Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to today's lesson on citizenship.

I'm Mrs. Barry and I will be your teacher today.

We are looking at series lessons about what is crime? And were on lesson four of six, thinking about youth crime.

And the question for today's lesson is, is youth crime really as serious as the media suggests? Hopefully you turned off any apps or notifications so that you can focus on this lesson and you're at a distraction-free place.

And when you're ready we can make a start.

With you, you need your brain, which I'm sure you've got with you, a pen or a pencil to write with, and something to write on such as some paper.

So once you put all that together we can start to have a look at today's topic.

So we're looking at youth crime.

We need to have a think about the media portrayal of youth crime, which means how the media shows or talks about youth crime.

We're going to have a look at some youth crime statistics to see if what the media is saying is actually true.

And then we're going to have a look at a positive approach and think about how we could portray youth crime and the damage that portraying youth crime in a negative way could have.

And we'll do some activities to check your understanding and to make sure you've taken something away from today's lesson.

This lesson is looking specifically at youth crime.

So we need to be able to understand what youth crime is.

And we have to understand who is legally responsible for themselves and therefore who can commit a crime at what age.

And we've covered this back in lesson one and two in this series of lessons on crime.

So if you haven't done those, it's worth having a look at them just to make sure that you are aware of this lesson.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland you're criminally responsible for yourself from the age of 10.

In Scotland, that's slightly different.

It's from the age of 12.

And information for youth crime goes from these ages up until the age of 17, because at the age of 18, you're considered to be an adult and the criminal justice system is slightly different for those who are young criminals and those who are adult criminals.

So the punishments, for example, would be different for a young person compared to an adult.

And young offenders, young criminals spoken about in the media are referred to within those age groups.

So that's what we mean when we talk about youth crime.

Now, how is youth crime portrayed then? And I've pulled some different headlines here from newspapers that talk about young criminals.

And I want you to think about what do these headlines suggest about youth crime? And have a think about the language being used.

So the first one there is from The Guardian.

It says, "Rising youth crime reflects wider societal problems." Second one is from The Daily Mail and it says, "Britain's blackspots where there is a criminal in every classroom." And the third one is from The Independent.

And it says, "As we come out of lockdown and return to normality, youth violence could intensify once again." Now have a think about those headlines.

What's it telling us? And what language is being used? I've underlined, just to help us here, some words in each of those headlines.

We've got the word problem, criminal and intensify.

So when we look at the word problem, it suggests there's an issue.

When we look at the word criminal that really is criminalising young people, it's using the actual word of crime or criminal.

And then that last one intensify means to get stronger or to get worse.

So newspapers here are trying to use emotive language.

And emotive comes from the word emotion and it tries to make you feel emotional about what they're saying.

They want you to feel something about the story.

So if you see the word problem you're going to think there's an issue.

If you see the word criminal, you're immediately going to be thinking of someone who's done something wrong.

And if you look at the word intensify, you're going to be looking at the fact that something's going to get worse.

And with all these they're talking about young people, the one that strikes me is that idea that there is a criminal in every single classroom.

So in the school that I work in, for example, that would be roughly nine criminals in every year group.

'Cause for some years, we have nine classes.

That's a lot of young people who would be classed as criminals.

But is this necessarily true? So are the newspapers portraying this in the correct way? We're going to have a look at this clip.

And Letarnia talks about youth crime.

And I want you to think about, whilst you watch this clip, how does the media portray youth crime? And are young people committing more crimes than they are doing good? What evidence does she give when she talks about that? So you could make some notes on this as you watch it, that's up to you.

Try to think about those questions.

My name is Letarnia.

I'm 20 years old.

I'm a youth worker.

I work in a lot of the states around Northwest London.

The way they put it in the newspaper on the news, it's like big headlines gangs, like automatically people think, "Oh my gosh, what's happened?" Young people are dying, stabbings and all these things and it's almost becoming part of life for some people.

You're walking down the road, you might get stabbed, you might not, just get on with it sort of thing.

So it's very sad when I hear of young people that I know getting hurt and stuff.

A few weeks ago actually, a young person was shot and actually died.

And that was sort of a gang sort of thing.

So someone had beef with another group and basically, as young people say, "They got caught slipping." What does that mean? It means like using the wrong place at the wrong time, really.

If you're from a certain estate, you don't want other people coming into your estate, sort of intrude and they look at you're in a certain crew, if you're from that area.

So you have to sort of stay loyal sort of thing.

Otherwise you could get yourself into trouble as well.

I think a lot of young people are pressured.

So it's sort of like if I'm not in this group or whatever, then I'm going to be an enemy of these young people from my own area.

So it's either be you're in, or you're out sort of thing.

There's a lot of young people of the same ages, all crammed into one area, council, states and stuff like that.

So it is very difficult trying to live in such a small area with very little resources.

A lot of young people are doing a lot of positive things.

And I think if more people saw what young people are doing and the positive things they are involved in, then they'll see a different light to it.

So in that clip, Letarnia talks about the fact that headlines often talk about gang violence.

Particularly where she works in London, gangs are a particular issue, but she also says that young people are pressured and there are pockets of crime in the fact that lots of young people are kind of crammed into one small area.

And so people will look at an area and go, "There's a lot of youth crime there." And so by newspapers picking up on these small bits, small areas where there's a lot of crime and sensationalising it, putting it across in a newspaper heading and making it a massive issue.

She's telling us basically that the media is portraying youth crime in this really big way and the fact that it's negative, it's everywhere, and yet it really isn't.

And then secondly, with that question that I asked you to think about.

Are young people committing more crime than they are doing good? Letarnia actually said, "No, lots of young people are doing positive things." She doesn't give any evidence in her clip when she's talking about youth crime, but you might be able to think of some.

So I'm sure you know in your own schools or your own local communities that they're all young people helping others.

There might be a campaign in school by your school council for example, that's trying to make something better.

And hopefully in the majority of people that you know, young people, don't go out and break the rules, they follow them.

And they are keeping in line with whatever systems they have to follow.

Whether it be your school's or the laws of the country.

Our first task in this lesson, I want you to look at these four statements and decide if they are true or false.

So you can just on a piece of paper write one, two, three, and four and next to them put down whether you think they are true or false.

And you might do this as I read them out to you or you might in a moment pause.

But first let's read them to you.

So, number one, more young people commit crimes than adults.

Number two, boys commit more crime than girls.

Three, all youth crime is on the rise.

So there's more of it.

And number four, most youth crime committed was violence against person.

So you can pause now, give those a go and when you're ready press play, and we can continue with our lesson.

So well done for giving that a go.

We're going to have a look at the answers now.

Number one said that more young people commit crimes than adults.

And that is actually false.

So in statistical terms, the numbers really, they tell us that more adults commit crimes than young people.

Number two said, boys commit more crime than girls.

That is true.

So more boys under the age of 18 are committing more crimes than girls under the age of 18.

Number three, all youth crime is on the rise.

So there's more of it.

So year by year it's gradually increasing.

That is actually false, it's decreasing.

So there is less youth crime year on year.

Number four said most youth crime committed was violence against the person.

And that is true.

So in terms of what type of crimes young people are committing, violence against person is the one they're doing the most.

We have a look at some statistics.

Now that's numbers essentially about the topic.

And so these are the 2018, 2019 youth crime statistics.

And these are put out yearly by the government to tell us what's going on in our country.

So the question I have for you is what can we understand about youth crime from these statistics? We've got 5% fewer arrests, there's a downward arrow meaning there's less.

So we've got less young people being arrested.

We've got less first time entrance into the youth justice system.

So there's 18% less young people coming into the system because of their criminal activity.

We've got slightly less 1%, but it's the decrease, of knife and offensive weapon offences.

And 19% less children given a caution or sentence from the previous year.

There were 21,700 children cautioned or sentenced in the year 2018, 2019.

23% of them are age 10 to 14, 77% of them age 15 to 17.

27% of them were of a black Asian minority ethnic group.

73% of them were white.

85% of them were boys and 15% girls.

So in 2019, it's worth noting that there were 7.

61 million young people in the United Kingdom aged between 10 and 19.

Which means that less than 1% of young people were cautioned or sentenced in 2019.

So if you think back to those headlines, we looked at at the start of the lesson, where the media is implying there is going to be a massive increase in crime coming from young people or that there was a major issue with young people, there was one person in every classroom essentially that was a criminal, that can't be the case because it's such a tiny proportion of young people who are part of the youth justice system.

So what do you think about how youth crime is portrayed in the media? And there was a group of young people age 14 to 19 who chose to investigate this issue and take action on it.

And this was their initial hypothesis.

They said, "The media portrays young people more negatively than positively, which leads to the public forming an unbalanced perception of the behaviour and attitudes of young people.

Negative reporting causes a greater fear of the issue than the actual reality of the reported problem and enhances stereotyping.

Imbalanced negative portrayal of young people in the media has a damaging effect on young people and the community in which they live." If this group is right, is youth crime really as serious as the media suggests? And that's the question we have selected, isn't it? They asked three key questions.

And they were doing this in the borough of London, thinking about how the media was portraying young people and crime.

And so they asked, "Does unbalanced negative media portrayal exist?" So is it happening? And we've already started to analyse ourselves in this lesson, that there is a negative portrayal of young people when it comes to crime.

Number two, "How does this affect youth and the communities they live in? And to what extent?" so what's going on? Is it a positive impact that these headlines are having or is it negative? In what way and is it a big issue? Number three, "How can we address damaging consequences and counter these effects?" So if there is an issue, in which we've already started to work out there probably is, what can be done about it? So let's have a look at their findings for each of these and consider if youth crime is as serious as the media suggests and the consequences of this.

So that first question, "Does unbalanced negative media portrayal actually exist?" And these are three things I've pulled out of what their study showed.

And they said, "Yes, and it's the modern day reporting styles that sensationalise actual news more than ever." So they make it a bigger issue sensationalization than it actually is.

"The media showing youths in a bad light, dramatising youth problems and not showing the vast majority of youths are well behaved and law abiding contribute to this." So the fact that they are showing young people in a bad way actually might have an impact on young people themselves.

If you were labelled as something, then you might follow it.

And then lastly, "Readers think that there is far more knife crime by teenagers and that actually is portraying teenagers in a very negative way, when our research shows that an adult is much more likely to commit such a crime." But one of the ideas, the questions we looked at earlier, was are young people committing more crime than adults? No, statistically adults are committing more crime.

And yet newspapers talk about young people, knife crime or gang culture all the time and put across this view to the general public that young people are always committing these crimes.

And that there is an issue here particularly with young people.

And yet, really there is an issue equally or greater in some sense with adult crime.

Secondly, they asked, " How does this affect youth and the communities they live in? And to what extent?" "So the media portrayal of teenagers," said this group, "plays a big role in that teenagers are stereotyped." Which means they're judged wherever they go and whatever they do.

So people are judging them based on the fact they're young people.

They have this preconceived idea, they stereotype them.

So when people see teenagers, they're suspicious of them and suspect that they're up to no good.

So any young person that someone sees they go, "Oh, they're not doing something they should be." Yet they could actually be out and about helping someone else.

It's that stereotypical view that they have because of what they've seen in the media or what they've been told as they go along.

Secondly, "An implication is the public perception of young people is determined by the media portrayal of young people as yobs, hoodies or gang members.

They are led to believe that young people are violent, dangerous, disrespectful, bad-mannered, and overall lazy members of society." So those words and that language is used by the media and the public pickup from it.

And they perceive, they believe, they see young people and think that is what they're like.

And then lastly here, "Through sensationalising stories the media also gives status to the small percentage of population who are looking for notoriety.

This could be likened to how ASBOs have been known," ASBO is an antisocial behaviour order, "have been known to be worn as a badge of honour by some younger recipients." So for some people, they might see us in the news and be, "I want to be like that." And so actually it could be making the issue worse for some young people.

So in a sense, yes, it affects young people and the communities.

And it's a big impact because those young people are living in a community where the adults are looking at them and thinking they're up to no good when most of them, remember those statistics, less than 1% of them are potentially doing something they shouldn't be.

And the third thing we need to look at is how they can address damaging consequences.

And the group from London, the young people, they came up with a range of ideas that they could use.

So they were Hertsmere Young Researchers, and they said that you could write a petition, create a petition, create an event, campaign, create own news source or use the media itself.

So a petition that could campaign and get lots of support to say that newspapers should stop using youth crime figures in such a negative way.

They could create an event to raise awareness.

They could campaign and again raise awareness through educating other people.

They could create their own news source.

So write their own young newspaper to portray things in the way that they feel things should be portrayed or shown.

And they could talk to the media and say, "Actually, we'd like these stories to come up." And maybe liaise with those who are in charge of media sources to bring of course change as to how young people are portrayed in the news.

So we're going to do task two now.

And this is a longer task you need to try.

And we're going to use the information we've covered in this lesson to write a news article about youth crime.

Two main questions need to be your focus for this.

So how young people are portrayed by the media, and you can make a judgement here, are young people as bad as the media says? So you're going evaluate that.

And then talk about the impact this can have on how young people are viewed.

And before you pause the video, I'm going to put up some helpful pointers that hopefully will guide you with this.

So that it will take you about 10, 15 minutes.

So if you're really trying to put a lot of information, it can take you up to 20 minutes to do this.

So you can include a headline for your news item.

Think about the words that get the main parts of your story across to your audience.

The leads, that's the opener.

One or two sentences that give the basic facts of the story.

Then you're going to move into the main story itself.

So one or two short paragraphs for this describing what is happening.

And you might like to include a quote from the Hertsmere Researchers' case study.

There's a piece of evidence.

So you could go back to the lesson and get those back up.

And then an ending.

So a final sentence or two with a summary or statement that gives your sense of the story.

So what do you think? When you're ready, you can pause.

Complete that task and then press play when you are ready to resume.

Well done for giving that a go.

And I've got a bit of feedback for you.

And obviously this is just my interpretation of what you could have written, but yours will be different.

It just gives you an idea of whether you're on the right tracks or not.

So the headline I've put here is Young People Wrongfully Shamed by the Media.

And my lead in that story would be media reports on youth crime suggest there is a serious issue and is stereotyping young people as criminals.

Now, in my main story I've talked about newspapers and other media sources.

And they're reporting on young people as though they're all caught up in criminal activity.

It suggests data shows that young people are committing large amounts of crime, when government data actually shows that youth crime is decreasing.

The media is using emotive language to sensationalise the situation, drawing in the reader.

Now, within that paragraph I could have included, just to improve it, some actual data.

But we have used some of the language from this lesson.

Then we can move on to our second paragraph.

So as a result of media tactics, many people stereotype young people and see them as thoughtless individuals who are breaking the law.

As the Hertsmere Researchers group stated, "An implication is the public perception of young people is determined by the media portrayal of young people as yobs, hoodies or gang members." This leads to a division in communities, but older generations put down young people.

Reviews their.

And that's always really good in a newspaper article 'cause it makes your story believable.

You've actually got some information that is direct from somewhere.

And my ending here is young people aren't as bad as it's suggested; a small number of young people less than 1% of the population, age 10 to 19 commit crime and it isn't fair to stereotype them into one large group.

Now, if I was giving this a really good go, I would put a picture on here and make it look like a real newspaper article.

Which is something you could do with yours if you wanted to.

But the real issue with news stories and the media is what may contain, the information.

So well done for giving that a go.

I know that's a long task for you to do.

And I'm sure you've done brilliantly.

So well done, we've come to the end of today's lesson.

Looking at youth crime and whether it's really as serious as the media suggests.

And we've done that in a number of ways.

So we looked at the media portrayal of youth crime considering different headlines.

Looking at sensationalization and emotive language that's used in newspapers.

We have had a look at youth crime statistics and considered whether that is as serious as the media suggests.

And some of the statistics suggest that actually it really is sensationalised.

The media is trying to make it sound a bigger deal than it really is in the sense that they're trying to sell their newspapers.

And we've looked at the case study of the Hertsmere research group that found lots of interesting things about how the media portrays youth crime and the damage that they can have within communities.

And they also came up with that range of ways in which action can be taken to try and reduce the damage and also inform others on how young people aren't all young criminals but that most of them are actually young people.

And we've done some checking of our understanding through a variety of different ways.

Now I do have one more task for you that you can go away and do.

And that's our take away task.

So we can inspire you hopefully to look and take some citizenship action.

So what do you think about the way the media portrays youth crime? What sort of action could you take? Think about those ideas from the Hertsmere Young Researchers group.

For example, the media.

You could write a letter to your local newspaper raising your concerns for example.

After you've done that you can reflect on it.

So check your letter through with a parent or guardian, carer or your citizenship teacher.

And with their help you could send that one to your local newspaper or another media outlet like the local radio station.

So well done for your work today.

And if you've put something together for example, your take away tasks that you want to share then you can do that by asking your parent or carer to share on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter making sure you tag in @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

And there's one last thing I need you to do before you finish your citizenship lesson today.

And that is to go and complete your exit quiz.

So well done and I look forward to seeing you for another citizenship lesson soon.