ONE of my earliest memories is walking with my parents past a house where the living room light burned brightly, the curtains were undrawn, and a man was slapping his wife in full view of the street; and my father said "You don't interfere between husband and wife". Kevin McKenna's article (“This ban smacks of pandering to the middle-class dilettantes”, The Herald, October 21) vividly brought back that scene from almost 60 years ago, and I have no doubt at all that if Mr McKenna witnessed such an assault today he would be appalled and he would interfere, because today's society rightly judges domestic abuse to be unacceptable and abhorrent. However, if it is right that we show zero tolerance towards any kind of violence against women, it must also be right to show zero tolerance to any kind of violence against children.
In giving an example of the harassed mother in the supermarket queue, Mr McKenna can think up many reasons to excuse such a mother from hitting her child, but he cannot possibly know whether or not that violence is regularly repeated at home, and he makes the mistake of assuming that such offences are carried out by "poor and disadvantaged" people, when we know that domestic violence is present across all sections of society. And as for teachers reporting anything unusual in a child's recent behaviour, surely it is far better to "assume the worst" than do nothing. How many children who could have been saved by intervention have died through violence or neglect? How many more times must we hear the refrain "that lessons will be learned" too late?
Ruth Marr,
99 Grampian Road, Stirling.
HERE in the Shortroods district of Paisley our only bus service has just been axed after 6pm, due to rock-throwing gangs of young thugs. Taxi drivers also say that they will refuse to drop off in the area after their cabs were battered with stones, eggs and vegetables. When the old council houses in the district were awaiting demolition, the fire brigade was here every night extinguishing blazes. Two of the new houses now being built here were set ablaze even before they were completed.
Far from being a purely local problem, train drivers on the Dumbarton, Balloch and Helensburgh lines have also threatened to strike over anti-social behaviour by local youths. I, personally, had a disturbing experience recently at Helensburgh Central station, at the hands of an out of control, foul-mouthed, youth – whose female companions were no better. Similar problems have also been experienced at Hamilton Central station.
Recently you reported that “violence and intimidation against NHS and local government workers has doubled over the past decade and is continuing to climb. Attacks on frontline staff including teachers, doctors, nurses, parking attendants and social workers rose by over 18 per cent year-on-year to 41,176 in 2016/17, compared with just over 20,000 in 2006”. This totally unacceptable situation can be traced back to the abolition of corporal punishment in schools, as young thugs have come to know that there are no longer any meaningful sanctions against their anti-social behaviour.
Incredibly, the SNP Government’s response, at the bidding of the Green Party cronies on whom they now must depend, is to ban parents from smacking their children. Inevitably, hard-pressed parents who are trying to instil a modicum of discipline in their off-spring will be criminalised and we will all have to suffer in consequence of the lack of any meaningful sanctions against thuggery, violence, intimidation and anti-social behaviour.
Robert D. Campbell,
48 McLean Place, Paisley.
IF the Scottish Parliament votes in favour of the ban on parental smacking, perhaps the occasionally dreadful behaviour of our MSPs should lead to the creation of a naughty step in the debating chamber.
Michael Watson,
74 Wardlaw Avenue, Rutherglen, Glasgow.
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