Teenage stupidity and violence are out of control in New Zealand.

Last year, a girl was beaten right outside the gates of Otumoetai College while a bunch of other girls stood by and laid bets as to the outcome. Parents who witnessed this were appalled at the violence and fearful of their own safety if they stepped in.

Just a couple of months ago, a 15 year old girl was in court for beating up and severely injuring a bus driver. This excerpt from the Herald said "A 15-year-old girl who admitted bashing a Christchurch bus driver last month was warned today that if she was being sentenced as an adult she would face a long jail term. In the Youth Court at Christchurch, Judge Jane McMeeken noted that the girl - who cannot be named..."

And therein lies part of the problem - because she is a minor, this rotten human being is not publically shamed by publication of her name and she is not punished as she should be.

Yesterday's BOP Times had this article.

Bullies scare girl away from school

"08.08.2006
By ANNA BOWDEN
For five months she has received abusive text messages, been pushed around at school and has avoided the canteen and sports fields out of fear she will be hurt. Last week she had to be escorted from her classroom by a teacher amid a barrage of name calling. And now she is being phoned at home _ taunted by the same bullies who are keeping her away from school."

Today, Stuff is reprting this one and I will quote the entire article because Stuff doesn't archive for long -

"Girl thugs 'on the prowl for people to beat up'
08 August 2006
By MERVYN DYKES

Groups of young girls are prowling the inner-city streets of Palmerston North at night looking for people to beat up. That's acoording to Street Van coordinator Lew Findlay, who says anyone who appears vulnerable is fair game. His comments follow an incident on Friday night in the central city when a young mother was attacked by a teenage girl.

The woman was laughing and chatting with friends one moment and lying bleeding on the ground the next. She doesn't know the person who hit her. She doesn't know why she was hit. But what happened to her was fairly typical, according to Mr Findlay. "They go out of their way to pick fights," he said. "They are quite nasty. They are vicious and they know exactly what they have to do to create a fight."

In the case of the Friday night incident, hot chocolate was thrown at the woman while she was talking with friends outside the Main Street entrance to Downtown Cinemas. She asked what the two girls thought they were doing and the answer was a punch from one of them that sent her to hospital. Yesterday she was still nursing a badly bruised black eye.

Police, the Palmerston North City Council and agencies such as Palmerston North Street Van acknowledge that there is a problem, but they are struggling to find a solution. Mr Findlay says it's difficult dealing with girls as young as 13 who are hopelessly drunk or rendered virtually mindless by drugs. Chances are that when Street Van delivers them to their homes, staff will be yelled at by the girls' parents. "Parents," asks Mr Findlay, "do you know where your children are at night? "Are they really staying over at a friend's house? Call and find out. Are they really in their rooms asleep?"

Police said the girl thugs in some ways are more dangerous than the boys, who tended to bluster and posture before resorting to violence. The girls give no warning. The upsurge in violence by girls was first noticed 18 months ago, said Mr Findlay. Most of the girls were 12 to 15, but some (as in the Friday night attack) are as old as 17.

"Very little reason is needed to fight," he said. Perhaps they look around for people who appear to have more than they do - such as designer label clothes. "Quite often there appears to be no rhyme nor reason - the hot-chocolate tossing was fairly typical."

Mr Findlay said many of the members of the group are now known to Street Van workers, although there is a "lot of coming and going" and new faces appear all the time. "The police are trying really hard to solve the problem. They are really making an effort," he said. "Sergeant Peter Knight (Youth Aid) in particular is doing a brilliant job. He is one who goes and talks to the parents."

CityHeart team member John Brenkley said that there was a spike in violent incidents in the Central Business District last month. However, the trend has been a gradual decline in monthly figures since a high of 32 in July of 2003. However, the reports do not specify whether the violent acts were by males or females.

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Girls beating up bus drivers and women on the street? Bashing classmates and those unlucky enough to share oxygen space with their lowlife asses at school? Teachers having to provide safe passage for a child JUST TO LEAVE A CLASSROOM?? School principals who say they can't do anything? Maybe they can't when they are as pathetic as Heather's principal is when it comes to actively pursuing her authority within Tauranga Girls College. And yes, we have had our own violent physical bullying stuff from there, not dealt with by the principal, but by me with the advice of the duty constable at the police station, a written complaint to the school (which did almost nothing) and a strategic phone call to the little whore's mother's cellphone. In the end this scissor-wielding child was dealt to by her daddy, in front of her friends with a pair of scissors of his own. This morning, on spotting one of the long term bullies in the carpark, an agitated Heather begged me to drop her "around the corner where Megan can't see me and bash me". This is, of course, not the same kid who attacked her with the scissors, it's another little darling, just one of many in the school who behave like this.

Just fucking charming, eh. And they wonder why our teenage suicide statistics are so high...

The BOP Times articles goes on to say "Mrs Cowens said it appeared to be a socially based conflict rather than school and involved a boy from another school." So, I guess that's her excuse this time for the school not keeping tabs on behaviour? We know, from personal experience, how hard it is to get the school to take any notice until you mention "police" and it doesn't matter whether the trouble started inside or out of school, the fact that it has occurred on campus demands Cowens be responsible for dealing with it when it does. That's what she's paid a very large salary for, after all, to be "in charge".

The time has come to stop all this "minor" bullshit and make these kids face "major" ie adult consequences for the adult crimes the commit. Publish their names, bring back Borstal and enforce residential lockups for those not fit to interact with the human members of society. Hopefully the only people who they can hurt there will be each other, and who cares if they beat each other to death? It's just that many less animals contaminating the gene pool with their anti-social DNA.

Reg advocates bringing back vigilantes to patrol the streets and town stocks to lock the little bastards in all day. Nothing like a little public pillorying to let them know know how low and scummy they really are by the strategic application of rotting food and abuse. Hell, it worked a treat in the Middle Ages. If nothing else, they might finally have something to feel hard done by over. God knows, they don't have anything to whine about compared to their counterparts a few hundred years ago.

There is a boy just been transfered into Adam's class. He lives just up the hill from us and we call him "Weed Boy" because, at 12, he is right into his marijuana, hanging out with his mates, wagging school and is much too happy with his fists where other kids are concerned. Word is, he isn't gonna be there much longer. There is also a girl in his class who likes to trap boys (well Adam anyway) in the classroom and punch the shit out of them. In an attempt to save Adam the grief over being slated if he punches the little bitch back, I have advised him to speak to his Deputy Principal seeing as how his teacher doesn't seem to even break stride to listen to him when he has a problem. Is this girl going to be one of these gang bitches in a couple more years? No, in her head she already is. Big, tough girl. Give me 5 minutes and I'd have her screaming like a baby and see how tough she is then. It's all Biblical, you know - an eye for an eye and a smack in the head for a smack in the head. Unfortunately, she is one of a number at her school who have the same (lack of) mentality where letting people exist in peace is concerned. Her brother, also at the school, likes whipping people with rose bush branches. What a bloody treasure this family is.

Gangs, drugs, violence - our legacy of too much political correctness, violent and antisocial music, garbage television programming and a lack of parental responsibility and discipline. We as parents cannot deal with it in the manner which is most needed without facing a court appearance, as happened to a father who bailed up the shithead bullying his kid a few months ago. We, as parents, aren't allowed to protect our children physically; we have to wait for those who DO have authority to ignore it instead so that it happens again and again and again.

Once NZ was clean and green and the people on the street were nice; now it's dirty as hell, the children will beat you up and the greenery one sees is the algae growing over the top of the social sewerage pond that 4 million plus of us call "Home".