East Marsh Ward Councillor Jon-Paul Howarth and North East Lincolnshire Council’s youngest elected member writes a regular article for VOX Magazine, which is a magazine for the young people of this area. Each edition contains the VOXX blog; which is either the views or rants of my fellow colleague – depending on if you agree with his views?
Hello and welcome to the third edition of my blog.
Are young people being made to like criminals by the media?
I you read newspapers or watch the news it is quite often that you will see young people being blamed for some problem, or being shown in bad light.
‘Only young people binge drink.’
‘Hoodie wearing kids run amok at night terrorizing old folk.’
These are just some of the things that I heard since becoming a local councillor, and I am becoming increasingly aware of older people’s opinions on young people are becoming worse. They see young people, especially in my ward, as hoodie-wearing asbos, who take drugs, abuse everyone, and respect nothing. However the majority of young people however are – shock horror – decent! They don’t commit crime and are themselves worried about crime.
Young people being treated unfairly is not a new problem: ‘What is happening to our children? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets.’ That wasn’t a quote from a newspaper today – it was said by a philosopher called Plato who was born before Jesus.
So maybe the problem is that children are now becoming too educated, learning that they have rights and are to stand up and speak for themselves, looking for reasons to complain? However, I think that something needs to be done and instead of focussing on the negative minority we should be rewarding positive behaviour in young people. This is something I stated to the Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Panel and I am going to be pushing for even more.
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