Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 319)
TUESDAY 19 DECEMBER 2006
CURTIS BURK,
CEAN JOHNSON
AND ANDREW
PORTER
Q300 Bob Russell: So your background,
lifestyle, has that involved you in getting into criminal activities?
Cean: No.
Andrew: It is not really background.
It is choosing to do it.
Q301 Bob Russell: You have chosen
to do it? Do you wish now you had had different life chances?
Andrew: What do you mean by that?
If I did not do it?
Q302 Bob Russell: Are you proud of
what has happened so far?
Andrew: Yes.
Bob Russell: You are? Okay.
Q303 Chairman: Can I just follow
on from that a bit because it is something that has come up with
other groups of people we have talked to? In the group of friends
that you have got how many live in families with mum and dad there?
If you think about your group of friends, how many of them have
grown up in families where they are living at home with their
mother and their father? If you look round at your friends do
a lot of them come from families where either their mum is not
there or dad is not there? That is the first question. The second
one is, do you think that has made any difference to how people
have grown up?
Curtis: Yes.
Q304 Chairman: What do you think
about it, Curtis?
Curtis: Yeah, quite a few people
I know have got backgrounds like their dad has gone off, some
stuff like that, arguments and stuff like that, fighting, all
sorts.
Q305 Chairman: Do you think that
makes it harder growing up?
Curtis: Yeah. It just depends
how you take it, really.
Q306 Chairman: But everybody growing
up has some problems at home. If you have got problems at home
is there anybody you can turn to?
Curtis: Friends.
Q307 Chairman: If your friends are
involved in trouble of one sort or another and you turn to your
friends does that make it any more likely that you will get involved
in trouble too?
Curtis: Of course.
Andrew: The thing is, if you turn
to your friends for family problems and they are in some mischief
and so on, they are really making what they are doing, just like
you choose to go and do it or not. You can go to them and talk
about it and they are in some trouble or they are going to do
something but you do not really have to do it just because you
are talking about personal stuff or something. You just choose
to do it.
Q308 Chairman: I am asking the question
because we talked to another group of young people and they were
saying that if they had difficulties at home sometimes a gang
or friends or whatever become like your family and then they give
you a bit of that emotional support or love, they were talking
about, which you are not getting at home. I do not know whether
that is a big issue for young people or not.
Andrew: Yeah, it is. I can talk
to my friends more than I can talk to my dad.
Curtis: Yes.
Andrew: Really, it is like your
friends are like your brothers or sisters or whatever. It is like
your second family.
Q309 Chairman: Cean, do you say that?
Cean: I do not know.
Chairman: Okay, fine.
Q310 Mr Benyon: Curtis, you are 15;
is that right?
Curtis: Yes.
Q311 Mr Benyon: Are you in school?
Curtis: No.
Q312 Mr Benyon: This is a question
for all of you. When somebody is excluded from school—
Curtis: Expelled.
Q313 Mr Benyon: Expelled, what happens?
Where do most of them go? Do they go to a referral unit, on the
streets, where?
Andrew: They probably stay on
the streets—
Curtis: They go to the next school.
Andrew: Yes, but you probably
stay on the street. You will probably be out of school for two
days or something and so on and jump into links, like in our city
there is YIP and stuff like that you can go to whether you are
in school or not, so it is a college for you.
Q314 Mr Benyon: What can be done
to keep people in school longer, not excluding them? If you have
done something wrong at the moment—
Curtis: If you have done something
wrong you should just send them home and tell them that they have
got to have, I do not know, a couple of days off school for what
they have done, not exclude them.
Andrew: It is like they see you
getting in a fight every day, being angry—
Q315 Mr Benyon: They have had a warning,
had another warning.
Andrew: Yes, that has been going
on, and expelled. A lot of that has been going on. "You have
not been excluded". "I can be as bad as him", so
really when you get expelled it shows people that if you do that
you will be gone, you will be losing your friends in school, so
there is no real point stopping it because if you are stopping
it there is going to be more and more trouble, more violence.
Q316 Mr Benyon: So it is important
that people have a line that they know in school, that if they
cross that line there are—
Andrew: Yeah.
Q317 Mr Benyon: But obviously there
must be more to be done? It is better to keep people in school?
Andrew: Yes, you can probably
keep them in longer and give them more chances and stuff like
that, or give them more options.
Q318 Mr Benyon: What was it at school
that had an effect on you, for example, Andrew?
Andrew: Probably because the teachers
speak to me like I am a kid or something. They talk to you, looking
down on you.
Q319 Mr Benyon: Why do you think
many more young men than girls get excluded and get into trouble?
Andrew: Because they are unruly—not
unruly, just like—like, say, I am telling you something
and you are not really listening, you are just saying what you
are trying to say. You are not listening to me but you expect
me to listen to you. Most of the guys do not tolerate stuff like
that. It is like if you are not listening to them there is no
point them listening to you, so in a way you are going to be rude
and stuff like that and walking out and doing what you are doing.
| 
