Anyone think national service would be a better solution than detention centres and prison which are clearly failing. Maybe followed by a stint in Iraq or something.

Is prison failing them according to government criteria. Look the country needs an underclass to keep the business of prison going. You already got private companies running prisons at profit. I9f you dont do national service what you going to threaten with. Prison? Home from home for too many.

BT - it's common knowledge that the military if nothing else would simply creative even more sophisticated criminals but from an institutionalized perspective I would see it working with the prison sentence even in a boot camp kind of way.

I wouldn't see national service as a threat but more for persistent offenders where prison has actually failed them already. Also thinking of shipping some of these youths out to the third world and get them on some programs which help the needy, in a kind of community service kind of way.

These people need a wider perspective than money. In a horses for courses approach I'm sure military exposure would assist many.

Maybe / maybe not. Its the old talk that we hear from our US cousins that once they were in the military they came off the madness. Same applies to boxing/ martial arts/ footballers in fact insert any escape route of the streets. The common thread being some type of discipline learned to apply to yourself ultimately. So sure it will work for some. For others it will be another instutution that they can take comfort to feed clothe and think for them.

But my original point was more highlighting the fact that what is the motive of prison to politicians when prisoners have play station and DVD/TV and Hifi in their cells. If National Service was brought in under the same rules it would create a sizable amount of black youth ready for cannon fodder duty in Iraq and Kandalar.

The only way I see these black youth being brought back into reality is if its an independent effort by black men to force these youth thorugh our own institutions to present them ready to deal with the world in non suicidal terms. Seeing as they is no homogenous body of men even within the subset of caribbean heritage who could count on widespread support for such an enterprise its a case of chickens coming home to roost. Dont build or leave any lasting legacy/institutions for your people and see the result in 20 years. there are a few worthy souls doing the work but do they have widespread support. Does anyone off these boards know of them? The prisons want you and my youths. The system is holding out its hands calling baba..

I came across a book the other day that deals with this very problem among black countries from the Americas to Africa. The more I read the worlds newspapers on line and see the problems of youth crime and murder the more I believe that this thing is being orchastrated differently. In time you send those youth to Ghana to do voluntarily work and they will come up against the same attitudes that you have here among the youth. I hold no faith in government installing programmes to redirect youth. I dont beleive this social enginnering is as innocent as people would have us believe either. From they are leaving their owner youth to rot in the same deadstock areas and dead schools and plying them with bullshit media what can you say.

BT - when you listed the different sources of discipline the fisrt thing that came to mind was this has to come all the way back to a root as one cure is just as fallible as another but can we afford to look at it this way.

If we are waiting for black men to come together surely the best hope we have is for them to provide pockets of cures because a common consensus is never going to happen and wouldn't these pockets all be victim to the realities of life that they too will all be just as exposed to fallibilities.

Ah the pissing in the wind syndrome. In a word yes they would be. But being the romantic guy I am I dream/believe/think that coming from people who look like them/ speak like them (to a limited degree)..would hold more power and be more powerful than 'foreign' institutions.

Whether thats a strong urination in the wind as opposed to a dribble is another question. Would it make a difference in the scheme of things?Who knows.. people like FredB have told us of programs they have run or know of which have had results. How long lasting those results were in those specific areas would be a line of investigation.

There is no way BT - I'd advocate a national service program specifically targeting black children, that would defeat the object, might as well call it Trident - I agree with BT that the minute we look at this from a 'black' perspective then it is something we need to deal with 'internally'. I'd also expect a national service being available from a reactive and a proactive perspective as opposed to a formal solution.

My thinking is coming from these angles; when I hear these biggerheads talking about taking dna samples from the school playground that tells me they believe they can identify likely candidates for future trouble which to me tells me they must then also be able to put the necessary safety nets in place - i.e. if you can spot them this early you can stop them this early, so why all the dna bull?

Link this with arguments about bringing back the death penalty again it seems there's a perception suggesting there are those who just can't be saved so it's societies job to make provisions for this.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...10/nyobs10.xml

K - Your point makes me appreciate is it a case that time has moved on so looking to past programs to cure modern ills has a high potential for disaster, here's an opinion that reflects this:

we would have problems if we brought it back as there would be a lot of AWOL's, absent without leave. Could it be enforced and if so would the courts deal with it correctly? Would it help to prevent the tidal flow of illegal immigrants entering the country. If they did enter should they too be made to do national service. Is there enough unemployment to keep a steady flow of recruits? How long should the enrolement be for? Would disabled people be excluded, if they were excluded would this be fair? Could the government sustain the cost? (I think the answer to this one is yes, as they would be saving on u/e payments in other areas.) What would the punishment be for non-conformists? Should it be just males, or both sexes? Should any religion be exempt? The list goes on.