What an Obscene Betrayal ; Lazy, Illiterate Teachers Who Don't Think Discipline Matters. Cynical Heads Who've Given Up. And Pupils Who - Inevitably - Treat Them with Contempt. From a Leading Investigative Journalist, a Horrifying Portrait of the Schools Blighting the Futures of so Many Young Boys the Lost Generation

Daily Mail › September 22, 2009

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Summary

IT'S THE most disturbing social issue of our age - why Britain is plagued by a generation of violent, barely literate young men living outside the normal bounds of society. For nine months, a leading investigative journalist has been examining their world for the Mail. Yesterday, in the second part of our exclusive serialisation of her findings, she reported how the welfare system has destroyed the family and left countless boys doomed to crime and failure. Today, she takes on our failing schools ...

WHEN Darren was 14, he became one of the bad boys. Barely able to read and write and unable to keep up in the classroom, he started truanting with nine other pupils who also felt school had nothing to offer but humiliation. Trashing bus shelters and stealing anything for kicks soon progressed to stealing in earnest when they discovered a fence in their small town in the Midlands. They'd have the wheels off a BMW and Pounds 100 in their pockets within the space of an hour. Then they moved into drugs, selling cocaine and ecstasy to the queues outside nightclubs.

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What an Obscene Betrayal ; Lazy, Illiterate Teachers Who Don't Think Discipline Matters. Cynical Heads Who've Given Up. And Pupils Who - Inevitably - Treat Them with Contempt. From a Leading Investigative Journalist, a Horrifying Portrait of the Schools Blighting the Futures of so Many Young Boys the Lost Generation

Weren't they afraid of getting caught? Oh no, getting arrested was 'part of the game', said Darren, now 21. Half the time, the police would let them go; otherwise they'd usually get away with a Pounds 50 fine in the youth courts. Once, he remembered: 'Four or five of us were arrested three times in two weeks.' In fact, Darren found himself at his local police station so often that he used to say breezily to the charging sergeant: 'No worries. I'll take myself down to the cells. I know which cell to go to.' The charging sergeant would shout after him: 'Don't forget to shut the door!' Darren, however, doesn't have much to laugh about now: he may have given up crime, but he lives on benefits and can't get a job - despite being obviously bright. ...

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