muggings - cause, effect, and hope

excellent interview on bbc radio4's today programme this morning, that looks at the question of why young people go around mugging others. you can listen again here.
youthworkers, camila batmangelidgh of kids company, and shaun bailey bring a damning critique and indictment on our liberal democracy that has neglected the care and safety of our children so that they actually feel unsafe in the world. that feeling of being unsafe coupled with a lack of love and care, along with a relentless media-driven diet of violence places too many children literally into survival mode that means the only way they can see that they can be safe is to become known as dangerous.
of course, this sounds like more liberal wishy-washy excuse-making for bad behaviour, but i find myself saying more often these days, that delinquent parents and adults are making delinquent children.
we do well to remember that jesus welcomed children into his circle in such a way that shocked his culture, when he said, 'to such as these (children) belong the kingdom of god'. in other words, the 'status' of children is second to none in the eyes of the king of the universe. that also means that the responsibility for the love and care and nurture and discipline of these first-class citizens of god's kingdom lies with adults.
the critique of the youthworkers mentioned above is that adults are the cause of their own misery because they have failed in their responsibility to the children they have begotten.
this is a complex issue that will not suffer simplistic solutions. it will require nothing less than a cultural shift, probably taking a generation or more to flow through.
but its not hopeless. einstein said that it only takes 8% of any given population to change for the rest of the population to change with them.
people like camila and shaun need to play a louder and more prominent role in helping our society to understand what's going on and develop strategies at a political level that are more effective than what we currently have.
churches need to take heart and realise that they have an enormous part to play in this issue too, as they provide most of the country's youthworkers. organisations like frontier youth trust and oasis trust do great work in training youthworkers and contributing at a significant political level by engaging in prophetic dialogue with the makers of public policy. youthwork programmes like ascension eagles cheerleaders take a long term approach to working with young people and their wider community that actually effect a cultural shift at a micro level.
the downward spiral of violence and revenge is not the only way to be feel safe in our world. the dear man whose son was murdered by 2 young men for his mobile phone and travel card has chosen to look for a better way.
the season of advent leading to christmas reminds us that god did not, and has not given up on the human condition, flawed as it is. the decision of god to live among us as jesus of nazareth, taking responsibility for the children he created continues to inspire a real, living and transformational hope that the way life is, is not necessarily the way it needs to be, and that the human condition is actually redeemable.
there is hope yet, and there are those who live hope.