We need to talk about 'fight club'
THE parent who wrote to us on this page today has taken a brave step. No caring parent will be happy to find out that their child, whatever their age, has been involved, however distantly, in increasingly common events of public disorder, including the new craze for public fighting, filmed by many and then shared online.
But most will not want to put their head above the parapet – even anonymously – to express their concerns.
Many parents, including our correspondent, know that their children are involved. Others maybe don’t, or their youngsters are very much on the edge. But as the La Mare de Carteret incident showed, the original ‘staged’ fight can lead on to others.
While Police say that most young people are respectable and don’t cause trouble, and they don’t want to demonise the young people in the community, they are clearly concerned, both for the message these antics send out, and the risk of something escalating seriously. Are they being listened to? Are parents speaking out, or being heard?
There have been incidents over the years of lives ruined by ‘just one punch’.
As an island we are sensitive to crime, possibly over-sensitive to it in comparison to its incidence. But that is just one of the reasons why people are appalled by ‘Teenage Fight Club’ – and why we want it to stop.