[A-List] UK social "inclusion"

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

Tough on Giddens, tough on the causes of Giddens... Just as a diligent
few have explored the linkages between Martin Heidegger's philosophy and
his Nazism, so too should we find the linkages between Giddens' social
theory and the kind of policies he now advocates, of which this
particularly egregious example is very much a part. Note how absent the
father of the children is from the reportage.


Minister hails jailing of mother whose daughters played truant

Anger as mother of truants is jailed for two months

Steven Morris and Rebecca Smithers
Tuesday May 14, 2002
The Guardian

The jailing of a mother because her teenage daughters repeatedly played
truant was yesterday welcomed by the government.

Estelle Morris, the education secretary, said she hoped the imprisonment
of Patricia Amos under new powers introduced to tackle truancy was a
sign that the courts were taking the problem seriously.

However the 60-day sentence was described as "harsh" by the headteacher
of the girls' school, a teaching union and a local education chief.
Amos, who was sent to Holloway prison, north London, is expected to
appeal.

Magistrates at Banbury, Oxfordshire, were told that educational social
workers had tried on a number of occasions to persuade Amos to ensure
that her daughters, aged 13 and 15, attended school. But over the last
two years, they frequently failed to turn up.

A parenting order under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 - another Labour
measure to clamp down on antisocial behaviour - was taken out against
Amos but still the girls, especially the elder one, played truant.

Finally Amos, 43, was prosecuted under an amendment to the Education Act
1996 that came into force last year. The amendment raised the maximum
penalty for failing to send a child to school to a £2,500 fine and
three months in jail.

Amos, who pleaded guilty, is the first parent to be jailed under the new
legislation.

Her angry family claimed that the girls, who were back in class
yesterday, became reluctant to go to school after the death of their
grandmother, who lived with them.

The girls' older sister, 25, said: "There must be another way of
teaching kids a lesson without locking their mother up. My mum has done
nothing wrong. She used to get my sisters dressed and send them to
school. It's not her fault they would play truant. She is being punished
for something that my sisters have done and not her. There are burglars
and muggers and people who have done worse walking the streets."

She first heard her mother had been jailed when she rang her from the
cells and asked her to look after the two girls. Amos, who has five
children by three fathers, has spoken with her daughters from prison and
told them: "I hate it. I just want to come home."

Tony Crabbe, an Oxfordshire county councillor with responsibility for
schools, said the sentence was "fairly severe". The principal at the
girls' school, which attracted criticism from Ofsted last year for its
attendance record, agreed that it seemed "very harsh".

But Roy Smith, Oxfordshire's acting chief education officer, said all
avenues prior to legal action had been pursued.

He said: "We have a duty to see the young people of Oxfordshire receive
the education to which they are entitled."

The case comes at a time when truancy is on the government's agenda.
Only last month a £66m anti-truancy package was announced.

The government has admitted it is disappointed that the truancy rate has
remained "stubbornly" too high despite attempts to bring it down over
the past five years. An estimated 50,000 youngsters play truant in
England every day.

Speaking about the Amos case, Ms Morris, said: "If this is a sign that
they are taking this sort of behaviour by parents very seriously, that
is to be welcomed. For too long we've been too nervous about talking
about parental responsibility. We ask our teachers to do so much. But
parents have got to play their part."

Teachers' representatives were split over the sentence, handed down last
Thursday.

A National Union of Teachers spokeswoman said: "Is it really the answer
to deprive these girls of their mother? It's not a solution."

But David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head
Teachers, said: "In extreme circumstances courts will have to resort to
jailing parents if they turn a blind eye or encourage truancy."