conditions mentioned above i.e. disabilities.
REFERANCE
Accessed on 17/03/04
