Time for discipline

HUMANS like boundaries and consequences. We like to know where we stand in the scheme of things.

For instance, we know that we have to stop at a red traffic light and if we don’t, we risk a serious traffic accident or being fined for driving through it.

We know we are mostly safe if we drive on the left side of the road in Australia and once again, by driving on the wrong side of the road there could a serious car crash or a financial penalty.

Most of us born between the 1950s and the late 1980s were taught boundaries and that there were consequences for misbehaviour.

Then somewhere along the way, children stopped being disciplined for transgressing society’s rules for reasons including: they could be traumatised or they were only expressing themselves.

In reality, it was mostly some lazy, spineless or incompetent parents who allowed this situation to snowball. Over a couple of generations a lawless subculture has been allowed to develop among a portion of our children.

Australian governments are teaching children they can do whatever they want without penalty. They can steal cars, driving them with terrifying recklessness until they crash into innocent victims, break into houses and terrorise the elderly. They can vandalise with impunity, as evidenced by the relentless campaign by two young thugs against the Avenues Tavern. The mother of one says she can’t control him. Police are limited in what they can do ( TB, 19/ 6/ 18).

A few pages earlier in the same paper there is the account of the four hoodlums aged 13, 14, 16 and 18, stealing three cars and running amok around our city committing multiple armed robberies and assaults.

We are told the 18- year- old is in custody, however, nothing was said about the other three.

In schools, bullies are permitted to harass their victims unchecked and if their targets retaliate, they are punished. Victim blaming is the trend. Women are told to be ultracareful when moving about alone. Residents are lectured that it is their responsibility to fortify their homes and property against invaders and if they don’t, they shouldn’t blame anyone else if they are robbed and/ or assaulted.

One young adult crim sincerely told me it was his victim’s fault for not securing his business property.

Endless talkfests along with myriad earnest committees sit around wringing their hands and with furrowed brows espouse how there must be a “holistic approach” into this “complex issue”.

All the offenders must be cosseted, nurtured, counselled and mollycoddled. Sorry, this doesn’t seem to have worked, because the problem is getting out of control.

The answer is really very simple: The consequences of committing crime must be so unattractive to these juvenile criminals that behaving lawfully is the more appealing alternative. In other words – positive punishment.

Proverbs 13: 24 tells us, “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him”.

In the end, they will be happier because they will know where their boundaries are. JEFF WILLIAMS,

Condon.