Mugging for pleasure and not for profit

After the conviction for murder of Donnel Carty, 19, and Delano Brown, 18, of lawyer Tom ap Rhys Pryce, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has released a study saying that previous attempts to explain violent street crime put too much focus on the desire for gain, and not enough on the aspect of "pleasure".

Again the answer is diversionary tactics to amuse would be criminal fun seekers. And again the focus seems to be aimed at "taking people off the street". Although not stated, it is implied that the potential criminals are teenagers. With this in mind some statistics given by the article make it even more interesting: the average age of the offenders interviewed was 26, and a third of them said they belonged to criminal gangs.

I would like to propose a different scenario than perhaps the media spin would tend to give us. This isn't really about teenagers as the average age seems to be about 26 , I think this is more about a lack of positive role models, a lack of identity and a sense of belonging. And even though I do think that money should be available to these impoverished areas that these people come from, I don't think new facilities and schemes should be set up. Research need to be done on what is needed long term to build positive community identities and I think it's more about people than things.

BBC news story here