A recent study has revealed that young people in England are among the worst behaved in Europe. The study was based on a range of indicators, including drink, drugs and violence. It is also found that as many as 50% of antisocial behaviour orders are now breached and many unruly teens even regard them as a badge of honours.
Based on my experience, the gangs of teenagers in England that I have encountered have been extremely aggressive, threatening and they also seem to hate everyone they see and are keen to provoke a fight. One of my friends was once beaten up by a gang of South London chavs simply because he was speaking another language to his friend on the phone. He was absolutely gutted as he never expected himself to fall victim of teenage violence.
According to one unruly teenage friend of mine, there is a disturbing insistence about their exclusive rights and a bullying behaviour in that anyone they don’t like the look of must then be a target. You just feel that you are likely to be beaten up or even knifed as has happened many times recently for daring to cross these provocative youngsters. I agree that not all teenagers are the same but my own experience and observation has not been very pleasant.
I also have to say that it is not a surprise that ASBOs are now being seen as a badge of honour amongst ferocious English youth. I reckon if they were ever taught about the concept of other people’s rights that might just help otherwise though I’m afraid to say it’s never going to be easy to succeed in tackling this particular issue.
My friend says that part of the problem is the fact that English society is fast becoming unbalanced. Those who would work hard to raise children in a relatively responsible manner are now increasingly wondering if they can afford to do so because the government tries at every opportunity to take ever more of their incomes to fund their grand schemes of massive social engineering.
On the other hand, there are also an increasing number of people who neither care nor work but instead expect the state to provide everything from free housing to social benefits because apparently they are victims of an exclusive world in which they never want to join or couldn’t care less about.
To a certain extent, however, we also have to admit young people in England are largely what we have made of them. We have created a culture where people don’t feel obliged to take responsibility for their actions anymore which is an absolute disgrace. The media also help make things worse by glorifying macho behaviour and violence which is a hindrance rather than a help.
I reckon that demonising young people is hardly going to help. We should all take our responsibility to lead the next generation and beyond. To be fair, a large percentage of young people now lack the discipline, security, sound values enjoyed in the past and if we really want to tackle the problem the first and best place to start is of course family.