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When Adolescence<\/em> was released on Netflix last month, it was pegged as an incisive inquiry into the manosphere and the ways that misogynist influencers like Andrew Tate are poisoning the minds of young boys. In fact the series is quite light on that, beyond parsing some red pill emojis and making a few references to podcasts. Should all under-sixteens be banned from smartphones and social media? The proposal is fervently discussed even though it\u2019s obviously unworkable.<\/p>\n Right-wing online commentators meanwhile accused the programme of taking the cases of two real-life Black teenage killers of girls \u2013 Axel Rudakubana and Hassan Sentamu \u2013 and scapegoating white working-class boys by making them the face of such acts of violence. This has been an incredibly resilient fiction, despite the insistence<\/a> of the show\u2019s creators that \u2018Jamie\u2019s story, specifically, isn\u2019t based on a real person or event.\u2019<\/p>\n Keir Starmer, who has twice referred to Adolescence<\/em> as a \u2018documentary\u2019 in a slip of the tongue, invited a writer and a producer from the series to Downing Street<\/a> to discuss child protection. The people behind the show have done vital work in putting the radicalisation of boys and risk to girls at the top of the political agenda, but they are not experts in child protection. The invitation has encouraged sceptics to view the official embrace of the show as a piece of political theatre, like knighting Captain Tom<\/a> or clapping for the NHS<\/a>. <\/p>\n Adolescence<\/em> has been compared to Mr Bates v. The Post Office<\/em>, last year\u2019s ITV series that dramatised the Post Office Horizon scandal and provoked a government response, with Rishi Sunak announcing legislation to exonerate postmasters who had been wrongly convicted<\/a> and offering thousands in compensation. Government by television show is a depressing prospect. What does it take to get any kind of action on long-standing issues in this country? A compelling lead actor? A child plucked from obscurity giving the performance of his life? Intriguing camera work?<\/p>\n One of the differences between Adolescence<\/em> and Mr Bates<\/em>, though, is that the Post Office drama is focused on a real, definable miscarriage of justice. This is not to say that Adolescence<\/em> doesn\u2019t reflect a societal truth: that boys are vulnerable to online radicalisation, and this can enable very real acts of violence, particularly against girls. But it is imprecise, and it is not a fact-based drama. If anything, it has been stripped of factual elements to create something indistinct and universal, so that the offending boy, Jamie, could be anyone\u2019s child, in anyone\u2019s home. It is this that has made Adolescence<\/em> such a cultural phenomenon: how does a normal boy from a happy home go on to repeatedly stab a girl to death? It unlocks the most primal anxieties of a parent, even those who have little reason to suspect that their child is capable of such evil.<\/p>\n This appeal to an idea of universality has helped the series take off, but as chairs are assembled around political roundtables, no one knows exactly what to do next. With the Mr Bates<\/em> drama, compensation and legislation were very clear aims. Adolescence<\/em> has a less certain pathway: aside from the unworkable suggestions to ban social media and smartphones, there\u2019s nebulous talk of \u2018male role models\u2019 and \u2018talking to boys\u2019. <\/p>\n In 2014 and 2016, BBC Three broadcast the dramas Murdered by My Boyfriend<\/em> and Murdered by My Father<\/em>, the former based on a real-life domestic violence case, the latter assembled from instances of honour killing. What struck me about both series was the precision: even if Murdered by My Father<\/em> wasn\u2019t drawn from one particular case, it was culturally specific, taking account of the South Asian Muslim background of the violence it portrayed, and developed a clear storyboard of how a fixation on community shame can lead to such deadly consequences.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not saying that the right-wing commentators are correct in wanting Jamie to have been replaced by a character with a background like Rudakubana or Sentamu\u2019s. But the fact is that most teenage killers are nothing like Jamie, who has no history of offending or indications of a propensity towards violence beyond spending too much time in his bedroom tapping away at his computer. <\/p>\n Eighteen-year-old Nicholas Prosper, who murdered his mother and younger siblings, was obsessed with mass shootings at US high schools. Danyal Hussein, who had just turned 18 when he murdered sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, had written a demonic contract signed with his own blood. Rudakubana, who murdered three children at a dance class in Southport, was obsessed with extreme violent material and had a \u2018kill list\u2019. One of Brianna Ghey\u2019s murderers, Scarlett Jenkinson, had a fixation with serial killers; the other, Eddie Ratcliffe, a fascination for knives. The defence barrister for Sentamu, who murdered fifteen-year-old Elianne Andam with a kitchen knife, described his \u2018violent streak\u2019 as coming from his \u2018lived experiences from when he was a little boy\u2019.<\/p>\n Teenage killers, in other words, tend to be profoundly disturbed, detached in their home lives and fascinated with extreme violence. And in some instances, parents have been well aware of their children\u2019s radicalisation but their attempts to get help for them have been futile. A week before he committed mass murder, Rudakubana\u2019s father had stopped him from travelling to his old school to attack teachers and pupils there. He had also been referred to Prevent, the government\u2019s anti-radicalisation programme, three times but wasn\u2019t considered a serious enough threat. Prosper killed his mother, Juliana Falcon, when she confronted him as he was intending to carry out a school shooting.<\/p>\n In Adolescence<\/em>, Jamie\u2019s parents are oblivious to his radicalisation and taken aback by his crimes. Had they known, had Jamie already exhibited violent behaviour, perhaps abusing his sister and repeating far-right talking points aloud, what help could they have accessed? Is Prevent fit for purpose for tackling radicalisation? Are local council multi-agency services adequate? A mother in Northumberland<\/a> says she \u2018begged for help\u2019 with her son\u2019s violent behaviour and struggled to receive targeted support for his complex needs. Will she be invited to Downing Street to discuss how families with violent children can be supported in interventions? Perhaps if Lesley Manville is available to play her on television in season two<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n