Sir, Kathryn Holmquist's series, "The Roots Of Crime" provides startling evidence that the image of the gay garden of childhood and innocence has well and truly vanished in many parts of the land. Society and governments must shoulder some of the blame the creation of new estates outside city centres without social amenities, soulless blocks of flats, overcrowded classrooms and a rising tide of wealth from Brussels. There is clearly a resistance by influential sections to the more equitable distribution of that wealth. We now reap the whirlwind right across the land.
But no once theory can account for the rise in crime and the brutality outlined in the series and no one explanation can provide a remedy. In 1971 when a new curriculum for primary schools was introduced a social and environmental course was included, the flagship, full of the highest idealism and objective's to foster the best in our young children. A quarter of a century later the result proves that in many cases education cannot compensate for a society in which self esteem is eroded and where the forces of a vulgar consumerism and a slavish imitation of the worst in other countries is practised.
Lavish lip service is constantly paid to the importance of the family the basic unit of society. But what is clear today is that many parents have abandoned control and a fashionable permissiveness has become evident undermining civilised values.
Why cannot parents be made accountable for the crimes of their offspring? The most hopeful solution, as your series suggests, is that where children are at risk intervention should take place at the earliest possible stage. No amount of later tinkering can make up for neglect during the early formative years. Your series serves to expose the strong streak of brutality in our human nature and the necessity for determined action not only for the culturally deprived themselves but for the sake of the welfare and safety of the community at large. Yours, etc., Boyle, Co Roscommon.