1)Written by: Crystal
2)Title of article: Time to get tough on fake-ID users
3)Anthor of article: Eisen Teo
4)Date of publishment: 8 Feb 2010
5)Source: THE STRAITS TIMES – Home PAGE B9
The news is mainly about an old issue in Singapore – youths use fake-IDs to pretend to be adults. Among 80 teens aged between 14 and 17 for the interview, almost half of them admitted that they have owned a fake ID and used it for clubbing, drinking or smoking. All of them claimed to be oblivious to the punishment for using fake-IDs. On the other hand, shops and clubs always turned a blind eye to this, which gave an access for youths to be illegal.
For me, it is not a new issue in Singapore since THE STRAIT TIMES once reported the issue and drew everyone’s attention to protect the youths. However, I found the attitude and perspective toward this issue was different from the last time’s report. Last time, it was obvious that the author thought the people who supplied the fake-IDs made a larger contribution to this problem, while the youths were victims to some extent on this problem. This report mainly focused on those teens who use fake-IDs and shops and clubs who accepted fake-IDs.
In my opinion, I agree with the author that the youth should take a larger responsibility on this issue. Indeed, the whole society should try to protect the teens. Those who provided the fake-IDs should be punished. However, even without the illegal supplies, can we make sure that the teens will not find out other accesses to get touch with clubs, cigarettes or beer? For teens under 18 years old, since the law prevents them from those “bad” things, they may be curious about what they are not allowed to do. Although it is normal for teens to rebel at this age, youths should not use this as an excuse and avoid taking the responsibility for the whole society. What they are doing is not only harmful for themselves, but also providing opportunities to those criminals to break the law. As teens, they should have the ability to tell the right from wrong and discipline themselves. Only those, who can resist a temptation and do the things they should do but not like to do, can grow up to be the leaders of the society in the future.
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I totally agree that the government of Singapore should do something to this fake ID issues. It is very bad for under aged people to get involved with smoking, drinking and clubbing. Teenagers are too young to control themselves. If they get contact with these things too early, they will end up with criminals. To avoid this, the authority should pay more attention to this issue.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing we should think about is where the teens get the fake IDs. Is there any factory which provides these kinds of things? The government should check and close these workshops to protect the young people. Moreover, the shop keeps should pay more attention on the IDs. Maybe the authority can come up a better and safer way to check whether the ID is faked or not. Then more young people may be protected. The most important thing is young people should take care of themselves. No matter how many rules and policies we have, it is young people themselves who are responsible to their behaviors. Teachers and parents should educate them what are the things they should not do and what is self-discipline. If they do not want to help themselves, who else can they rely on?
This issue of teens’ fake ID is really urgent now. The government should pay more attention. I hope they can save more lost children.
By Brandy
I do not think the youth is supposed to take a larger responsibility on this issue.
ReplyDeleteFirst as they are teenagers, they have not established the correct values and world outlook. Most of them do not “have the ability to tell the right from wrong and discipline themselves”, and that is why they need to grow up. They are a group of people who are most curious about the adult world, and can be easily distracted.
Besides, if so many teenagers (almost half) are doing what is disadvantageous to them, what is forbidden by laws, we had better consider whether there is something wrong with today’s education to the youth and our society climate.
Yes, I agree with you that the clubs or those who make fake IDs should not take all the responsibility, because just as you have said that, without them, the teenagers still can find other ways to do what they want to do. So the government should devote greater efforts to tackling root causes, that is the thought of teenagers. We should know why they want to go to those places, and at the same time, let them know why they should not go. The schools have the responsibility to teach the students tell right from wrong, and then I think no matter how many people who make fake IDs, no one will buy it.
ReplyDelete-Peter
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ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, whenever negative phenomenon emerges, it’s better to carry out the solution rather than to discuss whose fault it is. Offer appears where there is need and support. The temptation to teenagers ever exists and seems to be impossible to cleanse. Thus we should have our operation against the fake-id makers who support them with their illegal means. From the survey we found that it is not hard to get in touch with these young people, thus with the effort of police we can easily find out the fake-id makers and sellers and then bring them to court and jail.
ReplyDeleteAnother suggestion is to advance the ID card with anti-fake technology as what we do in cash and ATM card to prevent the fake-id makers from committing such crime again.
I think that those fake-ID makers as well as clubs and shops who accept fake-IDs should take larger responsibility than those teenagers. The reason is that teenagers are still immature, they can easily gve in to all kinds of temptation. It will be meaningless if we only tell our young people to keep away from those "bad" things. Thus the government should consider close supervision of clubs and shops as well as punishment to those factories as their first action to solve the problem.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, schools and communities should educate our teenagers the bad impacts of using fake-IDs and relavant laws and regulations.
By Kyle