Raw Deal! Young, broke, unemployed, banged up
BEING YOUNG IS NOT A CRIME! When it came to power in 1997, the new Labour government presented its ‘strategy’ for dealing with youth justice ‘No More Excuses: a new approach to tackling youth crime in England and Wales’. No more excuses, indeed! Over the past 12 years there have been no attempts to deal with the ‘root causes of crime’ nor any sign of a new approach. We need an end to the retributive, brutalising and impersonal system of youth ‘justice’ now! New Labour’s approach is identical to that of the Tories, demonisation of young people in the bourgeois mass media – vilifying young people as yobs, hoodies & thugs - whilst claiming at the same time that the youth justice system helps young offenders. In 2004, when Tony Blair pledged to end what he described as the '1960s liberal social consensus on law and order', Britain's use of child custody more than doubled. Our laws make criminals out of kids as young as 10, the lowest age of responsibility in Europe. Youth imprisonment rates are now the highest in Europe and among the highest in the developed world. This is the legacy of decades of deindustrialisation and deregulation in the labour market. Youth unemployment is sky rocketing and the MacJobs on offer do nothing but guarantee an lifetime of unsecure, low-paid and unrewarding employment. We need to stop the demonisation of young people, change the tenor of the justice system, invest in developing productive, sustainable, localised employment, re-establish community youth centres and develop schools and colleges as cultural as well as educational centres for young people.
We need jobs & justice not crap work & criminalisation name address
Britain’s young communists say We need jobs & justice not crap work & criminalisation
Age (if under 29) E-mail
phone
postcode
Join us today
return to Young Communist League Ruskin House 23 Coombe Rd, London CR0 1BD
t: 0208 686 1659
e: office@ycl.org.uk
www.ycl.org.uk
Raw Deal! Young, broke, unemployed, banged up
BEING YOUNG IS NOT A CRIME! When it came to power in 1997, the new Labour government presented its ‘strategy’ for dealing with youth justice ‘No More Excuses: a new approach to tackling youth crime in England and Wales’. No more excuses, indeed! Over the past 12 years there have been no attempts to deal with the ‘root causes of crime’ nor any sign of a new approach. We need an end to the retributive, brutalising and impersonal system of youth ‘justice’ now! New Labour’s approach is identical to that of the Tories, demonisation of young people in the bourgeois mass media – vilifying young people as yobs, hoodies & thugs - whilst claiming at the same time that the youth justice system helps young offenders. In 2004, when Tony Blair pledged to end what he described as the '1960s liberal social consensus on law and order', Britain's use of child custody more than doubled. Our laws make criminals out of kids as young as 10, the lowest age of responsibility in Europe. Youth imprisonment rates are now the highest in Europe and among the highest in the developed world. This is the legacy of decades of deindustrialisation and deregulation in the labour market. Youth unemployment is sky rocketing and the MacJobs on offer do nothing but guarantee an lifetime of unsecure, low-paid and unrewarding employment. We need to stop the demonisation of young people, change the tenor of the justice system, invest in developing productive, sustainable, localised employment, re-establish community youth centres and develop schools and colleges as cultural as well as educational centres for young people.
We need jobs & justice not crap work & criminalisation name address
Britain’s young communists say We need jobs & justice not crap work & criminalisation
Age (if under 29) E-mail
phone
postcode
Join us today
return to Young Communist League Ruskin House 23 Coombe Rd, London CR0 1BD
t: 0208 686 1659
e: office@ycl.org.uk
www.ycl.org.uk