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Heroic Knight
 
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Off topic, but I'd totally support an introduction of national service As a spin off from the Benefits thread I'd wonder what people would think about the reintroduction of National Service.
Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.
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Wag
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I'd certainly support National Service as an alternative to certain prison sentences.
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Prodigal
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| We've spent centuries professionalising the armed forces so the last thing they need is to become a dumping ground for criminals. There's an ad campaign running at the moment where various survivors are praising up the efforts of British soldiers- that wouldn't be possible without the current high standards of professionalism and ethical code which our forces exhibit. Giving a dysfunctional 17 year old a gun and exposing them to a high risk/high responsibility lifestyle is asking for trouble. However there are lots of shitty jobs which need doing- Graffiti removal, clearing up used needles, removing fly tipping, river and canal clearances, shifting burnt out cars- the list is endless and often can't be done by local authorites because of cuts to services. Once the offender has gone straight they can consider the forces as an option - just like any one else.
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Champion
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| National Service as an attempt to cure social ills (be they 'young offenders' or just 'the youth of today' style misanthropy) is a terrible, terrible idea. This country has little need for a large standing army and, what's more, this country can't afford to train or equip an army of the size that conscription would give us. We would be left with half a million men/women 'in uniform' with nothing to do other than paint grass green and whitewash stones. That's largely the problem we have already (areas with multiple generations of unemployment), but with added camouflage pattern. Compulsory community service, a la Germany? That's a marginally different kettle of fish. Firstly, that won't be as popular with the 'hang em high' crowd - young people might learn responsibility from community service, but they're unlikely to become any more disciplined. Secondly, how do you implement it without creating something that will be resented (by young people for perhaps being tedious and menial, by older generations for squeezing the available pool of jobs)? Where is the identified need? Where can we employ what are essentially 'gap-year' kids in a useful manner? What public service needs is trained professionals (soldiers are these too), not well-intentioned slave labour.
-- -- -- Eos: Manius Shard, Shard tank commander FnH: Officious Guard no.1
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I do talk a good fight
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I think it's a daft idea. I'm not 100% convinced about community service as an alternative to prison, either -- the young thugs who murdered Sophie Lancaster were already on a community service order for a very similar violent attack they'd done shortly beforehand. Had they been in prison, instead, they might have realised that stamping on people's heads isn't socially acceptable.
Far better to spend money on prevention & intervention -- spot the kids whose home environment is predisposing them to criminality nice & early (when they're 3 to 5, before the damage becomes almost impossible to repair), and remove them from that environment.
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Prodigal
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| These aren't gap year kids- they're gap life kids, in that many of them have completely disengaged from society and have no interest in re-engaging, the obvious solution is to prevent the disengagement as early as possible. Just to give some idea of how resources are distributed at present, the average young person spends 9 minutes of every waking hour in formal learning (school or college) and 51 minutes in the community, yet we spend £4,000 per person/year on formal learning and £56 per person/year on Youth service (including Youth Justice-used to be YOT). (National Youth Service Strategy for Wales-2007) The figures aren't very different in England. We're paying £4,000 a year for young people who don't use a service but only £56 for the ones that they do use, then wondering what we've got wrong.
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Prodigal
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| These aren't gap year kids- they're gap life kids, in that many of them have completely disengaged from society and have no interest in re-engaging, the obvious solution is to prevent the disengagement as early as possible. Just to give some idea of how resources are distributed at present, the average young person spends 9 minutes of every waking hour in formal learning (school or college) and 51 minutes in the community, yet we spend £4,000 per person/year on formal learning and £56 per person/year on Youth service (including Youth Justice-used to be YOT). (National Youth Service Strategy for Wales-2007) The figures aren't very different in England. We're paying £4,000 a year for young people who don't use a service but only £56 for the ones that they do use, then wondering what we've got wrong.
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Champion
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| I used the phrase "gap year" because conscripts are invariably 18-19 year olds who are placed in positions for 12-18 months, as a "break" from their normal lives. The position is analogous to that of your gap-year "aid workers" who enrich their cv by going and digging a well in the third world. In both cases, the situations at hand are crying out for trained professional workers, not teenagers (either with gucci backpacks and ethnic necklaces, or in orange jumpsuits with a litter-picking claw). What's interesting is that the OP asked about the reintroduction of National Service i.e conscription. The terms of debate then instantly changed to the idea of punitive service. Conscription is intended (at least in a democracy) as an expression of civic duty. How can we expect civic duty from people who don't see themselves as part of the nation?
-- -- -- Eos: Manius Shard, Shard tank commander FnH: Officious Guard no.1
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