Comments by "Awesome Avenger" (@awesomeavenger2810) on "Akala interview on institutional racism and knife crime" video.

Knife crime is about the pursuit of social status. Not poverty. This is why it is an issue with young men. Especially those surrounded in a culture that promotes criminality, violence, contempt for wider society, and a victimhood mentality. Akala, and those like him, only succeed in reinforcing that culture when, as we see here, he talks about how he himself used to carry a knife when he was younger. This instantly underlines his own status as a performer working within that same culture. His legitimacy (and therefor the reason why he is on Channel 4 News) is based upon him being a product of that culture. Meaning that any cautionary message of 'don't walk the path I walked' will be ignored.
26
@Patrick-jj5nh Social status within their group/community. You see social hierarchies in all walks of life. So yes, there are poor people of high status within their group. Social status within these groups is not based on wealth. Sure, there are no millionaire school kids sitting in boardrooms of multinational companies earning six figure salaries. But then would we ever expect there to be?
2
@TheDominicProject He is trying to make it about race. I never mentioned race. If anything its about role models. And if the only role models a kid has as he's growing up are people who glorify violence and anti-social behaviour, and who gain status thro doing so, while continually teaching them that they act the way they do because of wider society, then its not hard to guess what the result of that will be. Luckily, most kids also have role models within the family that override outside influences. So they act differently when they're around parents or grandparents then when they are within their age group. But what happens if they dont?
2
@usxnews1834 Poverty does not lead to people stabbing someone else with a knife. As I said, this is a problem with young males. Abuse has nothing to do with poverty, as it can and does happen in all families regardless of their income. And we already have free education in the UK. Policing is an issue. Because if a kid is brought up in a lawless community where he doesnt feel safe, he's more likely to get drawn into gang culture as a gang offers protection. And this is why kids often say they carry knives - for protection. What they mean is, in their world its dog eat dog - and in that situation social status is all important. That culture then becomes his way of life. Which in turn leads to criminality which restricts his later prospects. Then he has kids. Then he walks out on them. Because thats the world he grew up in. Its not really fashionable to say this, but society functions better when we all adhere to certain standards - poor working class housewives scrubbing their doorsteps back in the 1940s, because they don't want the neighbours looking down on them, that kinda thing. But if you teach a generation they have rights, but no responsibilities, that no one should judge them, and worse, its ultimately all the fault of 'society', then communities start breaking down.
2
@usxnews1834 Absolute poverty in the UK has been going down. But inequality is pretty high. And, I believe, it is inequality that drives crime. Only I dont think its possible to eradicate inequality in a free society. Eradicating poverty, real poverty, and raising the level of those at the bottom is a long term aim, and possible. But the ability to do that requires a healthy economy. And that is a problem beyond the control of any one individual. And ultimately, it is the individual that is responsible for crime, and therefor knife crime. It is not economists and politicians who stab children on the street. Nobody scores points for wanting to end poverty. Only there is no short term magic formula for that. In the meantime, it makes sense to teach young kids personal responsibility. Because a free society cannot function without that
2
@usxnews1834 A Cambridge University study of 2012 concluded that the best indicator to whether or not young people get involved in crime is personal morality and responsibility. Carried out by the Cambridge institute of criminology, the study focused on both social environments and personal characteristics of 700 youngsters. And found that '...The bulk of offences were committed by a small group - with around 4% responsible for almost half the crime and the overwhelming majority of the most serious property crimes - such as burglaries, robberies and car theft' This, I believe, has been shown to be the case in many other such studies. It is a small percentage committing most of the crime. And very often if left unchecked that small percentage can literally bring a whole area down with it. Which shows the importance of policing. Of course. The study also found that the idea that young people will inevitably commit crime in certain environments is not the case. Instead, this applied only to the ‘crime-prone’ (the 4%). Therefore the best way to prevent crime was to 'focus on developing policies that affect children and young people’s moral education and cognitive nurturing - which aids the development of greater self-control - and policies that help minimise the emergence of moral contexts conducive to crime' (so obvious). In other words, it is individual morality that determines whether someone is prone to committing crime, rather than environmental. It is not understood how this is effected by social disadvantage (however that is defined). But I would suggest that a culture that promotes and glorifies violence and criminality is certainly not favourable to that. So it is more complicated than simply stating that poverty is responsible for crime, as, of course, poverty is a relative term. And there is inequality in all aspects of life. Not just wealth. And that will always be the case.
1
@usxnews1834 Professor Per-Olof H Wikström, FBA, the guy who led the research does indeed mention the dreaded term 'morality' in his summing up (or moral, to be exact). He mentions this while outlining the importance of 'developing policies that affect children and young people’s moral education'. Therefor, it is logical to conclude that undermining the development of children and young people's moral education is the opposite of that, am I right? Or is that a little too much speculation for you? the current view is that moral characteristics or values aren't apriori [2] but learned instead from, you guessed it, our social environment... I think I made this point several comments back when I said if the only role models a kid has as he's growing up are people who glorify violence and anti-social behaviour, and who gain status thro doing so, while continually teaching them that they act the way they do because of wider society, then its not hard to guess what the result of that will be. To put it another way, a kid can't learn in a chaotic classroom. And it only takes one kid to disrupt a whole class (the 4%). So the idea that better policing is not the answer is, I would suggest, more down to Akala's opinion of law enforcement than the reality (he did, after all, carry a knife himself when he was younger).
1