Monday, June 18, 2007

Children Staying Closer to Home

From the UK's Daily Mail an interersting article "How children lost the right to roam in four generations," with the map above of the city of Sheffield, showing the shrinking acceptable roaming areas for children over four generations of the Thomas family.

Via Reason, via Boing Boing.

6 Comments:

At 6/18/2007 10:29 AM, Blogger juandos said...

Well as stupid as the British afflictions are its understandable why the parents don't let them roam for fear of getting lost: Thousands of British children think cows lay eggs, a survey has suggested.
Townies fared worst in the research designed to find out if kids know where their food comes from
...LOL!

 
At 6/19/2007 7:48 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's not fear of getting lost, it's fear of predatory adults & teenagers. Personal safety is _not_ what it used to be.

 
At 6/19/2007 3:46 PM, Blogger Steve Wart said...

In 1970 children were more likely to be abducted or seriously injured by a car than they are today.

Bruce Schneier has some great insights on the differences between perceived and actual risks: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/11/perceived_risk_1.html

 
At 6/20/2007 4:41 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

When I referred to 'personal safety', I was talking about _experience_ in _Britain_. Bruce Schneier refers to Americans' perception of various vague situations/possibilities, eg Al Qaeda in the US, computer hacking, anthrax, etc.

Britain & the US are different countries. British statistics show a substantial rise in attacks on people in recent decades.

 
At 6/20/2007 3:05 PM, Blogger Steve Wart said...

Please provide some references

 
At 6/21/2007 4:38 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

1. In Britain: The number of reported violent crimes against the person rose 36% between 1990 & 1997. The method of counting was then changed; such crimes more than doubled in number between 1998-99 & 2004-05. See the Annual Abstract of Statistics, 2002 & 2006.

2. The official British Crime Survey only deals with adults 18 & over. So in Dec 2004 _The Sun_ (a mass-circulation tabloid) commissioned a survey which included young people between 15 & 17. Some 52% of young people reported being victims of violent crime in the past year. For those 18 & over, this figure was 30%. See Trevor Kavanagh's report in The Sun 20 Dec 2004.

 

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