How and why are teens allowed to roam the roads freely for hours?

I didn't have time to roam the streets as a teen as I was doing homework!

I think the media makes us much more aware of stuff that's going on, though. My lived experience is that there weren't kids out all the time...but how would I know if I wasnt out to see it?

I live in a nice town although there are 'good' and 'bad' parts. But the bad parts aren't truly bad. Some parents are just absolute rubbish at parenting.

I was at DS11s football training the other day and a kid from another team pushed one of DS's friends into a fence for no reason. My DS isn't perfect of course but he would NEVER do something like that. What must their parents be like!

Some children grow up in really bad housing ( mould on the walls etc). Some children have violent and drug addicted parents. A lot of children grow up in houses without gardens or space to play. These are usually the children that will be out on the street and I don’t think we should stop them escaping from their homes.

Why would the Southport killer 's parents have been charged? They tried hard to get him help. He didn't engage with their attempts to help. As far as I knew he didn't come from a care or deprived background in any way.

Shame they hsve such a big problem with gun crime....

Teens who hang around on the streets are for the most part those with nothing better to do and whose parents don't care enough to bother where they are! My daughter never had the time to hang around aimlessly as she either had homework or was involved in the music hobbies she loved. I always (especially as I was a single parent) knew where she was. And as for me I'd have been hung drawn and quartered if I was caught hanging round the streets!

But they didn't actually know, they only knew what you told them.
In your case, and in mine, that was the truth, but friends of mine were out with all sorts of people when they said they were with me, or with someone else.

How would you stop bad friendships once they become teens?

Yes I do, and no, I didn't say they were perfect.

But they don't roam the streets all evening here. It just isn't done.

Having a legal curfew makes a difference, and the penalty for being out past curfew is a citation, parents called to bring minor (under 18) home, community service for the minors, and an essay. Curfew is 11pm on school nights. People are conscious of it, and you rarely see unaccompanied minors out past 10 (schools start at 8 here so most are in bed in time to get up by 6-7). It costs a significant amount of money to appeal a citation and police don't have any discretion about enforcing it. In addition, if your teen is caught with alcohol outdoors or in a private home/ party situation, they risk a citation, the suppliers of the alcohol risk a citation, and if you're on a school team you are dropped. If a teen attempts drink driving and is caught, they lose their provisional license until age 21. Kids learn to drive at 15 and have a provisional.license to age 21, which can be revoked for any infraction of the rules of the road.

All of this adds up to people making sure they know where their children are, and behaving otherwise is considered extremely neglectful and really trashy.

The biggest problem we have in our area are from groups of men aged 40+ shouting, swearing and urinating on their way home from the pub.

Disrespectful comment
Hope the family don't read it.

Dont you live in America?
Im not so sure teens in America are perfect either, .....

Spot on. The standard of parenting nowadays is abysmal.

It’s not about kids being out. It’s about what kids are doing when they are out. They haven’t been instilled with the basic set of values that civilised human beings need by their entitled selfish parents. No respect for other people or property.

Only one person’s faults: their parent(s).

I live in a place where this doesn't happen at all.

It is not a given that running wild is what teens' lives should be.

What age OP? 13 very different to 17. Also do you actually know their ages? 18 is obviously an adult and some people just look really young. I thought someone who is actually 21 was about 16 this week.

If you know for sure they are young teens, yes I agree, otherwise not necessarily.

Young people have hung around streets and parks for at least the last 40 years, even if it wasn’t something you did personally. If anything their whereabouts are far more known now and they are easily contactable because of mobile tech.

If their parents are currently receiving benefits, those benefits should be terminated. My neighbours' and my cars were damaged by teenagers on bikes, wearing balaclavas and they even spray-painted graffiti on my neighbours fences.

We have a lot of asbo behaviour in the town next to me which thankfully I don't need to frequent often.
There's photo evidence of them, clear faces put on the local Facebook pages.
Why aren't the parents doing anything?
Why aren't the police doing more?
Because they're scared to. And that's the problem. Locals want to take matters into their own hands but they'll be fucked then. It's mental

Teens are lovely. Let them roam free….

I know it did. It happened in any day since prehistoric times. That was my point. I find anyone’s insistence that it didn’t equal parts frustrating and hilarious.

It did happen back in the day. People's memories generally are flawed and full of biases, rosy retrospection being one of them:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosy_retrospection

Media reported the boys mother was unemployed and lived on a council estate.

I mean this is just nonsense and a major case on rose tinted glasses. My folks didn't give a rats ass where I was from dawn til dusk so long as I didn't interfere with what they were doing or make a mess in my mums immaculate stepford wife house before dad got home. I was drinking in the streets at 13... huge groups for us being chased by police across local meadows and school fields back in the 90's. Shop lifting galore, when I started working in retail on weekends at 15 while at college in the week half my mates where on shopwatch, with pictures and everything behind the tills and security walkie talkies from the main cctv centre letting us know when the main culprits had entered the town centre and this was a tiny, posh little town! I know without doubt it was worse in larger towns and city centres. Now parents aren't allowed to kick their kids out from dawn til dusk, we aren't allowed to tell them off, my teen ran away recently because I confiscated her phone for 24 hrs and when the police returned her they told me to give her damn phone back because they didn't want to be called out again and they said that INFRONT OF HER!!!!! I can assure you parents are up against a wall, we are literally told "don't you dare lay a finger on your kids, or enforce rules or consequences, don't shout at them, don't confiscate things, don't take your eyes off them, you aren't even allowed to shiit alone without someone accusing you of neglect because you took your eyes off your kid while you WIPED YOUR ARSE!!! But the fact these kids are feral (as feral as yours were you just didn't know or have the blinkers on) is all YOUR FAULT and we should immediately be criminalised for it!!! GET THE F OUT OF HERE WITH THAT BULLSHIT!

Teenagers can and do lie about where they are and who they are with. Parents can preach and punish all they want till the cows come home. Because if you have a willfull 14 year old who is both physically stronger and faster than his/her mum, and they want to get out of the house down to the shops, there’s not much you can do to stop them. If they meet their mates at the shop and hang around for an hour you can’t exactly punish them for it can you.

It is the Easter holidays. There often isn’t anywhere for teens to go while their parents work, not like primary school aged children. It is also good for them to be out and about with their friends. I most certainly was from about 14, getting the tube onto central London for the day with friends in the holidays.

By not letting them have freedom we are keeping them young for too long. Staying in education longer and coddling them means they don’t take adult responsibility until into their 20’s. I had a baby at 22 and it wasn’t as unusual then as it seems to be now.

I think respect for authority is key. And I know that fear is a part of that. Respect for paRents, respect for law, police, teachers. We have none of that now.
I don't have a solution but soft parenting and wokism haven't helped.

It’s to get them off games consoles and stop them from becoming incels trapped in their bedrooms I pressume

I think they are out a lot less. In our village there used to be about 20-30 of us all drinking and now I very rarely seen any.