A COUNCILLOR recalled riots, carrying knives and children being beaten by canes in schools in the 1950s during a discussion about youth crime.
Councillor Peter Thornton, cabinet member for highways and ICT, was speaking during a meeting of the Liberal Democrat-led Westmorland and Furness Council on the topic of a new Youth Justice Plan.
The plan sets out how youth justice services are provided and funded including making it more prevention-focused and reducing the need for other interventions down the line.
Councillor Janet Battye, cabinet member for children’s services, education and skills, talked the meeting through the proposals.
She said they aimed to ‘reduce the number of young people coming into youth justice systems
Cllr Battye added: “Levels of offending by young people here is low, very small numbers of young people go to custody.”
Councillor Thornton seconded the proposals and praised the progress made in the area.
He said: “We keep young people out of the justice system, we avoid them getting criminal records and you can see the effect this has later on by our lower crime rates.”
Cllr Thornton compared the youth justice system of today to when he grew up in the 1950s, saying ‘despite what you read’, crime is lower nowadays.
He said: “Recently we have had some challenges in a number of areas, you read the below-the-line comments and you’ve got a bingo card: ‘bring back the birch’, ‘bring back the rope’, ‘bring back the approved schools, the borstals, the national service’.
“Interestingly, in the 50s when I grew up, we had all of those, well actually the birch had just stopped as administered by the local constable but our headmaster had an impressive amount of canes that he used to use quite regularly on quite young children.”
Cllr Thornton described it as a ‘very violent society’.
He described the ‘Rock Around the Clock’ film of 1956, featuring rock and roll musician Bill Haley, starting ‘riots’ amongst the youth of the time ‘including in the Palladium in Kendal’.
Cllr Thornton added: “The film had to be stopped because the youngsters were, you know, doing things and causing problems.
“Cinema seats were slashed, there were Teddy Boys, there were youth riots.”
He then said ‘most of us used to carry knives in those days’ to stifled laughter around the room, adding: “It wasn’t the time that people look back on, not at all. The time that we’re in now is a much better time.
“The reason I’m saying this is I think we need to be more ready to take on some of the reactionary things that we hear in the pub and in conversations.
“We need to say crime, especially among young people, is it an all time low, and the reason is because we don’t beat them anymore, we don’t lock them up unless we absolutely have to and we find ways to get them integrated into society.”
Councillor Patricia Bell, cabinet member for adult services, raised concern about the number of children brought to the attention of the youth justice service who are ‘having a difficult time in life’.
She added: “It might be a small number but those are children who are not getting a good start in life for one reason or another.
“I really hope we can do something about that in future.”
The cabinet approved the Youth Justice Plan.
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