Torn in two by Tuggy Tug

This is a book about what we, as a society, should do with hoodies — the familiar hooded young men, black and white, who rob, stab, shoot and sell drugs. Its author, Harriet Sergeant, is a middle-aged woman who works for the Centre for Policy Studies, a right-wing think tank. Should we hug these people? Or should we punish them? If I’ve understood her correctly, Sergeant thinks we hug them too much when they’re young, which means we must punish them for the rest of their lives when they get older.

Actually, that’s not quite right. As a society, we don’t exactly hug young hoodies — we just don’t have the collective will to give them a structured, disciplined life. When they don’t do their homework, we don’t make them. When they turn up late, we don’t give them a rocket. Instead, we leave them alone to do what they want. So they turn feral. That’s what Sergeant is saying. She’s saying there’s no discipline in inner-city schools, so future hoodies don’t learn to read and write properly. There’s hardly any organised sport, so they never learn to channel their aggression. There are no proper school activities, so they never have the pleasure of being in adult-led group activity. Most don’t have much contact with their fathers, because the benefits system does not encourage the poor to live as nuclear families.

The book opens during last year’s riots. Sergeant is on her way to court, to watch a hoodie get sentenced. His name is Tuggy Tug. He’s bright, charming, energetic — and semi-literate. He’s grown up in care, and ‘on the streets’ — hanging around council estates in south London. He’s committed more than 100 muggings.