Rioters are still learning
Re: Cyber mob's lust, June 23-29
In his article, Brian Kieran concludes, "... we are still left with the depressingly inescapable realisation that we have spawned a generation bereft of a sense of accountability."
I make different assumptions about the rioting and looting. I can see that young people have grown up in a moral vacuum because of my generation. I see the rioters as acting out their resentment of a system that oppresses them, unable to articulate it in any other way. I see the looters as spoiled brats with an inflated sense of entitlement, but who spoiled them? Most of them are learning huge life lessons right now that will change them forever. If we rub it in with excessive punishment they might learn the wrong lesson. Send them to restorative justice where they will be encouraged to pay back to those hurt by their actions. Most were naive and misled. How can my generation have the hypocrisy to condemn them?
Edward Butterworth,Victoria