Children to be banned from riding bikes without number plates.

[Tangled Metal]

Just read the reply from the school. Interesting comments using quantifiable numbers of cycling kids. But my question would be whether the whole student body is walking home to get complained about? I bet a few get picked up by motorised vehicles, others get a bus and only a few actually walk to school.

Cunobelin of they want to use figures to argue a case then perhaps you should point out that they need to record how many complaints were from kids who walked home. Are the 89% of complaints that aren't from the cycling subset of 50 (ie 153 complaints) from the whole of the 1217 non- cycling kids or another subset they've (deliberately?) not included in their numerical account of the situation?

Lies, damn lies and statistics incorrectly/incompletely used! As the quotation goes (modified for accuracy of course).

[Tangled Metal]

Another point I have, most times I've seen cycling school kids they're cycling slowly with walking mates. Both subsets of the student body are laughing, joking and messing about. I doubt this is unusual behaviour, but it does make me wonder if there's walking kids involved in the bad behaviour but the cycling kid gets identified? It seems cyclists are more noticeable than anything else in some circumstances.

It's like in my youth, any kid spotted misbehaving with a shock of blonde hair was me because I'm the most recognisable blonde mop head around. Doesn't mean it was me.

[bovlomov]

Punishment of the group is due to racism, not offending by some members.

Hmmm. I'll have to think about that. I'm not sure that I agree, but on the other hand....

[bovlomov]

Actually, I think in the case of minorities, it's quite the opposite. Even though they offend at the same (or sometimes lower) rates as other groups, people perceive they they offend at higher rates. It's rather like cyclists and red light jumping.

Punishment of the group is due to racism, not offending by some members.

Perhaps we need to think of children as an ethnic minority.

Think of how the state, in all its forms, has approached minorities. Think of how some of the population approaches minorities? Fear, suspicion, resentment, and a good dose of double standards. It is strikingly similar to the way children are viewed. As with minorities, children are noticed when they are behaving badly, while nearby adults are overlooked doing the very same things (barging into queues, being dangerous on the road, swearing, spitting, generally being a nuisance).

I think I disagree with your last point. Often the catalyst (or the excuse) is offending by members of the minority. It isn't always supporting existing prejudices. It's just that when you are robbed by someone with a wooden leg, it is easy to conclude that the wooden leg is a necessary element of the crime, and thus all wooden legged persons should be considered suspicious.

What I'm asking is - if no traveller ever stole anything, would the community have the reputation for theft? My opinion is that the fear and ignorance of minorities magnifies their crimes. It doesn't necessarily invent them - though obviously the Sun and Mail do some of that too.

[Vorpal]

Minorites offend at the same, and sometimes lower rates than the rest of the population. However, biased systems sometimes criminalise behavior that is accepted by, or sometimes inherent to minority populations.

As you've brought up Travellers, housing legislation in the UK is written from the perspective of middle class white families. This often serves to exclude or even criminalise the behavior of other groups. This is especially true of Travellers and Roma people.

More recent housing laws are somewhat less biased, but there is still no need (and little effort) to locate Traveller communities within reasonable access of education, jobs, health care, etc. And the most recent laws are not yet well enforced.

The UK has repeatedly failed to implement decisions by the European Court of Human Rights and continues to violate the human rights of Travellers.

What I'm asking is - if no traveller ever stole anything, would the community have the reputation for theft? My opinion is that the fear and ignorance of minorities magnifies their crimes. It doesn't necessarily invent them - though obviously the Sun and Mail do some of that too.

That's like asking if no cyclist ever jumped a red light, would cyclists have a reputation as maverick law-breakers?

It doesn't reflect on white people when a white British person steals something. Why should it reflect upon Travellers? or Black people? Or Asian youth? Yes, fear and ignorance play a role. That's what racism is.

[bovlomov]

I agree with most of that. But I think (and am fairly sure) that some crimes are more likely to be committed by certain minorities. Yes, I know laws are framed according to majority interests, and I know that minority crimes are disproportionately publicised, but...

Years ago, people from a Roman Catholic background were more likely to be associated with alcohol related crime. I believe that was a fair assessment rather than prejudice. And, also years ago, Richard Ingram got into trouble for drawing attention to the Jewishness of the Guinness Trial defendants. If Jews were disproportionately employed in the financial sector, then I suppose they would be more likely to commit those sorts of crimes. I don't know. Baroness Warsi, a few years ago, stated that there was no need for more Muslims in politics, because Muslims had such a bad record for political corruption. Why did she say that? In the US, isn't the Mormon church associated with financial corruption? Is it true or merely prejudice?

I don't think all of these are the result of pure prejudice. Sometimes there is smoke because there is fire. It is the weight that is put on those offences, and the conclusions that are drawn, that are the problem.

If you can prove that travellers are generally more honest than the rest of the population, then fine. If they aren't, then punish the ones who commit the offences. It shouldn't be an excuse for refusing planning consent, or an excuse for any other method of discrimination.

[thirdcrank]

I agree with most of that. But I think (and am fairly sure) that some crimes are more likely to be committed by certain minorities. ....

If you accept that crime or whatever you like to call it is socially constructed, then it's not suprising that different social groups have differing norms. Within a society, those norms tend to change over time. It's again not surprising that there are differing views about what's ok between age groups within a society. A pretty obvious example involves the way women have been treated through time and across cultures.

[bovlomov]

I agree with most of that. But I think (and am fairly sure) that some crimes are more likely to be committed by certain minorities. ....

If you accept that crime or whatever you like to call it is socially constructed, then it's not suprising that different social groups have differing norms. Within a society, those norms tend to change over time. It's again not surprising that there are differing views about what's ok between age groups within a society. A pretty obvious example involves the way women have been treated through time and across cultures.

Yes. It's splitting hairs, really. The difference between blind prejudice and partially sighted prejudice.

I think that when people draw attention to the shortcomings of certain minorities, they aren't always making it up. They often alight on a genuine phenomenon, but the misjudgement is in the selection, magnification and faulty reasoning.

[Cyril Haearn]

I agree with most of that. But I think (and am fairly sure) that some crimes are more likely to be committed by certain minorities. ....

If you accept that crime or whatever you like to call it is socially constructed, then it's not suprising that different social groups have differing norms. Within a society, those norms tend to change over time. It's again not surprising that there are differing views about what's ok between age groups within a society. A pretty obvious example involves the way women have been treated through time and across cultures.

The ladies have taken over from the laddies, +4!*
Most of my adult life has been spent under a female head of government, can anyone here remember when a king reigned in London?

Ladies are in charge in London, Belfast, Edinburgh, the last male HoG, head of government is in Cardiff

* Thatcher, Merkel, May, HM The Queen

[thirdcrank]

... Yes. It's splitting hairs, really. The difference between blind prejudice and partially sighted prejudice.

I think that when people draw attention to the shortcomings of certain minorities, they aren't always making it up. They often alight on a genuine phenomenon, but the misjudgement is in the selection, magnification and faulty reasoning.

I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing. I'm saying that what we believe to be right or wrong is largely formed by our upbringing and similar influences: it's neither innate nor permanent. That varies from society to society and will change with time. If others do things differently, we may see it as wrong and they may return the compliment. Who's to decide who is right and wrong? (This is a long way from number plates for schoolchildren.)

[bovlomov]

... Yes. It's splitting hairs, really. The difference between blind prejudice and partially sighted prejudice.

I think that when people draw attention to the shortcomings of certain minorities, they aren't always making it up. They often alight on a genuine phenomenon, but the misjudgement is in the selection, magnification and faulty reasoning.

I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing. I'm saying that what we believe to be right or wrong is largely formed by our upbringing and similar influences: it's neither innate nor permanent. That varies from society to society and will change with time. If others do things differently, we may see it as wrong and they may return the compliment. Who's to decide who is right and wrong? (This is a long way from number plates for schoolchildren.)

I think we touched on both subjects. There are the cultural differences,and there is outright wrongdoing. Some of the friction between minorities and the rest of society is a product of mutual incomprehension. And some of the friction happens when someone from a minority commits an offence that is an offence in any culture (e,g, murder or theft) and the whole group is damned by association.

It isn't a long way from the topic. When a group of children are doing wheelies down the middle of the road, I'd say it falls into the former category. They are behaving properly by their own lights (even if they have none). And when all children cycling to a school are targeted because of the behaviour of a few, it falls into the latter - the damning by association and resulting collective punishment.

[thirdcrank]

... I think we touched on both subjects. There are the cultural differences,and there is outright wrongdoing. Some of the friction between minorities and the rest of society is a product of mutual incomprehension. And some of the friction happens when someone from a minority commits an offence that is an offence in any culture (e,g, murder or theft) and the whole group is damned by association.

It isn't a long way from the topic. When a group of children are doing wheelies down the middle of the road, I'd say it falls into the former category. They are behaving properly by their own lights (even if they have none). And when all children cycling to a school are targeted because of the behaviour of a few, it falls into the latter - the damning by association and resulting collective punishment. (My emphasis)

I think that the bit I've highlighted is where we seem to differ, in particular, who decides what's "outright wrongdoing?" I can think of various examples here of what I'm trying to say, but I'm reluctant to mention them because somebody will argue about the rights and wrongs of the examples rather than what we are discussing.

On the matter of groups of children, I'm not sure that as individuals they do believe they are behaving properly, but rather they are trying to conform with the norms of their group: the notorious peer pressure.

While I've been writing this, it's occurred to me that collective responsibility has deep roots in England. I was going to mention Hue and Cry as an example, but I see that's now a pop group. Digging into the recesses of memory I remembered the Statute of Winchester. There's a lot of collective responsibility in the chapter headings (and even something about the width of highways, but not cycle lanes )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Winchester

[Cugel]

... Yes. It's splitting hairs, really. The difference between blind prejudice and partially sighted prejudice.

I think that when people draw attention to the shortcomings of certain minorities, they aren't always making it up. They often alight on a genuine phenomenon, but the misjudgement is in the selection, magnification and faulty reasoning.

I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing. I'm saying that what we believe to be right or wrong is largely formed by our upbringing and similar influences: it's neither innate nor permanent. That varies from society to society and will change with time. If others do things differently, we may see it as wrong and they may return the compliment. Who's to decide who is right and wrong? (This is a long way from number plates for schoolchildren.)

I think we touched on both subjects. There are the cultural differences, and there is outright wrongdoing. Some of the friction between minorities and the rest of society is a product of mutual incomprehension. And some of the friction happens when someone from a minority commits an offence that is an offence in any culture (e,g, murder or theft) and the whole group is damned by association.

It isn't a long way from the topic. When a group of children are doing wheelies down the middle of the road, I'd say it falls into the former category. They are behaving properly by their own lights (even if they have none). And when all children cycling to a school are targeted because of the behaviour of a few, it falls into the latter - the damning by association and resulting collective punishment.

There is a current belief in human rights - what you might otherwise describe as the right to be protected "from offence that is an offence in any culture". Such offenses (and the associated human right) are not as common as you might think, if you consider the whole scope of human history and even the whole scope of current cultures world-wide. Even slavery, killing of others and many things we would both describe (from our own cultural perspective) as crimes are elsewhen or elsewhere the norms or even virtues.

There's only one sort of right - the legal right. These are constructed by civilisations of various kinds. Generally they seem to result in a safer world for humans than those conditions often described as "the state of nature" from whence we arose, before even tribes, when we were animals uncluttered by complex languages, organisations, hierarchies and all the other paraphernalia of civilisations.

Yet even civilisations of some complexity can be savage. Consider some of those extant in South America before the Spaniards arrived. Consider that of those same Spaniards.

Cugel

[Vorpal]

Travellers have been used as an example several times here.

If we look at something like the Dale Farm near Basildon....

What if, instead of spending millions of pounds on court cases and eviction, the local authorities had spent a fraction of the cost to:
-approve planning permission
-upgrade the site
-provide water, sewerage & waste removal
-develop a community reconciliation & involvement programme
???

Why were the the Travellers wrong? Because people created laws that said so. The problem is that the people who create the laws think it's better to live in a house with a fixed address. And they also establish a supporting system for people who lived in traditional houses with permanent addresses.

Then, when people come along who don't want to live like that, the system says they can't just buy land and put their caravans on it. They have to do so in designated spaces. Then, the local authority provide crappy places for designated spaces.

Which is criminal? Living on land where you don't have the right planning permission? Or telling Travellers that they have to live on land that doesn't have good access to schools, health care, or jobs, and not a single shop within a reasonable walking distance.

[Psamathe]

Travellers have been used as an example several times here.

If we look at something like the Dale Farm near Basildon....

What if, instead of spending millions of pounds on court cases and eviction, the local authorities had spent a fraction of the cost to:
-approve planning permission
-upgrade the site
-provide water, sewerage & waste removal
-develop a community reconciliation & involvement programme
???

Why were the the Travellers wrong? Because people created laws that said so. The problem is that the people who create the laws think it's better to live in a house with a fixed address. And they also establish a supporting system for people who lived in traditional houses with permanent addresses.

Then, when people come along who don't want to live like that, the system says they can't just buy land and put their caravans on it. They have to do so in designated spaces. Then, the local authority provide crappy places for designated spaces.

Which is criminal? Living on land where you don't have the right planning permission? Or telling Travellers that they have to live on land that doesn't have good access to schools, health care, or jobs, and not a single shop within a reasonable walking distance.

I don’t know about the Basildon situation but close to me we have had a Traveller planning issue. A Traveller family purchased a field and with no permissions “built” their residence (more than parking a caravan). It was a rural site protected from development by several planning policies, a couple specific to protecting the valley. Unfortunately for the wildlife the Travellers developed a Great Crested Newt habitat. A nearby house with land had had development applications refused because of the policies in place. The Traveller family previously had Council housing they chose to leave. Why should Traveller families get special treatment not available to the settled community allowing the destruction of protected areas?

The particular site had no access to schools, no access to shops, no access to transport links, no local access to healthcare. From a residential perspective it met your “crappy site” description. Highways declared the access unsafe, wildlife objected, etc.

Ian