Trout

iTrader: (1)

Given the rampant nostalgia in recent threads about child safety there is an interesting fact from The Times this morning. Contrary to popular opinion about things being worse nowadays, or safer when we were children, the facts get in the way of a good story.

According to Kidscape the child protection charity, over the past 25 years the rate of child 'abduction' followed by murder has been constant at between 5 and 7 per year. There has been no change in this, out of a total of around a population of eleven million children in the UK.

Something to think about.

OllyK

I blame the media

Jerome

The fact that so many kids are driven to school etc now, surely the fact that the figures are constant means that things have got worse.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Not sure I agree with you on that Jerome. If you are the kind of person that "needs" abduct a child it will be a desire that fills your every waking moment. These people are mentally ill in a lot of ways. Just because parents drive their children to school does not really make that much difference, it just makes a little harder.

The more you protect your child the more likely it is that they get someone else's. But they will always find a way to get someone

PeteBrant

Wha?????

David Lock

Rannoch, were there any comparative figures given like total number of abductions? Sadly I suppose there will be a group where the kids were never traced like Ben Needham.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

I'd tend to agree.........how many would be abducted/murdered nowadays if they had the freedoms/level of supervision WE had?

Alcazar

Jerome

My point is that there are less opportunities now to abduct children, but the same numbers are being abducted, which to me means things are worse than before.

Leslie

I wonder if you would like to define the word "rampant" in relation to people telling how they all felt comparatively safe in past times!

There are probably similar numbers, with respect to population increase of course, of paedophiles as there were years ago. With the degradation of society in moral terms in recent years, and the fact that we live in a relatively uncaring and selfish world now, I think that these evil characters now have no significant fear of punishment and far less self control of their shameful desires and are therefore far more likely to attack or abduct a child.They probably are much more likely to eventually kill that child for their own protection.

I agree with Jerome that the possibility of child abduction is stronger now than it used to be and that luckily most parents are alive to this and are taking more precautions.

Les

PeteBrant

Why are there less opportunities?

Abdabz

During that 25 years the population has risen from 56million to 61million plus the uncountable illegal immigrants so the % has fallen, which is great news...
As for "less opportunities" - I am truly bemused...

Jerome

Mainly because kids are driven to school now and often almost everywhere else.

PeteBrant

What do you base this on?

If a child lives a fair distance from school, they have always been driven, or get the bus. If they are under a certain age, they have always been walked to school.

I don't see how there are more children being driven to school than there ever used to be. Especially those of an age that are prone to abduction - Say 10 years old and below. Kids of that age have almost always had supervised hourneys to and from school, either in car, bus or walking.

That goes for any journey really. When was the last time you saw an unattended 5,6,7,8 year old? It's always been that way.

Jerome

Pete surely you've noticed the difference in the rush hour traffic during school holidays? I thought it was taken as read that many more kids are driven to school than there used to be. When I went to numerous different schools, and hardly anyone was driven.

PeteBrant

Course there's a difference. Can't say I've noticed it being anymore pronounced than 10 years ago - 20 years ago, maybe.

Thing is you can't base any deduction on opportnity purely down to traffic levels. We all know there are more cars on the road than 20 years ago - It doesn't automatically follow that there are more children as a proportion being driven to school.

I would say the number one danger a child faces today (and by "child" I mean anything up to 16) is street crime, now that is something that has changed in recent years.

I don't beleive abductions are any more of a threat than, say, 25 years ago.

Chrisgr31

But aren't there more kids nowdays?

Leslie

Even school gates are kept locked these days. That was never felt necessary in previous times.

Les

Nigel H

Interesting to hear there are no differences, apparently. I'm not convinced one way or the other. So much has changed and I'd question how comparable the stats are. I suppose that missing children were as well reported now as they were then...

To move the thread on a bit, as the parent of a 7 year old boy I've been wondering what rules others use when looking after their kids. At the moment we know where he is all the time - he rarely leaves our sight except to go to schools and other clubs. I'm not interested in discussing care at these places, but what do you do when you have your kids with you?. Like many others, when I was a kid 30+ years ago, I just went out on my bike and played on the steets. It was safe to do that then - I'm still here

But things have changed - there's so much more traffic on the road for a starter. So what do you do and how did you decide at when to start letting go. For example when is it safe to let your children ride on their own to friends houses on their bike? (Not houses round the corner, say a mile or so away on busy local roads).

I want my son to learn about taking responsibility for himself and I don't like to take him in the car everywhere, but how do you decide where

PeteBrant

It's almost a natural progression. As they get older they want to branch out more, and by default, they are better equipped to deal with the journey.

I have a 16 and a 12 year old. They 16 years old goes off here there and everywhere. The 12 year old rides his bike to friends homes/the park etc. But he is not allowed to get on the bus to go to the local town centre. However, he is starting to moan about not being able to go, I would imagine by the time he is 13, then he can ge ton the bus and go into town.

What I am trying to say is that the kids almost let you know when they are ready to branch out on thier own a bit more, rather than the other way round.

PeteBrant

Wasn't that brought in as a response to the Philip Lawrence murder rather than abdunctions?

Jerome

Pete,

I've read many news articles that state, because of the fear of paedophiles, many more children are being driven to school now than in days gone by (probably 20+ years ago). Ironically, according to this report, children were at greater risk - statistically - than if they'd walked to school because of car accidents. I was also assume that increased car ownership has also contributed to these figures.

I'm pretty sure it is fact that many more children are driven to school (and other destinations) now than 20+ years ago. All because of the fear of paedophiles.

Therefore, by definition, if they are in a car they are much less likely to be abducted.

Abdabz

I think the school run has diddly **** to do with a modern day concern about paedos to be honest. As Pete said, even going back to 1980 when I was in "year 2" I lived in a village where not one parent lived more than a mile away from the school, yet there were Renault Fuego's, Talbot Ranchos and Allegros everywhere at picking up and dropping off times... The poor lolipop ladies were run ragged. It is still exactly the same there now...
I see no corrolation whatsoever between the school run and kidnappings...
Naturally if as Jerome says, a child is in a car then we would summise it is less likely to be kidnapped than, say, a child playing on it's own in 'death wood' which adjoins the mental hospital etc...
Someone once tried to lure my brother into a Ford Capri when he was 6ish right outside our house in 1983. Thankfully he had the sense to not go near... It wasnt Bodie or Doyle, I asked...

Jerome

These 2 articles, I would say, support my argument:

School-run parents face crackdown at rush hour | UK News | The Observer

The school run - Independent Online Edition > Transport

Trout

iTrader: (1)

My assertion was relative to quantity rather than quality. I cannot judge how you feel about your past, however I can judge that there were a significant number of posters who shared a certain view of childhood. One that perhaps I am less nostalgic about.


And the statistics do not support your assertion. If they did have 'far less self control' one might imagine that abductions resulting in murder would significantly increase. The direct evidence suggests otherwise.

Rannoch

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Yes but it WAS that way. Certainly in the village and outskirts of town I lived in as a child. I walked to school, just under a mile, every dayfrom 7 years old, with my little sister who was 5. So did my mate and his little brother. We were seen across the main road by parents, then waved off, and walked, on a footpath bordered by fields etc to the village school. FACT.

Before that we'd lived in Humberston, outside Cleethorpes, until I was 7, and played daily in the fields, ditches and tracks at the back of the house, unsupervised, from 4 years old and onwards. There was often farm equipment left in the field and we played on that. We even rode on the tractor when it was haymaking.

At 8 I was allowed to go 3 miles from our house in Scunny to the local gravel pits, (disused) to play, with two mates.

At 9 me and a mate went on the train from Scunny to Doncaster, just the two of us, with pack-up for the day, to trainspot. 2/11d child return, I still have the ticket stub.

Alcazar

Leslie

I understand what you mean by "rampant" in respect of "growing rapidly out of control" but can't see how that can be applied to the posters that you mentioned.

Do you have any statistics or direct evidence? It would be interesting to see what is quoted.

The point I was making is that because of the sad lack of parental responsibility in so many cases these days and the PC attitude at schools where children are more or less allowed to dictate what they want rather than being taught any form of discipline or the need to control their emotions, they grow up unable to understand why they should be prepared to curb their desires in any way.

Can you explain why there are so many more killings these days where someone may well be "rubbed out" merely because they are in the way of something the killer wants to do or even thinks he is not getting the respect he feels he deserves. This of course will also apply to perverted sexual desires felt by the rapist or killer concerned. In such a case then abduction will be the obvious danger.

When I was a young boy, I was approached twice by creepy individuals, one of whom suggested that he would buy a stamp I was looking at in Stanley Gibbon's window if I went to the public lavatory with him, and the other was rubbing against my leg in a bus and breathing heavily. Bit of a nasty situation in both cases for a young boy. When I let both individuals know that I would have nothing to do with them and they had better get lost, they disappeared pretty rapidly.

I suggest that these days, because of the changes of attitudes as I described, I would have been in much greater danger then I was then. This is what Jerome was saying I think in that these days these perverts do not get the opportunities because of the extra care people take over their children when being transported to school or whatever.

Les

Leslie

Wasn't Lawrence killed by one of the school pupils. Don't see how locking school gates would affect that situation.

Les