What surprised me even more was the language used to describe the children of Tyneside – "vermin", "feral", "rodents", "dregs of humanity", "infestation" and (worst of all) "sub-human creatures".
Does this really represent public morality?

No, I am not justifying bad behaviour – I am trying to propose a solution.

I don't like teenagers hanging round the streets at night, with nowhere to go, drinking and sooner or later getting into trouble.

I don't like them hanging round this way, all year round, not just on sunny days. But it's no good just complaining – we have to find a solution. If you don't like my solution, then propose a better one.

Let's make this clear, I am not hostile to the police, but I recognise the limitations to what policing can achieve. Policing cannot sort out our communities' social problems. The police cannot cure this on their own.

Which is why the police correctly point out that the answer lies in an
effective partnership with the community and the local council.

The police are trying to hold up their side of the partnership, but are we keeping ours?

There is a festering problem of poverty and neglected, deprived children. Normally, most people don't see this – it is 'out of sight, out of mind'. Then, on the first sunny day of Spring, they come to the beach and ordinary people are confronted with a cross-section of their own society they don't normally encounter, and which they don't like.

I know about the problem of deprived children – as a teacher at a pupil referral unit, for the teenagers expelled from all of another area's schools (not North Tyneside) I used to deal with them every day.

Of course, the councils will deny all of this – and many of you will choose to believe them. But then, where do these "feral youths" come from?

North Tyneside Council have a grossly inadequate allocation of youth workers, but even then, nearly half the posts have been left unfilled.

To cover the area of Howdon, Meadow Well, New York, North Shields, Cullercoats and Whitley Bay, there are supposed to be three full-time youth workers (including one for sexual health) and six part-time workers.

The part-time youth workers are the real front-line, yet four out of six posts have been left unfilled.

My proposal of a youth club and a youth worker to keep teenagers safe
and out of trouble is ridiculously low-budget, compared to high-budget policing, yet is proven to be more effective.

The money has even been allocated already, but has been saved for other budget items by leaving the posts unfilled.

Since 1992, Britain's prison population has doubled, from 42,000 to 85,000.

At £40,000 a year, to keep each prisoner locked up, an extra 42,000 prisoners costs £1.7 billion a year

The Home Office forecasts that in two years time, the prison population will be 110,000 (i.e. an extra £2.7 billion over 1992). On top of that, the annual budget to build new prisons is about as much again.

By comparison, the government has estimated that it would only cost about £3 billion a year to end child poverty. The choice to imprison more people rather than end poverty is an interesting statement of priorities.

Our youth are the future of our society. By the tone of the letters, you don't like the look of our future.

Isn't it time to do something constructive about that?

HEATHER McDOUGALL
Percy Avenue,
Cullercoats.

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