Riots reinforce need for early intervention, says Allen
Neil Puffett
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
The MP who led a review on early intervention has called for the government to hold its nerve in pursuing long-term societal change in the wake of riots across England.
Last night (9 August) saw outbreaks of violence and looting in Nottingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Leicester although there was little activity in London, where the unrest has centred in previous days.
In Nottingham, two police stations were attacked and up to 100 people were arrested. Graham Allen, the Labour MP for the Nottingham North constituency who led a government review on early intervention, said the violence reinforces the need to plough ahead with early intervention programmes.
"We have got to understand and tackle the longer-term problems, which involves a lot of things such as making sure children are effectively parented," he said.
"We need a proper programme of early intervention so we pre-empt this over future generations.
"If we don’t do that there’s fertile ground for people to grow up without basic social and emotional capabilities that allow you to be a member of society and a good citizen."
He added that the demographics of people involved in unrest are the very ones that early intervention could help in the future. "It is clearly a tiny percentage of people [involved in the violence]," he said.
"Ninety-nine per cent of parents and children are behaving themselves with a small percentage causing difficulties and they will be among those who benefit most if we keep our nerve and keep our policies on community engagement and early intervention going.
"The long-term answer to this has to build in long-term solutions."
