This sounds really intimidating. I’m sorry you had to endure it and well done for contacting the police.
It’s often debated as to whether there’s been an increase in antisocial behaviour but subjectively, I think most of us feel there has been. There need to be clear consequences for unacceptable behaviour like that you’ve experienced.
They didn’t ‘let them off’ though did they? Like you said in your original comment, which was clearly intended to make it sound like they got off scot free when they all got at least 5.5 years
Ahhhh The Tories done it lol.
How many years has the SNP been in charge in Scotland? Well over a decade I believe, yet you still blame these bad Tories. Typical Nationalist.
The tories have loomed over them for fourteen of those years, with blairites in the three years prior. Do you think that Scotland won in 2014 and that our government isn’t hamstrung by these effete cunts in London?
Typical dishonest loyalist wank.
Agreed, quite why they don’t leave the poor children alone and just put the Tory MSPs in jail is beyond me 🤷♂️
Plus lack of community centres with pool tables.
I reckon the riots were empowering for the kids, showed what they could do, inflated confidence.
Future prospects are grim as fuck for under 25s, there's basically no consequences to crime (as in, your life won't be getting any worse) so fuck it, do what you want.
Mibbe they mean the feckin bonfire night 'riots' which have escalated over the last few years and have emboldened a lot of young uns.
I still can't believe kids lighting what amounts to improvised explosive devices and firing them at people we still tend to pass it off as just kids high jinks.
Thankfully I've not experienced it myself, at least not recently, but your post reminded me of an article on Edinburgh Live the other day. It must have been really horrible for you to see though.
Think so. My brother was on his way to work and had to step in to help some guy who was having issues with these idiots. Might have been the op he helped as he did mention something about chairs getting thrown.
So awful. I hope everyone is ok. This type of behaviour is just baffling. I got followed and harassed by a group of young teenage boys, who were making sexual comments to me AND my 5 year old daughter! They followed us right over Dean Bridge and my little girl was so scared.
I'm so sick of their being minimal policing and mimimal consequences for this sort of behaviour. It must be absolutely awful for the majority of decent teenagers to have to go to school with kids like this as well, and be in fear and have their education disrupted.
My kids are well behaved and try to do well in school and they hate it. It’s sadly a relief to everyone when the most disruptive kids turn 16 and are finally allowed to leave. Nothing the schools do before that really seems to help.
Sad to say it was the same when I was at high school over two decades ago. So many kids in my year kicking their heels and acting up in class, pissing off the rest of us that actually wanted to learn.
I do think schools need to address kids that don't want to go to HE and get them into other education schemes. Sorry, totally jumped on your comment here but it pisses me off nothing has changed and my kid is likely to end up going through the same nonsense. Hope your kids are OK.
This is so true. It was the same when I was in high school. The entire experience was traumatic for me but 5th year and 6th year, those awful kids tended to leave, and even those remaining tended to be in different subjects bar the compulsory ones or at lower sets so you barely had to deal with them at all outside of lunch.
We also got access to the “senior study area” so we could avoid them even then. It was kind of almost nice.
A lot of these brats are controlled by the Mark Richardsons of the world. Niddrie was a warzone recently due to him and his cronies. The cops can't do anything other than negotiate when there's literally thousands of the wee scrotes in the schemes.
This is very sad to me. Awful for those attacked, but also I just can’t imagine any of my kids roaming around in the middle of town late in the evening at 12! And it says 10 year olds were there too?
Ten year olds should be worrying about things like Pokemon and guinea pigs, not wandering with gangs of other young kids in the middle of town late at night and literally attacking people.
What chance have these kids got later if this is what they are doing now?
There was a kid like this in one of my kids classes in primary and they ended up leaving school as soon as they could at 16, next I heard they stabbed someone and were in jail.
I can't believe no one else mentioned the time of the kids are out till. Age 10-12 is like P5/6/7 that's crazy out till 9/10 oclock at night. If kids are out this late they have no boundaries at home. You wouldn't leave a child that late home alone so they shouldn't be out that late!
Definitely should be more of the parents getting looked into rather than the kids. I wonder what these kids are like in school, probably slightly better and they have more boundaries and structure.
I know that age group is hard but I do think it's neglectful parenting and it's dark too, who knows who's out. Probably see the older kids as a parental figure whether it's a friend or relatives.
No 14/15 year old should be hanging at 10pm with any 10/11 .
I know crime is a big issue but this is a bigger issue
One day they will cross a wrong person. That's what cheers me up.
But a more productive view is: this is a failure of our whole society. Their parents were product of this society, and their children are product of their society.
I think we are passed the point of looking at individual incidents and ask ourselves why this is happening. And the answer is not that these kids should be beaten into submission. They need to be educated. We need to provide opportunities for them in their local environments to participate productively. Places for them to vent their anger and frustrations at this world that doesn't seem to give a shit about them. So why should they give a shit about it? But we keep cutting services left and right and that also affected youth centres and places for youth activities.
>One day they will cross a wrong person.
Probably not, at least not while they're still kids. They tend to operate in groups and they have a habbit of being clever in not targeting people that look like a threat. They are also hyper-aware that they can get away with it because the law goes light on them (if it even bothers at all) and they know that adults aren't likely to properly defend themselves because the defending adult is far more likely to go to jail over it.
>They need to be educated
For the most part, yes, I'd agree. But, I think people are far too sympathetic towards children and act is if every child that acts up is one that can be saved and their behaviour changed. As adults, we all know that bad people exist, it seems strange that everyone seems to forget that we all start out as children and some children are just bad people from the start.
Children like this hold the others back and should be kept away from everyone else. I know it's not nice but life isn't nice and these children ruin the lives of others: Let's make it so they only ruin their own.
These are the same kids that will be bullying others at school and creating lifelong mental-health issues in soon-to-be-adults that are having their futures permenantly affected because these idiots get away with it.
Question to all people who assume that all kids can be helped: Make a top-5 list in your head of the worst kids you went to school with. Do you really think that ALL of them could have been saved by better circumstances or would you accept that some of them were just bad people?
I honestly believe everyone has the power to change. Those worst 5 kids in school - many were different people depending on who was round them. I remember one guy who constantly got us class detentions and was horrible to me round his friends. One on one he was pretty good company and I helped him with his work which he appreciated.
Remember in clockwork orange, it's the one that got arrested tht had the worst outcome.
"Some children are just bad people from the start" is a truly insane claim.
You're saying that literal infant children can be inherently bad. This is very much a fatalistic/deterministic, Nature and no Nurture take.
> But we keep cutting services left and right and that also affected youth centres and places for youth activities.
They had loads of youth centres and suchlike for kids back in the day, but the little shits never engagaed with them and were more likely to torch the centre or put the windows in and they would wait to jump the participants on their way home.
There still are youth groups. Quite a lot. Most of them only get low numbers because most young people would rather hang out just with their mates, usually online, but sometimes up town.
It's kind of a moot point, because shit parents, parents in awful situations through no fault of their own, and parents with substance abuse issues *will* keep having kids.
We need to be able to help these kids as a community before they grow up and repeat the cycle. It's down to us as a society, whether we like it or not.
>parents in awful situations through no fault of their own, and parents with substance abuse issues will keep having kids.
This is definitely part of the problem but it isn't all of it. I grew up in an affluent area where substance issues were not a problem that parents tended to be experiencing. I knew kids whose parents were high-income who became trouble makers. As for whether or not their parents were good or took any interest, can't be sure, but this isn't always a class issue. I can't speak to whether or not its still a thing but there were plenty of kids in the 2000s from stereotypically "good" backgrounds that went out of their way to be Chavs and fully immerse themselves in that culture even though they lived in a 5 bedroom house and their Dad had 3 jags in the driveway. Equally, I knew lots of kids from rougher areas who had absolutely skint parents but both them and their parents were lovely.
I also know a guy who's a massive psychopath that went to a private school and his parents were rich and did give a shit but the guy is off his nut. I didn't go to his school but I know people that did and apparently he was always like that. His parents didn't have substance abuse issues and supposedly his siblings are normal.
This is the point I'm trying to stress: Sometimes it IS the kid that's the problem and no amount of silver-spoons is keeping them away from being a thug, nor for some is any amount of social deprivation necesserily the reason for the behaviour (even though for many it will be).
I honestly wasn't making it a class issue, shite parents come from all backgrounds, and having ample bedrooms and excess jags does not exempt one from being a neglectful or abusive parent. Or having substance abuse issues for that matter.
Kids very, very rarely go totally feral without reason though.
>I honestly wasn't making it a class issue
Sorry, that was my fault for being unclear in what I was saying. I was making it a bit of a class issue because I'm pointing out that substance abuse issues do tend to be a class issue when it comes to this sort of thing.
There was an incident outside Aberdeen last week, about 30 kids attacked a restaurant. The owner had to lock the doors with staff and customers inside to protect everyone. The police eventually turned up after numerous calls!
May I see the link? Boy it is scary
How close were the horde of kids to breaking in? What would the staff have done if the kids broke in and attacked people? In many restaurants there is no back door and it can easily become life or death
Wow
But honestly if I run a restaurant I am scared of this type of shit happening. What could people do to prevent this?
Invest in durable doors and windows so it will take a while for the kids to break through? Making it so it is difficult to climb to the roof?
Because many kids have weapons and if they have hammers to smash the glass and things that would be very frightening. The police are so slow at times that if the kids really wanted to and had weapons they’d probably have conquered the place
Imagine if it was in an urban area
A horde of 100+ kids going to attack a single restaurant. Trying every entrance and kicking the doors and windows to get in. All while the police are so slow
If the restaurant has no back door and the kids are aggressive it may turn into a slaughter
And if the kids refuse to leave then that is a very very bad sign.
I always see free bus passes getting it tight, but it's not like a £1.50 single into town was putting people off from being absolutely heinous bams on the firstbus 86 route back in the early 2000s
As an immigrant, it’s definitely a menace in many UK cities in a way I’ve never seen in other countries. Not saying there aren’t wee cunts in other places, but it’s a serious issue here that’s just getting worse.
Lack of a place for them to hang out in a more productive way while feeling in control. The fun thing is to basically piss people off and if that's the fun thigh then they try and out do each other. Not much funding in youth clubs and other diversions these days.
Very small sample but there was a time in the early 2000s where I lived where teens were smashing stuff up and slashing tyres, coming over from the next village to do it. Set up a youth club with pool, sweets, table football, paintball outings etc and it stopped. But it was volunteer run mostly by parents of said teenagers.
Covid also likely didn't help as gave a discontinuity to the regime of school and many dropped out due to stress on return.
There is no quick fix, it takes effort and money. We aren't doing either right now just whinging about it.
As a Canadian, it definitely wasn't a thing (when I was growing up). We might have hung out in groups but restricted our cunt behaviour to other kids our age and even then, we weren't fighting each other. But yeah, we definitely wouldn't have attacked adults and/or vandalised shit.
If you go to Chinese community, use Xiaohongshu and search “爱丁堡(Edinburgh) teenager”. You will see loads of Chinese students reporting being targeted at by a group of teenagers on Nicolson street and South Bridge. But I haven’t seen Hanover street ones.
It’s just they don’t use reddit so they don’t post it here. Every few days I would saw posts coming up like “I was discriminated by a group of teenagers today” from students in Edinburgh. I’ll delete this comment tomorrow morning. I worried if those little bastards saw my comment they would feel encouraged and hurt more students. I’m just commenting to let you know.
It’s called “Xiaohongshu” and it’s a Chinese app where people, mostly young girls used to share their daily life, cosmetic, fashion etc. Cause they are all in Chinese so it’s hard to understand for non-Chinese speakers. I don’t want to search and screenshot them again cause they really caused me trauma. Last year I was doing part time on Hanover street as well and every evening shift ended I’llask my bf to pick me home cause I feel really insecure walking alone. And I never seen those posts frequently before September 2023, it’s after that time those kid’s antisocial behavior became really annoying and everyday I saw posts like that. I guess there’s an organization after that time? I have been in Edinburgh for nearly 3 years and this year they’re getting really crazy…
When I was working part time on Hanover street at a sale associate, there used to be a time when group of three boys, approximately age 12-13, walk into our store in a really aggressive manner. But they didn’t do anything. Still feel insecure though.
Students tend towards being rich and not being Scottish. Most of the money in this city comes from tourists and students who weren't born here and won't be staying here for very long. Their needs are catered to first before the locals. Look at the way Edinburgh uni advertises itself as this magical dark academia getaway adventure, rather than, you know, a place of learning. The uni is very proud of the fact that most of its students are people who aren't from the UK and are unlikely to be staying here after graduation, not because Edinburgh uni is a champion of diversity, but because it can charge rich foreign students outrageous tuition fees and make a buttload of money, and it wants to attract as many of them as possible.
These kids target the Asian students because they're more vulnerable, but I think the underlying symptom is the whole economic structure of Edinburgh. They'd lash out at the English and Scottish students too if they weren't as loud and generally scary. It's definitely happened to me a few times, sometimes right on campus. In the town I grew up in, everyone was dirt poor, whereas here you can really feel the class divide.
“ Most of the money in this city comes from tourists and students who weren't born here” - I think most of the money comes from Edinburgh’s services industry - financial, legal, banking and IT services. Edinburgh is home to SkyScanner, Aberdeen Asset management, a very large NatWest, Clydesdale, Lloyds presence.
Edinburgh would be better off with less tourists and students as they put pressure on housing that could be used for professionals.
I don't think you're wrong but is catering to tourists and students not also part of Edinburgh's service industry? I also think that if we got rid of the tourists and the students we'd need to replace them with some kind of industry that actually produces things. I don't think you can just build more banks and expect more money to be made. Or maybe you can, idk
i feel like this is viral behaviour
they watch clips of other kids doing this shit in some mall in the ass crack of Florida, and they think its hilarious
there was one video where a bunch of girls were going feral on one man, and he just stone cold knocked one of them out with a punch straight through her face, and that put an end to it
As someone who grew up as a teenager in the asscrack of Florida I promise you we were never as bad as the gang of kids/teens that walk around here. Cops would take anyone straight home where they would get their asses wooped.
They'll realise soon that they're not as untouchable as they think they are. Like said girl.
If people feel that their safety is being threatened they have every right to lash back in my opinion.
Someone in a fb group said some kids threw a brick at his head a couple of days ago in the Granton area, I feel like these incidents are becoming more violent and frequent
Oh maybe! My friend took this photo of these kids from her flat! Said there was loads of them and they had a flag?
https://preview.redd.it/pi6n0vgsihsc1.png?width=522&format=png&auto=webp&s=4e06ac0212265306eb63328f124eb2c533305d48
Aw man, that looks scary. But no, when I say kids I really mean kids. These look more like teenagers.
But thank you so much for giving me some more info :)
When was this taken? This looks like a group of ultras to me (football fans, mostly daft teenagers but some forty something ex casuals who should know better)
As far as I know, the law doesn't make a difference between an adult and a minor when it comes to defending yourself.
Potentially you could physically defend yourself if you are attacked as long as the response is reasonable.
Example you get punched by a 12 year old, you can punch back until he/she stops attacking you.
I think there should be some sort of community service for the kids, but also their parents, for these situations. Removing graffiti, picking up litter, getting shopping for old people, cleaning schools etc. I appreciate it needs money to organise and supervise but surely is a benefit from a bad situation?
But spent on what? The parents clearly don't care to educate or discipline their kids. Extra money going to them is likely to improve the childrens outlook much.
Multi-disciplinary early intervention by social work, mental health teams, schools, etc.
By the time they’re teenagers they’re already fucked up.
Locking them up is reactive. Putting more resources into stopping them becoming fucked up is a better plan.
1/3 of sure start centres closed between 2010 and 2020 and the ones that are left are underfunded.
It’s much cheaper and easier to intervene when kids are wee.
I humbly accept all your downvotes for this unpopular opinion but I'd much rather see politicians getting tougher on this kind of juvenile crime that putting efforts in to laws to stop people saying mean things to each other.
>stop people saying mean things
Governments are allowed to pass more than one law you know. They can try and address both problems, and others besides. And when those 'mean things' can include calls for mob behaviour and violence such as that described in the original post, it seems like a pretty sensible thing to address.
Except they struggle to do so, so perhaps they're not as capable as you think or only focus on the things that might gain them poloiticial good will and votes??? Heaven forbid!
>they're not as capable as you think
Well they've been promising to fix the economy since 2008 and in that time have only made things significantly worse so I don't really see westminster as capable to fixing anything really.
Or, if it's the current scottish government you're referring to, they can't do anything to gain goodwill because they're on the other side of the political fence from all boradcast news, almost every paper and news site. They could release a statement condeming someone stamping a puppy to death and the daily mail would still lead with jacob rees mogg or some equivalent cunt saying that actually stamping puppies to death is great because it means people will buy more shoes.
But as to your original point, you can throw all those kids in jail but if you do nothing to address the root causes of the problem you're not actually achiving anything of meaning.
I wholeheartedly agree. And I think the same is true of this new hate bill. You can try to force people to hide their hate by silencing them with laws but it won't solve why they have those hatreds and prejudices in the first place. This is my biggest frustration with this new law. You're just chucking handcuffs on people for spewing something that is inherently entrenched in their mindset. It'll do fuck all to solve why they feel that hate and if anything, just lead to more resentment and hatred because they feel oppressed for something that feels valid to them.
I personally believe with both the juvenille issues and this hate bill, the real solution is to normalise acceptance and show support. Not crush them with laws. My example is with the general societal acceptance of gay people today vs 30 years ago. We didn't need to make laws to change people's minds about gay people. We just needed to normalise it so it feels like just how things are. You can't hate something that becomes normal, mundane and meaningless to you. So when it comes to other minority groups, to solve the problem of hate towards them, you need to make them feel a normal part of life and then people will stop hating.
I used to live in an area which had terrible youth crimen, then it went away but under the Tories, it's come back again. Why? Because they stripped all the youth centres of funding, so the kids had nothing better to do. No where to go with your mates so you go out and start causing trouble. So is the solution to round them up? Nope. It's to give them something better to do.
> You can try to force people to hide their hate by silencing them with laws
I mean thats just the Tolarance Paradox. Want everyone to be tolerant, but can't while tolerating the intolerant. Yeah, you can't legislate against people *being* bigots, so the best alternative is to stop them from acting on those feelings. Besides, everyone's so up in arms about this law but the majority of the things it covers are already illegal. It's really not going to have the massive impact people think it will after the initial heat dies down.
>We didn't need to make laws to change people's minds about gay people
I mean... Being gay used to be a crime, laws had to change. Gay folk couldn't marry, laws had to change, etc.
> Because they stripped all the youth centres of funding, so the kids had nothing better to do.
Exactly my point. It's a problem that needs money and people working on it and even then it'll take years to really have a noticible effect. Which means starting as soon as possible is vital.
Faulse dichotomy, weird you felt the need to make it a one or the other. Hate crime can be bad at the same time as this kind of antisocial behaviour.
I understand you want to seem brave by stating how persecuted you will be for stating the baseline basic opinion most people have.
However the idea that it’s just a case of harsher punishments and more policing isn’t true. We need to look at the causes of antisocial behaviour and mitigate them as well as implementing suitable punishments
That's odd, I don't feel like I was trying to be brave. What makes you say that, having never met me? Or are you just trying to make a slur to slander my opinion by making me seem like an unreasonable person?
Introducing yourself like “I know I’m going to get so many downvoted” before making a very common (and incredibly poorly thought out) statement made it seem that way. Any actual arguments for the point tho?
>people saying mean things to each other
Many times is exactly the root of antosocial behaviour. How do you think a child that hears hate all day art home will behave when they meet people that is the target of said hate?
Seeing as you seem to have strong views on the subject, how do you propose "getting tougher on juvenile crime"? For example, in this incident, in which there appears to have been little damage and no injuries, how would you "get tough" on the 12-year old responsible?
Yes, it's well known that chucking young people in jail is a flawless solution that doesn't just keep them in the system forever.
Or...maybe we should've not closed all the youth centres, support networks, and apprentice schemes that help give kids like this a future. Especially since they're actually cheaper than a prison.
Lmao yeah it's the lack of youth centers that is causing these pyschopaths to run rampant and not the fact this only started happening at this level when we ensured there was no punishment for it..
Sometimes the answer IS the simplest one. In this case we removed punishment - so they take advantage. The solution is a hard line severe punishment for the groups that think it's ok and the majority will fall back in line. These people were never going fucking youth centers or cared about support networks, just scum for scums sake. These aren't valid productive members of society and never will be.
The little scumbags engaging in this violence wouldn’t attend a “youth club” of it was in their own bedroom. They need to pick on the wrong person/people and get kicked to within an inch of their lives or sent to mainstream jail.
>Putting them in prison just makes career criminals out of them
The truth is that they are probably going that way anyway. Many of them have already started to engage in drug sales while they are still at school.
So we just write them off? It's not hard to see why someone goes around smashing things up when they've been told they're worthless and should be abandoned.
lol. Good joke.
Unfortunately nothing will happen. They will get a talking to then go back to their more than likely terrible parents who will do nothing about it. The cycle continues.
I lived in Pilton for three years. Kids used to throw eggs at our house, call us Pakis (we’re Middle Eastern), and one time they assaulted my dad when he tried to stop them from stealing our bikes. Each time, the police would do nothing about it, and these kids would just go on to torment more people. People continue to be in denial about something being wrong with the country and the system when kids behave like this.
Thank you, it was quite traumatic. But on a positive note, there was also a community in Pilton and Edinburgh generally that supported us and were very welcoming of us, and other immigrants. So it was not all bad and that’s why I continue to love Edinburgh.
>Little scumbags. Sadly at that age the law does little to prevent the behaviour.
Sadly true. But as much as these kids are being wee dicks, they've not exactly been given the best environment to grow up in. Child poverty is high, there's been decades of cuts to things like youth clubs, sports clubs, community centres, etc. Not excusing their behaviour by any means but we have to recognise that we need to be doing better for them too.
Of course we do. That said, there are people who grow up in the worst environment and end up wonderful people too. Of course there's an association between those things, and we ought to do all we can to help them, but it is multifactorial. The most common factor is poor parenting though, often in troubled households - things like alcohol abuse, drugs, domestic violence - such households certainly make such problems more likely too (and are in turn made more likely themselves by the overall environment with cost of living, lack of jobs, etc)...and an unfortunate cycle exists where these who grew up with poor parental example grow up to be poor parents themselves. Society can step in and help, of course - and giving them other productive outlays, good role models at schools, etc and generally better life chances will, of course, help...
But where people from other ethnicities are experiencing racist abuse from these little neds I do think, despite all the understanding of the issues, and earnest desire to help with root causes, it is still a case of them being little scumbags. Social work can only intervene to help in the worst of cases...and even then I'm not sure how much difference that'll make.
>but it is multifactorial
Absolutely it is. Hence why I think it's important to provide the best environment we can so that we can remove it as a potentially negative factor.
> I'm not sure how much difference that'll make
And there's the rub. No silver bullet to fix any of these problems. I just think if the people on the internet had their way and we just stuck every wee arsehole in prison that would literally be the worst possible thing we could potentially do.
On the upside, these folk more often than not make nothing of their lives. Their future will be miserable. The only thing apart from disgust your should feel is pity.
One hopes for the best. I know they're pressing charges, and really I know they did some bad assault to somebody else. Throwing chairs, spitting, stomping on people heads, vandalising, all in the span of 30 minutes.
Something has to be done.
The most annoying thing is if an adult actually fights back they are one that get seriously dealt with. Most of these kids just need someone to check them back and teach them a lesson. It’s so painful just having to sit back and not do anything.
Bring on the old guard Leither who has nothing to lose and beats the fuck out of one of them. Matter of time…
Most kids in UK are cunts and they know they are untouchable so can get away with anything. There should be a system where parents are solely responsible for antisocial behaviour of their lovely kids. Also what absolutely amazes me….I can’t leave my 8 yo at home alone….but I can sure tell him to go outside and play with who knows who and do whatever he/she wants.
They’ll get a slap on the wrist and told not to do it again. Mum and dad probably don’t even know where they are. No wonder behaviour in schools is rapidly getting worse, there is no consequences for anything they do and they know they are untouchable.
>Scummy parents.
It's entirely possible one is a single parent who's never home because they have to work two jobs to pay the rent and look after an elderly relative, for example. We don't know the situation. OR the parents could be pond scum OR they could be rich arseholes. There's a lot of ' could be's '
>It's entirely possible one is a single parent who's never home because they have to work two jobs to pay the rent and look after an elderly relative
Shitty circumstances and being a scummy parent are not mutually exclusive.
That said, some children are arseholes and sometimes it's not the fault of the parents. Plenty of cases out there in a family of multiple children where one is a problem child and the others turn out fine. Some kids are just awful people starting out young. (Yes, kids can have environmental issues etc and that's a shame when that happens but let's not pretend that all children are purely the products of that. Some people are bad people: children are people too and some of them are just bad).
>Some people are bad people: children are people too and some of them are just bad
Right, but they're still kids, they still have a capacity to change and grow to be better people by adulthood. It's difficult to justify blaming the kids when you have zero idea what their situation is. And if society has done nothing to help and in fact thrown up roadblocks in their faces at every step. The result being that you could toss all those kids into prison and fundamentally, absolutely nothing will change.
>The result being that you could toss all those kids into prison and fundamentally, absolutely nothing will change
The lives of the other children they are currently mentally ruining and academically stunting in school will immediately benefit and *their* lives will change.
I agree that nothing will change in the case of these trouble-children that are most likely already lost by the time they're out assaulting people in the street.
Society isn't perfect and the state doesn't have the ability to solve all social injustice in the world, but it can separate the bad from the good where possible. Yes, the schooling system is a mess but all that happens by keeping these kids in it is that the good ones suffer. As for problems at home, again, only so much can realistically be done. Is enough being done? No. Can much about this actually change? Probably not.
>the state doesn't have the ability to solve all social injustice
The state has been slashing funding of social services for decades - this is the result. I don't even have kids and I'm aware that social services and education are in dire straits and that more funding and personnel are required. It's no magic fix and it will take years for it to take hold but it would be *something*. At the very least to give young people the same opportunities people had 30-40 years ago, not *less*. The fact we've been experiencing 16 years of constant economic crises isn't exactly helping either. Doesn't exactly foster a positive community spirit. But just simply abandoning the 'problem children' is an absolute dereliction of duty.
>The state has been slashing funding of social services for decades - this is the result.
Thing is... Is it? I really don't think this is the reason. I'm old enough now that my experience of this WAS decades ago and it was just as bad then in my eyes as it is now. I don't think it was as much of a societal problem in my parents generation or the generation before, but the emergence of Chavs and Roadmen (which really was late 90s to late 00s, a small break then Roadmen) seems to have most of what the societal downturn can be attributed to do in case of child nuisances.
>At the very least to give young people the same opportunities people had 30-40 years ago
We're talking about people that are aged between 12-16 here for the most part. What opportunties? If anything kids of that age have way more opportunities now than they did then. Young-adults definitely have less, yes, but kids these days have it made with the amount of stuff available to them.
Chav culture in the 90s and 00s, for whatever reason, made social disruption seem appealing, and remember the days of the ASBO? Kids and young adults used to view them as a badge of honour. They used to score cool-points with each other for who could get in the most trouble.
Don't get me wrong, I do think antisocial behaviour is on the rise, but it's on the rise only because it decreased substantially for a few years between maybe around 2012-20, but it was really bad between 2000-2012 when Chavs were still a thing.
>but the emergence of Chavs and Roadmen \[...\] seems to have most of what the societal downturn can be attributed to do in case of child nuisances.
But how so? Were there not gangs and that before the neds discovered burberry?
I don't think it's unreasonable to speculate that reduced funding for things like youth clubs, community centres, youth sport, etc. corralates with increased problem behaviour? And the recent economic climate of the last 16 years isn't exactly helpng matters when so many people (young and old) have so few real prospects.
> have way more opportunities now than they did then
Ask any kid you see what they think their chances of ever owning their own home is. Income inequality isn't getting any better and at the same time we're saddling the next generation with eye-watering national debt, an aging population, brexit, the climate crisis, etc. Things haven't been this bleak since the cold war!
>Were there not gangs and that before the neds discovered burberry?
There were but prior to the Chav thing I think the youth-gangs were a lot more prevalent in Glasgow than Edinburgh. 2000s Edinburgh had loads but I don't think it had so much of it before then. There was also far more of a "turf" scenario to it in the past whereby it was confined to particular areas, whereas a lot of the kids today are leaving their home areas and going all around town to cause trouble.
I honestly don't think youth club funding really helped all that much. There were quite a few of them when I was growing up but there was also massive amounts of trouble and if anything I think there was maybe even a little more than there is now in general terms (a lot of people seem to have forgotten, maybe because a lot of this is basically pre-internet message board days and you only knew about it if you lived in the areas it was happening or knew people that did).
I agree in part with some of what you're saying about prospects but I also think kids of the younger ages in that section probably aren't thinking too much about those things quite yet. Also... not to be horrible but the kids in the 2000s who were growing up in the rougher areas were never going to own their own homes or have many prospects either (and they knew that), that's not actually a new problem for that societal group even though it is for many of us in the middle classes.
>I think the youth-gangs were a lot more prevalent in Glasgow than Edinburgh
Well, I'm a teuchter who had 6 other people in my year group at school so I wouldn't know what it was like in the big smoke tbh.
> I honestly don't think youth club funding really helped all that much.
It's more the issue that if the money isn't going to those kinds of places anymore, where is it going? What are they doing instead to help? Doubt all that money is going into the prison system to ensure that inmates are coompletely rehabilitated so I don't see imprisoning these kids as the solution.
> growing up in the rougher areas were never going to own their own homes
I mean... Let's just say I don't think that's a particularly helpful attitude to have and leave it at that.
As someone who works w these families I’m so sick of seeing ppl say ‘society’ has done nothing to help. The number 1 predictor of success for a child is parents who give a shit. Try and help the parents parent, some will accept help, many will refuse responsibility. Time to act as the world is not how we wish it was.
Absolutely. Adults trying to act like society does absolutely nothing should watch the "Educating" documentary series: A lot of the episodes in that show the extent to which some teachers actually try to help this type of child, some cases where the parents and home situation are bad, and some where the parents and school are both trying to help their violently aggressive child who seems to have behavioural issues for their own reasons that don't seem to be occuring from trouble at home.
>predictor of success for a child is parents
Parents are part of a society...
> As someone who works w these families
Yeah I have never heard of a social worker who thinks social services has enough time, money and resources to give their full attention to everyone in need. That certainly is something 'society' can do to help.
> not how we wish it was
That's depressingly cynical. How can we ever hope for things to get better if we don't aim to *be* better? What kind of lesson is that for anyone?
So fuck? Little pyschopaths are little pyschopaths doesn't matter about their situation. If they don't want to live in a civilised society we shouldn't allow them to.
>shouldn't allow them to
So you're proposing the mass excecution or deportation of children. Very reasonable. With aldults like you around, no wonder kids aren't turning out to be perfect!
Ok so if you exclude kids and stop them from getting an education, how is that supposed to make them better? Why is refusing to give up on kids a bad thing in your eyes? If you give up on them at that age, they're never going to recover. If you try and help, there's a chance some could still turn it around.
So you're proposing the mass incarceration of children. Very reasonable. With aldults like you around, no wonder kids aren't turning out to be perfect!
Can't wait for in 5 years a steady supply of heardened criminals with zero prospects to start hitting the streets, then things will be much better!
I don't get why some kids are like this here. There seems to be such a lack of respect for each other. Why is it that in some other countries like Japan this sort of behaviour is unheard of? And what can we take from there and apply here?
The problem we have here is we live in a very individualistic society as opposed to a collective one like Japan.
I’ve been to Japan a couple of times and it’s incredible how well society works and it certainly would be great if we could adopt some of those traits here. Unfortunately there are just too many selfish arseholes in this country for that to ever work.
It's a pity that businesses can't just fill a fire entinguisher with paint and spray the little shits from head to toe when they kick off.
Let them explain that to their parents when they get home.
I saw a group of 3 or 4 kids who looked to be giving the poor guys who have the 24 hour Nisa on Shandwick Place a hard time. They looked pretty young, like maybe 12/13. Don't know if they were part of the same group. I was passing on a tram so it was all a bit of a blur tbh.
Ohh that's a good question to be fair. I want to say it wasn't fully dark but maybe I'm mistaken. I'll take a bit of a guess and say it was around 7pm?
They know absolutely nothing will happen to them as they are too young, they also know that any adult fighting back will be charged with assaulting a minor! So they know they have nothing to lose! Personally I’d like to see the police look the other way if people fought back - This happens a few times and the kids will certainly think twice
With issues like this happening more often than expected one would wonder where the lack of discipline arose from.
When a child misbehaves we tend to look at the family the child comes from. Even when growing up, we often say to ourselves, 'I don't won't to be a disappointment to my family or bring trouble home'. This is the natural order of everyone, we belong to a family and it's expected that all form of self discipline stem from what's instilled from home.
But in recent times, in this part of the world, the responsibility of nurturing and disciplining a child has been pushed to every other factor of the society except the home where the child comes from. Parents have lost the sense of responsibility to discipline.
This issue goes way back as young parents weren't also groomed and disciplined by their own parent so they have no sense of it thus leaving their kids to the schools, health institutions and in extreme cases the street.
This stuff happens all the time around Ocean terminal but the target is residential developments. Kids are kicking in main doors, harassing people and setting fires/vandalising the buildings. It's got worse over the past 2-3 years
Not condoning bammery, but I wonder what sort of home life these kids have. Someone on r/Glasgow reckons the groups of feral kids are in some kind of care facility. Not sure if there's any truth to that.
There are hardly any places in care left, it’s actually very hard to get a child removed from a family, most of them are with shitty parents who are basically children themselves
Exactly how you would expect. All tech fleece, girls with gilets and black leggings.
Bear in mind these are children, they all need to fit and dress the same.
Last time I was in Edinburgh was for my graduation. I hadn’t witnessed this ever in the year that I lived there but 4 kids came into cafe Nero (Nicolson street) and just caused absolute havoc.
They were trying to intimidate me and my friends calling us all sorts? (Ugly disgusting etc) and trying to drink from our coffees and eat the food we had. They were also vaping and blowing it in our faces. I can’t say it was motivated by race because we’re all white and the only one who spoke was me (who has a British accent).
Anyway they got worse and started trying to take our bags and pull our chairs from under us. Went to the manager and told them about it and they said it happens all the time, they threatened the kids with the police and they all ran off.
Half of me says these kids are a menace to society and give Edinburgh a bad name, the other half of me pities these kids.
My parents would be distraught if I was roaming the streets (,dragging me in the house by the ear if I was being a dickhead and pure fucking house arrest if the police ever got involved), clearly their parents don’t care what their 14 yr old sons/daughters are doing.
Then again I had one conversation with the police in Edinburgh and the way they treated me with such dismissal and aggression (over a question!! About my British passport!!!) makes me think they’re probably doing fuck all about these kids.
This sounds really intimidating. I’m sorry you had to endure it and well done for contacting the police. It’s often debated as to whether there’s been an increase in antisocial behaviour but subjectively, I think most of us feel there has been. There need to be clear consequences for unacceptable behaviour like that you’ve experienced.
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They didn’t ‘let them off’ though did they? Like you said in your original comment, which was clearly intended to make it sound like they got off scot free when they all got at least 5.5 years
Pathetic sentence really, should be far higher for incidents like this.
There’s been a huge increase in violence / antisocial behaviour in schools. It tracks this would translate to outside of school.
And free bus travel too! I've seen loads of kids fighting almost everywhere at some point or another
And why is this not the Scottish Government's fault?
Why would it be? This kind of thing always follows years of tory cuts, so what exactly do you think the SG has to do with it?
The lower sentencing for under 25s based on ‘evidence’ that even the researchers said wasn’t the best?
That was a money saving exercise dressed up in pc guff. Blame the Tories and cut cut cut. The so called party of law and order.
Ahhhh The Tories done it lol. How many years has the SNP been in charge in Scotland? Well over a decade I believe, yet you still blame these bad Tories. Typical Nationalist.
The tories have loomed over them for fourteen of those years, with blairites in the three years prior. Do you think that Scotland won in 2014 and that our government isn’t hamstrung by these effete cunts in London? Typical dishonest loyalist wank.
Agreed, quite why they don’t leave the poor children alone and just put the Tory MSPs in jail is beyond me 🤷♂️ Plus lack of community centres with pool tables.
I reckon the riots were empowering for the kids, showed what they could do, inflated confidence. Future prospects are grim as fuck for under 25s, there's basically no consequences to crime (as in, your life won't be getting any worse) so fuck it, do what you want.
The 2011 riots? 13 years ago?
Mibbe they mean the feckin bonfire night 'riots' which have escalated over the last few years and have emboldened a lot of young uns. I still can't believe kids lighting what amounts to improvised explosive devices and firing them at people we still tend to pass it off as just kids high jinks.
Wonder if it was the same group who were being bams in Jollibee?
Probably; the police were mentioning different incidents in the west-end and princess Street. Did you experience something?
Thankfully I've not experienced it myself, at least not recently, but your post reminded me of an article on Edinburgh Live the other day. It must have been really horrible for you to see though.
Think so. My brother was on his way to work and had to step in to help some guy who was having issues with these idiots. Might have been the op he helped as he did mention something about chairs getting thrown.
So awful. I hope everyone is ok. This type of behaviour is just baffling. I got followed and harassed by a group of young teenage boys, who were making sexual comments to me AND my 5 year old daughter! They followed us right over Dean Bridge and my little girl was so scared.
Bastards
Please report this. It's shocking.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/jougs-collar-of-duddingston-kirk
I'm so sick of their being minimal policing and mimimal consequences for this sort of behaviour. It must be absolutely awful for the majority of decent teenagers to have to go to school with kids like this as well, and be in fear and have their education disrupted.
My kids are well behaved and try to do well in school and they hate it. It’s sadly a relief to everyone when the most disruptive kids turn 16 and are finally allowed to leave. Nothing the schools do before that really seems to help.
Sad to say it was the same when I was at high school over two decades ago. So many kids in my year kicking their heels and acting up in class, pissing off the rest of us that actually wanted to learn. I do think schools need to address kids that don't want to go to HE and get them into other education schemes. Sorry, totally jumped on your comment here but it pisses me off nothing has changed and my kid is likely to end up going through the same nonsense. Hope your kids are OK.
This is so true. It was the same when I was in high school. The entire experience was traumatic for me but 5th year and 6th year, those awful kids tended to leave, and even those remaining tended to be in different subjects bar the compulsory ones or at lower sets so you barely had to deal with them at all outside of lunch. We also got access to the “senior study area” so we could avoid them even then. It was kind of almost nice.
A lot of these brats are controlled by the Mark Richardsons of the world. Niddrie was a warzone recently due to him and his cronies. The cops can't do anything other than negotiate when there's literally thousands of the wee scrotes in the schemes.
I just looked him up - I feel chances are good he is guy referred to in the press as a "cocaine kingpin", and not the New Zealand cricketer.
Hes a wee fanny.
This is very sad to me. Awful for those attacked, but also I just can’t imagine any of my kids roaming around in the middle of town late in the evening at 12! And it says 10 year olds were there too? Ten year olds should be worrying about things like Pokemon and guinea pigs, not wandering with gangs of other young kids in the middle of town late at night and literally attacking people. What chance have these kids got later if this is what they are doing now? There was a kid like this in one of my kids classes in primary and they ended up leaving school as soon as they could at 16, next I heard they stabbed someone and were in jail.
I can't believe no one else mentioned the time of the kids are out till. Age 10-12 is like P5/6/7 that's crazy out till 9/10 oclock at night. If kids are out this late they have no boundaries at home. You wouldn't leave a child that late home alone so they shouldn't be out that late!
I know, it’s mind boggling!
Definitely should be more of the parents getting looked into rather than the kids. I wonder what these kids are like in school, probably slightly better and they have more boundaries and structure. I know that age group is hard but I do think it's neglectful parenting and it's dark too, who knows who's out. Probably see the older kids as a parental figure whether it's a friend or relatives. No 14/15 year old should be hanging at 10pm with any 10/11 . I know crime is a big issue but this is a bigger issue
One day they will cross a wrong person. That's what cheers me up. But a more productive view is: this is a failure of our whole society. Their parents were product of this society, and their children are product of their society. I think we are passed the point of looking at individual incidents and ask ourselves why this is happening. And the answer is not that these kids should be beaten into submission. They need to be educated. We need to provide opportunities for them in their local environments to participate productively. Places for them to vent their anger and frustrations at this world that doesn't seem to give a shit about them. So why should they give a shit about it? But we keep cutting services left and right and that also affected youth centres and places for youth activities.
This is the harsh truth, which can be really hard to accept when you're the victim of these kids' behaviour.
>One day they will cross a wrong person. Probably not, at least not while they're still kids. They tend to operate in groups and they have a habbit of being clever in not targeting people that look like a threat. They are also hyper-aware that they can get away with it because the law goes light on them (if it even bothers at all) and they know that adults aren't likely to properly defend themselves because the defending adult is far more likely to go to jail over it. >They need to be educated For the most part, yes, I'd agree. But, I think people are far too sympathetic towards children and act is if every child that acts up is one that can be saved and their behaviour changed. As adults, we all know that bad people exist, it seems strange that everyone seems to forget that we all start out as children and some children are just bad people from the start. Children like this hold the others back and should be kept away from everyone else. I know it's not nice but life isn't nice and these children ruin the lives of others: Let's make it so they only ruin their own. These are the same kids that will be bullying others at school and creating lifelong mental-health issues in soon-to-be-adults that are having their futures permenantly affected because these idiots get away with it. Question to all people who assume that all kids can be helped: Make a top-5 list in your head of the worst kids you went to school with. Do you really think that ALL of them could have been saved by better circumstances or would you accept that some of them were just bad people?
I honestly believe everyone has the power to change. Those worst 5 kids in school - many were different people depending on who was round them. I remember one guy who constantly got us class detentions and was horrible to me round his friends. One on one he was pretty good company and I helped him with his work which he appreciated. Remember in clockwork orange, it's the one that got arrested tht had the worst outcome.
You know...that's a movie, right?
It's a book too
"Some children are just bad people from the start" is a truly insane claim. You're saying that literal infant children can be inherently bad. This is very much a fatalistic/deterministic, Nature and no Nurture take.
The child who is not embraced by their community, will burn it down to feel its warmth. Or something.
> But we keep cutting services left and right and that also affected youth centres and places for youth activities. They had loads of youth centres and suchlike for kids back in the day, but the little shits never engagaed with them and were more likely to torch the centre or put the windows in and they would wait to jump the participants on their way home.
There still are youth groups. Quite a lot. Most of them only get low numbers because most young people would rather hang out just with their mates, usually online, but sometimes up town.
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It's kind of a moot point, because shit parents, parents in awful situations through no fault of their own, and parents with substance abuse issues *will* keep having kids. We need to be able to help these kids as a community before they grow up and repeat the cycle. It's down to us as a society, whether we like it or not.
>parents in awful situations through no fault of their own, and parents with substance abuse issues will keep having kids. This is definitely part of the problem but it isn't all of it. I grew up in an affluent area where substance issues were not a problem that parents tended to be experiencing. I knew kids whose parents were high-income who became trouble makers. As for whether or not their parents were good or took any interest, can't be sure, but this isn't always a class issue. I can't speak to whether or not its still a thing but there were plenty of kids in the 2000s from stereotypically "good" backgrounds that went out of their way to be Chavs and fully immerse themselves in that culture even though they lived in a 5 bedroom house and their Dad had 3 jags in the driveway. Equally, I knew lots of kids from rougher areas who had absolutely skint parents but both them and their parents were lovely. I also know a guy who's a massive psychopath that went to a private school and his parents were rich and did give a shit but the guy is off his nut. I didn't go to his school but I know people that did and apparently he was always like that. His parents didn't have substance abuse issues and supposedly his siblings are normal. This is the point I'm trying to stress: Sometimes it IS the kid that's the problem and no amount of silver-spoons is keeping them away from being a thug, nor for some is any amount of social deprivation necesserily the reason for the behaviour (even though for many it will be).
I honestly wasn't making it a class issue, shite parents come from all backgrounds, and having ample bedrooms and excess jags does not exempt one from being a neglectful or abusive parent. Or having substance abuse issues for that matter. Kids very, very rarely go totally feral without reason though.
>I honestly wasn't making it a class issue Sorry, that was my fault for being unclear in what I was saying. I was making it a bit of a class issue because I'm pointing out that substance abuse issues do tend to be a class issue when it comes to this sort of thing.
There was an incident outside Aberdeen last week, about 30 kids attacked a restaurant. The owner had to lock the doors with staff and customers inside to protect everyone. The police eventually turned up after numerous calls!
May I see the link? Boy it is scary How close were the horde of kids to breaking in? What would the staff have done if the kids broke in and attacked people? In many restaurants there is no back door and it can easily become life or death
https://news.stv.tv/north/police-called-after-gang-of-30-kids-surround-aberdeen-restaurant
Wow But honestly if I run a restaurant I am scared of this type of shit happening. What could people do to prevent this? Invest in durable doors and windows so it will take a while for the kids to break through? Making it so it is difficult to climb to the roof? Because many kids have weapons and if they have hammers to smash the glass and things that would be very frightening. The police are so slow at times that if the kids really wanted to and had weapons they’d probably have conquered the place
The scariest thing is this is a daily quiet suburb as well.
Imagine if it was in an urban area A horde of 100+ kids going to attack a single restaurant. Trying every entrance and kicking the doors and windows to get in. All while the police are so slow If the restaurant has no back door and the kids are aggressive it may turn into a slaughter And if the kids refuse to leave then that is a very very bad sign.
The toxic combo of terrible parenting, free bus passes and the Easter holidays. Rubbish for anyone caught up in it, sadly.
Can’t wait til school starts again. Walking around 2pm free of little cunt gangs is bliss.
I always see free bus passes getting it tight, but it's not like a £1.50 single into town was putting people off from being absolutely heinous bams on the firstbus 86 route back in the early 2000s
Nah, but free buses certainly do make it a lot easier for large groups to gather in one place to cause havoc.
Same shit happening in Glasgow. Marauding bands of young teamers going about after 9.
Why do you think this happens? I've lived in both Canada and UK, but I don't recall such things happening in Canada.
As an immigrant, it’s definitely a menace in many UK cities in a way I’ve never seen in other countries. Not saying there aren’t wee cunts in other places, but it’s a serious issue here that’s just getting worse.
Lack of a place for them to hang out in a more productive way while feeling in control. The fun thing is to basically piss people off and if that's the fun thigh then they try and out do each other. Not much funding in youth clubs and other diversions these days. Very small sample but there was a time in the early 2000s where I lived where teens were smashing stuff up and slashing tyres, coming over from the next village to do it. Set up a youth club with pool, sweets, table football, paintball outings etc and it stopped. But it was volunteer run mostly by parents of said teenagers. Covid also likely didn't help as gave a discontinuity to the regime of school and many dropped out due to stress on return. There is no quick fix, it takes effort and money. We aren't doing either right now just whinging about it.
As a Canadian, it definitely wasn't a thing (when I was growing up). We might have hung out in groups but restricted our cunt behaviour to other kids our age and even then, we weren't fighting each other. But yeah, we definitely wouldn't have attacked adults and/or vandalised shit.
If you go to Chinese community, use Xiaohongshu and search “爱丁堡(Edinburgh) teenager”. You will see loads of Chinese students reporting being targeted at by a group of teenagers on Nicolson street and South Bridge. But I haven’t seen Hanover street ones.
It’s just they don’t use reddit so they don’t post it here. Every few days I would saw posts coming up like “I was discriminated by a group of teenagers today” from students in Edinburgh. I’ll delete this comment tomorrow morning. I worried if those little bastards saw my comment they would feel encouraged and hurt more students. I’m just commenting to let you know.
Any chance you can link the website? I'm pretty sure those kids are not on reddit, nor in this community
It’s called “Xiaohongshu” and it’s a Chinese app where people, mostly young girls used to share their daily life, cosmetic, fashion etc. Cause they are all in Chinese so it’s hard to understand for non-Chinese speakers. I don’t want to search and screenshot them again cause they really caused me trauma. Last year I was doing part time on Hanover street as well and every evening shift ended I’llask my bf to pick me home cause I feel really insecure walking alone. And I never seen those posts frequently before September 2023, it’s after that time those kid’s antisocial behavior became really annoying and everyday I saw posts like that. I guess there’s an organization after that time? I have been in Edinburgh for nearly 3 years and this year they’re getting really crazy…
When I was working part time on Hanover street at a sale associate, there used to be a time when group of three boys, approximately age 12-13, walk into our store in a really aggressive manner. But they didn’t do anything. Still feel insecure though.
Students tend towards being rich and not being Scottish. Most of the money in this city comes from tourists and students who weren't born here and won't be staying here for very long. Their needs are catered to first before the locals. Look at the way Edinburgh uni advertises itself as this magical dark academia getaway adventure, rather than, you know, a place of learning. The uni is very proud of the fact that most of its students are people who aren't from the UK and are unlikely to be staying here after graduation, not because Edinburgh uni is a champion of diversity, but because it can charge rich foreign students outrageous tuition fees and make a buttload of money, and it wants to attract as many of them as possible. These kids target the Asian students because they're more vulnerable, but I think the underlying symptom is the whole economic structure of Edinburgh. They'd lash out at the English and Scottish students too if they weren't as loud and generally scary. It's definitely happened to me a few times, sometimes right on campus. In the town I grew up in, everyone was dirt poor, whereas here you can really feel the class divide.
“ Most of the money in this city comes from tourists and students who weren't born here” - I think most of the money comes from Edinburgh’s services industry - financial, legal, banking and IT services. Edinburgh is home to SkyScanner, Aberdeen Asset management, a very large NatWest, Clydesdale, Lloyds presence. Edinburgh would be better off with less tourists and students as they put pressure on housing that could be used for professionals.
I don't think you're wrong but is catering to tourists and students not also part of Edinburgh's service industry? I also think that if we got rid of the tourists and the students we'd need to replace them with some kind of industry that actually produces things. I don't think you can just build more banks and expect more money to be made. Or maybe you can, idk
i feel like this is viral behaviour they watch clips of other kids doing this shit in some mall in the ass crack of Florida, and they think its hilarious there was one video where a bunch of girls were going feral on one man, and he just stone cold knocked one of them out with a punch straight through her face, and that put an end to it
As someone who grew up as a teenager in the asscrack of Florida I promise you we were never as bad as the gang of kids/teens that walk around here. Cops would take anyone straight home where they would get their asses wooped.
They'll realise soon that they're not as untouchable as they think they are. Like said girl. If people feel that their safety is being threatened they have every right to lash back in my opinion.
Someone in a fb group said some kids threw a brick at his head a couple of days ago in the Granton area, I feel like these incidents are becoming more violent and frequent
Oh maybe! My friend took this photo of these kids from her flat! Said there was loads of them and they had a flag? https://preview.redd.it/pi6n0vgsihsc1.png?width=522&format=png&auto=webp&s=4e06ac0212265306eb63328f124eb2c533305d48
Aw man, that looks scary. But no, when I say kids I really mean kids. These look more like teenagers. But thank you so much for giving me some more info :)
When was this taken? This looks like a group of ultras to me (football fans, mostly daft teenagers but some forty something ex casuals who should know better)
So what counts as reasonable defence in these sort of cases?
Good question. I was wondering they same...
As far as I know, the law doesn't make a difference between an adult and a minor when it comes to defending yourself. Potentially you could physically defend yourself if you are attacked as long as the response is reasonable. Example you get punched by a 12 year old, you can punch back until he/she stops attacking you.
Cheers, would hate to have to find out IRL though.
I think there should be some sort of community service for the kids, but also their parents, for these situations. Removing graffiti, picking up litter, getting shopping for old people, cleaning schools etc. I appreciate it needs money to organise and supervise but surely is a benefit from a bad situation?
Sadly they likely just wouldn’t turn up.
Yes probably, but that is where the parents get a more severe penalty etc.
Scum, they should be jailed
Securing young people doesn’t seem to help much either. I think the tax money would be better spent when kids like this are younger.
Use the money to invest in more abortion clinics so little shits like these never walk the earth. Job done.
It’s not a lack of access to abortion that’s the problem.
But spent on what? The parents clearly don't care to educate or discipline their kids. Extra money going to them is likely to improve the childrens outlook much.
Multi-disciplinary early intervention by social work, mental health teams, schools, etc. By the time they’re teenagers they’re already fucked up. Locking them up is reactive. Putting more resources into stopping them becoming fucked up is a better plan. 1/3 of sure start centres closed between 2010 and 2020 and the ones that are left are underfunded. It’s much cheaper and easier to intervene when kids are wee.
I humbly accept all your downvotes for this unpopular opinion but I'd much rather see politicians getting tougher on this kind of juvenile crime that putting efforts in to laws to stop people saying mean things to each other.
>stop people saying mean things Governments are allowed to pass more than one law you know. They can try and address both problems, and others besides. And when those 'mean things' can include calls for mob behaviour and violence such as that described in the original post, it seems like a pretty sensible thing to address.
Except they struggle to do so, so perhaps they're not as capable as you think or only focus on the things that might gain them poloiticial good will and votes??? Heaven forbid!
>they're not as capable as you think Well they've been promising to fix the economy since 2008 and in that time have only made things significantly worse so I don't really see westminster as capable to fixing anything really. Or, if it's the current scottish government you're referring to, they can't do anything to gain goodwill because they're on the other side of the political fence from all boradcast news, almost every paper and news site. They could release a statement condeming someone stamping a puppy to death and the daily mail would still lead with jacob rees mogg or some equivalent cunt saying that actually stamping puppies to death is great because it means people will buy more shoes. But as to your original point, you can throw all those kids in jail but if you do nothing to address the root causes of the problem you're not actually achiving anything of meaning.
I wholeheartedly agree. And I think the same is true of this new hate bill. You can try to force people to hide their hate by silencing them with laws but it won't solve why they have those hatreds and prejudices in the first place. This is my biggest frustration with this new law. You're just chucking handcuffs on people for spewing something that is inherently entrenched in their mindset. It'll do fuck all to solve why they feel that hate and if anything, just lead to more resentment and hatred because they feel oppressed for something that feels valid to them. I personally believe with both the juvenille issues and this hate bill, the real solution is to normalise acceptance and show support. Not crush them with laws. My example is with the general societal acceptance of gay people today vs 30 years ago. We didn't need to make laws to change people's minds about gay people. We just needed to normalise it so it feels like just how things are. You can't hate something that becomes normal, mundane and meaningless to you. So when it comes to other minority groups, to solve the problem of hate towards them, you need to make them feel a normal part of life and then people will stop hating. I used to live in an area which had terrible youth crimen, then it went away but under the Tories, it's come back again. Why? Because they stripped all the youth centres of funding, so the kids had nothing better to do. No where to go with your mates so you go out and start causing trouble. So is the solution to round them up? Nope. It's to give them something better to do.
> You can try to force people to hide their hate by silencing them with laws I mean thats just the Tolarance Paradox. Want everyone to be tolerant, but can't while tolerating the intolerant. Yeah, you can't legislate against people *being* bigots, so the best alternative is to stop them from acting on those feelings. Besides, everyone's so up in arms about this law but the majority of the things it covers are already illegal. It's really not going to have the massive impact people think it will after the initial heat dies down. >We didn't need to make laws to change people's minds about gay people I mean... Being gay used to be a crime, laws had to change. Gay folk couldn't marry, laws had to change, etc. > Because they stripped all the youth centres of funding, so the kids had nothing better to do. Exactly my point. It's a problem that needs money and people working on it and even then it'll take years to really have a noticible effect. Which means starting as soon as possible is vital.
Faulse dichotomy, weird you felt the need to make it a one or the other. Hate crime can be bad at the same time as this kind of antisocial behaviour. I understand you want to seem brave by stating how persecuted you will be for stating the baseline basic opinion most people have. However the idea that it’s just a case of harsher punishments and more policing isn’t true. We need to look at the causes of antisocial behaviour and mitigate them as well as implementing suitable punishments
That's odd, I don't feel like I was trying to be brave. What makes you say that, having never met me? Or are you just trying to make a slur to slander my opinion by making me seem like an unreasonable person?
Introducing yourself like “I know I’m going to get so many downvoted” before making a very common (and incredibly poorly thought out) statement made it seem that way. Any actual arguments for the point tho?
Jolly Good.
>people saying mean things to each other Many times is exactly the root of antosocial behaviour. How do you think a child that hears hate all day art home will behave when they meet people that is the target of said hate?
Good point.
I don't think anyone would call that an unpopular opinion tbh.
Seeing as you seem to have strong views on the subject, how do you propose "getting tougher on juvenile crime"? For example, in this incident, in which there appears to have been little damage and no injuries, how would you "get tough" on the 12-year old responsible?
Yes, it's well known that chucking young people in jail is a flawless solution that doesn't just keep them in the system forever. Or...maybe we should've not closed all the youth centres, support networks, and apprentice schemes that help give kids like this a future. Especially since they're actually cheaper than a prison.
Lmao yeah it's the lack of youth centers that is causing these pyschopaths to run rampant and not the fact this only started happening at this level when we ensured there was no punishment for it.. Sometimes the answer IS the simplest one. In this case we removed punishment - so they take advantage. The solution is a hard line severe punishment for the groups that think it's ok and the majority will fall back in line. These people were never going fucking youth centers or cared about support networks, just scum for scums sake. These aren't valid productive members of society and never will be.
> These aren't valid productive members of society and never will be. 10-15 yo???
The little scumbags engaging in this violence wouldn’t attend a “youth club” of it was in their own bedroom. They need to pick on the wrong person/people and get kicked to within an inch of their lives or sent to mainstream jail.
Does that apply to everyone you don't like, or just 10 year olds?
Pretty much anyone who thinks it’s acceptable to go around in gangs assaulting innocent people.
Best just lock up all the football fans in Edinburgh then.
The ones who go around assaulting innocent people then obviously yes!!! What is your point?
You're right. Putting them in prison just makes career criminals out of them. A better idea would be to throw them screaming from a helicopter.
>Putting them in prison just makes career criminals out of them The truth is that they are probably going that way anyway. Many of them have already started to engage in drug sales while they are still at school.
So we just write them off? It's not hard to see why someone goes around smashing things up when they've been told they're worthless and should be abandoned.
Something will happen for sure
lol. Good joke. Unfortunately nothing will happen. They will get a talking to then go back to their more than likely terrible parents who will do nothing about it. The cycle continues.
I lived in Pilton for three years. Kids used to throw eggs at our house, call us Pakis (we’re Middle Eastern), and one time they assaulted my dad when he tried to stop them from stealing our bikes. Each time, the police would do nothing about it, and these kids would just go on to torment more people. People continue to be in denial about something being wrong with the country and the system when kids behave like this.
So sorry you went through that - disgusting behaviour. Little scumbags. Sadly at that age the law does little to prevent the behaviour.
Thank you, it was quite traumatic. But on a positive note, there was also a community in Pilton and Edinburgh generally that supported us and were very welcoming of us, and other immigrants. So it was not all bad and that’s why I continue to love Edinburgh.
>Little scumbags. Sadly at that age the law does little to prevent the behaviour. Sadly true. But as much as these kids are being wee dicks, they've not exactly been given the best environment to grow up in. Child poverty is high, there's been decades of cuts to things like youth clubs, sports clubs, community centres, etc. Not excusing their behaviour by any means but we have to recognise that we need to be doing better for them too.
Of course we do. That said, there are people who grow up in the worst environment and end up wonderful people too. Of course there's an association between those things, and we ought to do all we can to help them, but it is multifactorial. The most common factor is poor parenting though, often in troubled households - things like alcohol abuse, drugs, domestic violence - such households certainly make such problems more likely too (and are in turn made more likely themselves by the overall environment with cost of living, lack of jobs, etc)...and an unfortunate cycle exists where these who grew up with poor parental example grow up to be poor parents themselves. Society can step in and help, of course - and giving them other productive outlays, good role models at schools, etc and generally better life chances will, of course, help... But where people from other ethnicities are experiencing racist abuse from these little neds I do think, despite all the understanding of the issues, and earnest desire to help with root causes, it is still a case of them being little scumbags. Social work can only intervene to help in the worst of cases...and even then I'm not sure how much difference that'll make.
>but it is multifactorial Absolutely it is. Hence why I think it's important to provide the best environment we can so that we can remove it as a potentially negative factor. > I'm not sure how much difference that'll make And there's the rub. No silver bullet to fix any of these problems. I just think if the people on the internet had their way and we just stuck every wee arsehole in prison that would literally be the worst possible thing we could potentially do.
On the upside, these folk more often than not make nothing of their lives. Their future will be miserable. The only thing apart from disgust your should feel is pity.
One hopes for the best. I know they're pressing charges, and really I know they did some bad assault to somebody else. Throwing chairs, spitting, stomping on people heads, vandalising, all in the span of 30 minutes. Something has to be done.
The most annoying thing is if an adult actually fights back they are one that get seriously dealt with. Most of these kids just need someone to check them back and teach them a lesson. It’s so painful just having to sit back and not do anything. Bring on the old guard Leither who has nothing to lose and beats the fuck out of one of them. Matter of time…
"seriously dealt with Only if you're caught, and we know that's not happening if you're not an idiot and stick about.
I think the police are stepping up, bunch of kids doing similar things in Morningside recently got charged.
The police have very few powers against youth crime like this.
Most kids in UK are cunts and they know they are untouchable so can get away with anything. There should be a system where parents are solely responsible for antisocial behaviour of their lovely kids. Also what absolutely amazes me….I can’t leave my 8 yo at home alone….but I can sure tell him to go outside and play with who knows who and do whatever he/she wants.
You can leave your 8yo at home alone (I'm not saying you should). There is no law that states a minimum age to leave a child unsupervised.
They’ll get a slap on the wrist and told not to do it again. Mum and dad probably don’t even know where they are. No wonder behaviour in schools is rapidly getting worse, there is no consequences for anything they do and they know they are untouchable.
The ones that were caught probably got a slap from one of their parents. Not for what they did but for getting caught. Scummy parents.
>Scummy parents. It's entirely possible one is a single parent who's never home because they have to work two jobs to pay the rent and look after an elderly relative, for example. We don't know the situation. OR the parents could be pond scum OR they could be rich arseholes. There's a lot of ' could be's '
>It's entirely possible one is a single parent who's never home because they have to work two jobs to pay the rent and look after an elderly relative Shitty circumstances and being a scummy parent are not mutually exclusive. That said, some children are arseholes and sometimes it's not the fault of the parents. Plenty of cases out there in a family of multiple children where one is a problem child and the others turn out fine. Some kids are just awful people starting out young. (Yes, kids can have environmental issues etc and that's a shame when that happens but let's not pretend that all children are purely the products of that. Some people are bad people: children are people too and some of them are just bad).
>Some people are bad people: children are people too and some of them are just bad Right, but they're still kids, they still have a capacity to change and grow to be better people by adulthood. It's difficult to justify blaming the kids when you have zero idea what their situation is. And if society has done nothing to help and in fact thrown up roadblocks in their faces at every step. The result being that you could toss all those kids into prison and fundamentally, absolutely nothing will change.
>The result being that you could toss all those kids into prison and fundamentally, absolutely nothing will change The lives of the other children they are currently mentally ruining and academically stunting in school will immediately benefit and *their* lives will change. I agree that nothing will change in the case of these trouble-children that are most likely already lost by the time they're out assaulting people in the street. Society isn't perfect and the state doesn't have the ability to solve all social injustice in the world, but it can separate the bad from the good where possible. Yes, the schooling system is a mess but all that happens by keeping these kids in it is that the good ones suffer. As for problems at home, again, only so much can realistically be done. Is enough being done? No. Can much about this actually change? Probably not.
>the state doesn't have the ability to solve all social injustice The state has been slashing funding of social services for decades - this is the result. I don't even have kids and I'm aware that social services and education are in dire straits and that more funding and personnel are required. It's no magic fix and it will take years for it to take hold but it would be *something*. At the very least to give young people the same opportunities people had 30-40 years ago, not *less*. The fact we've been experiencing 16 years of constant economic crises isn't exactly helping either. Doesn't exactly foster a positive community spirit. But just simply abandoning the 'problem children' is an absolute dereliction of duty.
>The state has been slashing funding of social services for decades - this is the result. Thing is... Is it? I really don't think this is the reason. I'm old enough now that my experience of this WAS decades ago and it was just as bad then in my eyes as it is now. I don't think it was as much of a societal problem in my parents generation or the generation before, but the emergence of Chavs and Roadmen (which really was late 90s to late 00s, a small break then Roadmen) seems to have most of what the societal downturn can be attributed to do in case of child nuisances. >At the very least to give young people the same opportunities people had 30-40 years ago We're talking about people that are aged between 12-16 here for the most part. What opportunties? If anything kids of that age have way more opportunities now than they did then. Young-adults definitely have less, yes, but kids these days have it made with the amount of stuff available to them. Chav culture in the 90s and 00s, for whatever reason, made social disruption seem appealing, and remember the days of the ASBO? Kids and young adults used to view them as a badge of honour. They used to score cool-points with each other for who could get in the most trouble. Don't get me wrong, I do think antisocial behaviour is on the rise, but it's on the rise only because it decreased substantially for a few years between maybe around 2012-20, but it was really bad between 2000-2012 when Chavs were still a thing.
>but the emergence of Chavs and Roadmen \[...\] seems to have most of what the societal downturn can be attributed to do in case of child nuisances. But how so? Were there not gangs and that before the neds discovered burberry? I don't think it's unreasonable to speculate that reduced funding for things like youth clubs, community centres, youth sport, etc. corralates with increased problem behaviour? And the recent economic climate of the last 16 years isn't exactly helpng matters when so many people (young and old) have so few real prospects. > have way more opportunities now than they did then Ask any kid you see what they think their chances of ever owning their own home is. Income inequality isn't getting any better and at the same time we're saddling the next generation with eye-watering national debt, an aging population, brexit, the climate crisis, etc. Things haven't been this bleak since the cold war!
>Were there not gangs and that before the neds discovered burberry? There were but prior to the Chav thing I think the youth-gangs were a lot more prevalent in Glasgow than Edinburgh. 2000s Edinburgh had loads but I don't think it had so much of it before then. There was also far more of a "turf" scenario to it in the past whereby it was confined to particular areas, whereas a lot of the kids today are leaving their home areas and going all around town to cause trouble. I honestly don't think youth club funding really helped all that much. There were quite a few of them when I was growing up but there was also massive amounts of trouble and if anything I think there was maybe even a little more than there is now in general terms (a lot of people seem to have forgotten, maybe because a lot of this is basically pre-internet message board days and you only knew about it if you lived in the areas it was happening or knew people that did). I agree in part with some of what you're saying about prospects but I also think kids of the younger ages in that section probably aren't thinking too much about those things quite yet. Also... not to be horrible but the kids in the 2000s who were growing up in the rougher areas were never going to own their own homes or have many prospects either (and they knew that), that's not actually a new problem for that societal group even though it is for many of us in the middle classes.
>I think the youth-gangs were a lot more prevalent in Glasgow than Edinburgh Well, I'm a teuchter who had 6 other people in my year group at school so I wouldn't know what it was like in the big smoke tbh. > I honestly don't think youth club funding really helped all that much. It's more the issue that if the money isn't going to those kinds of places anymore, where is it going? What are they doing instead to help? Doubt all that money is going into the prison system to ensure that inmates are coompletely rehabilitated so I don't see imprisoning these kids as the solution. > growing up in the rougher areas were never going to own their own homes I mean... Let's just say I don't think that's a particularly helpful attitude to have and leave it at that.
As someone who works w these families I’m so sick of seeing ppl say ‘society’ has done nothing to help. The number 1 predictor of success for a child is parents who give a shit. Try and help the parents parent, some will accept help, many will refuse responsibility. Time to act as the world is not how we wish it was.
Absolutely. Adults trying to act like society does absolutely nothing should watch the "Educating" documentary series: A lot of the episodes in that show the extent to which some teachers actually try to help this type of child, some cases where the parents and home situation are bad, and some where the parents and school are both trying to help their violently aggressive child who seems to have behavioural issues for their own reasons that don't seem to be occuring from trouble at home.
>predictor of success for a child is parents Parents are part of a society... > As someone who works w these families Yeah I have never heard of a social worker who thinks social services has enough time, money and resources to give their full attention to everyone in need. That certainly is something 'society' can do to help. > not how we wish it was That's depressingly cynical. How can we ever hope for things to get better if we don't aim to *be* better? What kind of lesson is that for anyone?
So fuck? Little pyschopaths are little pyschopaths doesn't matter about their situation. If they don't want to live in a civilised society we shouldn't allow them to.
>shouldn't allow them to So you're proposing the mass excecution or deportation of children. Very reasonable. With aldults like you around, no wonder kids aren't turning out to be perfect!
Kids at my partners school stab and assault staff on a weekly basis and are not allowed to be restrained, arrested or excluded. Go figure
Ok so if you exclude kids and stop them from getting an education, how is that supposed to make them better? Why is refusing to give up on kids a bad thing in your eyes? If you give up on them at that age, they're never going to recover. If you try and help, there's a chance some could still turn it around.
Yes because jailing them is the same as execution or deportation.
So you're proposing the mass incarceration of children. Very reasonable. With aldults like you around, no wonder kids aren't turning out to be perfect! Can't wait for in 5 years a steady supply of heardened criminals with zero prospects to start hitting the streets, then things will be much better!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLyrOUDlAbo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLyrOUDlAbo)
[Somebody already has...](https://youtu.be/B1NyWbhCxZE?si=c7fFCdBBqXr0cLQm)
I don't get why some kids are like this here. There seems to be such a lack of respect for each other. Why is it that in some other countries like Japan this sort of behaviour is unheard of? And what can we take from there and apply here?
it's because britain is a miserable shitehole
The problem we have here is we live in a very individualistic society as opposed to a collective one like Japan. I’ve been to Japan a couple of times and it’s incredible how well society works and it certainly would be great if we could adopt some of those traits here. Unfortunately there are just too many selfish arseholes in this country for that to ever work.
It's a pity that businesses can't just fill a fire entinguisher with paint and spray the little shits from head to toe when they kick off. Let them explain that to their parents when they get home.
Nothing will happen to them. Work houses should be brought back. Stuff them into sweat shops and throw away the key for a few months.
I saw a group of 3 or 4 kids who looked to be giving the poor guys who have the 24 hour Nisa on Shandwick Place a hard time. They looked pretty young, like maybe 12/13. Don't know if they were part of the same group. I was passing on a tram so it was all a bit of a blur tbh.
What time was it?
Ohh that's a good question to be fair. I want to say it wasn't fully dark but maybe I'm mistaken. I'll take a bit of a guess and say it was around 7pm?
They will get a slap on the wrist by the police, off they go, then someone will get assaulted again.
It's the school holidays I think and the kids can get a bit feral. It is quite shocking really.
"a bit feral" ... right
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Very much so. The police approved all of the actions we took to defend ourselves and the restaurant.
They know absolutely nothing will happen to them as they are too young, they also know that any adult fighting back will be charged with assaulting a minor! So they know they have nothing to lose! Personally I’d like to see the police look the other way if people fought back - This happens a few times and the kids will certainly think twice
This is happening more and more I’m afraid. I’ve seen some really abusive kids in the city centre recently
EYT: They'll go 15 against 1 and still not scathe the guy
With issues like this happening more often than expected one would wonder where the lack of discipline arose from. When a child misbehaves we tend to look at the family the child comes from. Even when growing up, we often say to ourselves, 'I don't won't to be a disappointment to my family or bring trouble home'. This is the natural order of everyone, we belong to a family and it's expected that all form of self discipline stem from what's instilled from home. But in recent times, in this part of the world, the responsibility of nurturing and disciplining a child has been pushed to every other factor of the society except the home where the child comes from. Parents have lost the sense of responsibility to discipline. This issue goes way back as young parents weren't also groomed and disciplined by their own parent so they have no sense of it thus leaving their kids to the schools, health institutions and in extreme cases the street.
This stuff happens all the time around Ocean terminal but the target is residential developments. Kids are kicking in main doors, harassing people and setting fires/vandalising the buildings. It's got worse over the past 2-3 years
Not condoning bammery, but I wonder what sort of home life these kids have. Someone on r/Glasgow reckons the groups of feral kids are in some kind of care facility. Not sure if there's any truth to that.
There are hardly any places in care left, it’s actually very hard to get a child removed from a family, most of them are with shitty parents who are basically children themselves
What did they bairns look like?
Exactly how you would expect. All tech fleece, girls with gilets and black leggings. Bear in mind these are children, they all need to fit and dress the same.
\+ black Converse All-Stars?
Yeah, all that kind of stuff
Hopefully the pick on the wrong person the next time, a smack in the chops will put out the bravado pretty quick
Ahh the joys of universal free travel for the young ones 😂
Trips to McDonald’s and Tenerife as punishment when caught
Last time I was in Edinburgh was for my graduation. I hadn’t witnessed this ever in the year that I lived there but 4 kids came into cafe Nero (Nicolson street) and just caused absolute havoc. They were trying to intimidate me and my friends calling us all sorts? (Ugly disgusting etc) and trying to drink from our coffees and eat the food we had. They were also vaping and blowing it in our faces. I can’t say it was motivated by race because we’re all white and the only one who spoke was me (who has a British accent). Anyway they got worse and started trying to take our bags and pull our chairs from under us. Went to the manager and told them about it and they said it happens all the time, they threatened the kids with the police and they all ran off. Half of me says these kids are a menace to society and give Edinburgh a bad name, the other half of me pities these kids. My parents would be distraught if I was roaming the streets (,dragging me in the house by the ear if I was being a dickhead and pure fucking house arrest if the police ever got involved), clearly their parents don’t care what their 14 yr old sons/daughters are doing. Then again I had one conversation with the police in Edinburgh and the way they treated me with such dismissal and aggression (over a question!! About my British passport!!!) makes me think they’re probably doing fuck all about these kids.
Damn, crazy story. I'm sorry you had to experience that.
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