"Raised to rampage"

The article asks "Where's the parents?" This is not the right question. It's "Where are the fathers?" Answer: They were deemed an annoying inconvenience by society a few decades back and institutions were re-aligned or spawned to get them separated from their children or cause them to realize that it was a greater risk to stay with the child's mother than not to. In my judgment, you have state-implemented policies founded in feminist dogma to thank for the mess in the UK being played out in the streets. And while focus groups and government agencies will spend loads of time and money asking about such factors as economics and race (which undoubtedly play a part), they will conveniently overlook "The Father Factor", the modern 300-lb. gorilla in the middle of the room that everyone will pretend not to see. But I do the article an injustice, as the author does mention 'dadlessness' in it. Excerpt:

'Why can’t they feel things properly? How did we end up with some of the most indisciplined and frighteningly moronic youngsters in Europe? How come our kids are the best at being bad? There’s no use blaming the police; it’s the parents, stupid. A report by the Centre for Social Justice found that the UK excels in the three D’s of family breakdown – divorce, dysfunction and dadlessness. Of the 805 violent looters arrested, how many come from homes without a father? I reckon we can guess the answer. A study back in 2001 found that 85 per cent of Indian families were headed by a married couple while 50-60 per cent of black families were headed by a lone parent, usually the mother. Is there anyone who still believes there is no link between that agonising statistic and the young males running amok on our streets?

It is unlikely that these boys will have encountered a male teacher with real authority, a teacher who isn’t afraid to show them who’s boss and to give them the discipline, order and hierarchy that, without knowing it, they crave. A friend who works in an inner-London comprehensive with boys twice her size is not allowed to send them to the headmaster. Faced with full-frontal rudeness or casual violence, Clare must first follow school policy and ask, “Darren, are you ready to receive the discipline message?”
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I am bringing my own two children up in a country I barely recognise. So what is the answer? In the final chapter of Lord of the Flies, after the boys stranded on the island have formed rival gangs and committed arson, theft and murder, the author William Golding pulls off one of the great shifts in perspective in literature. From the young savage lying on the beach, we look up and see a crisp, white uniform. Civilisation and authority have arrived in the shape of a naval officer. Suddenly we see the main character not as an all-powerful savage, but as a dirty little boy who needs a good talking to. Given limitless freedom, and without adults to show them better, children will run riot. That is the lesson of the past few days.

What our young people need is adults to stop abdicating authority. They need police to police, teachers to teach, parents to parent, politicians and clergy to give moral leadership, and, above all, they need more people like Pauline Pearce, the jazz-singing Jamaican grandmother who fearlessly took on rioters and saved a white man from the mob. Pauline shouted at the looters everything the rest of the country wanted to say to them. Pauline didn’t walk by on the other side. She could see that they were little blighters – but she knew that they were our little blighters and the adult’s job was what it always has been: to give them what for. And, just for a moment, they weren’t monsters, feral rats or thieving scum. They were stupid kids out too late, who needed a mum like Pauline to bring them to book and a father to take them home.'