Huge increase in large groups of teenagers terrorising the public

[Shopaholic100]

Has anyone else noticed a huge increase in large groups of teenagers terrorising the public? I was in York today and there were huge groups of teenage boys causing havoc, screaming, swearing, shouting and pulling peoples hats off and throwing them on the floor as they walked past. At the same time another huge group of girls were also screaming and kicking full cans of fizzy drinks around so it was squirting everywhere. Milton Keynes a few weeks ago was the same with large groups running round John Lewis causing havoc whilst security were trying to get them to leave. In another part of the shopping centre another group were causing trouble too. I’ve seen the same in London too. I used to see small groups sometimes do silly things, but the size of the groups is much larger and threatening and they seem fearless. Anyone else noticed this?

It would stop a lot of bad behaviour at source.

he worst kids that then get expelled can be thrown in youth detention centres if they're going around breaking the law in public and terrorising people.

You'll never eradicate delinquency but you can put a cap on it.

Then give the police more powers to deal with it.

Kids need to know that criminal behaviour has consequences, otherwise things just get worse and worse.

Again you'd need to stop voting for people who cut policing to do that. It's not that they don't have the "power" it's that they don't have the resource. The law is perfectly adequate where it's applied, but we can't get the police to attend when we report a child with a knife in school, let alone general unruliness in the street.

Birkenhead for a start!

Milton keynes and its surrounding towns has struggled a lot with unruly teens lately, the Yr7/Yr8 age kids seem to be the worse right now.

They're fighting in the centres, but also terrorising people. There has been incidents of kids trying front door handles and if unlocked walking in and terrorising the people in there (mostly elderly) then leaving again. Stealing fence panels, breaking into cars etc.

Knife crime is a real problem in the city too. I have to Chalk this up to bad parenting frankly, when we have teens trying our front door at 1am and they look about 13, why do their parents not know where they are???

Thanks for giving me a good laugh this afternoon!

I think a line has been crossed with the recent school ‘protests’. Now that the kids know they can get away with it, how will anyone be able to stop them from doing it again and again? There are far more kids than there are adults, and most of them are fully grown and strong. And let’s face it, it’s not like the majority want to be there.

God help us if all the kids in the country decide to turn - and they could, with social media propaganda.

@MooseAndSquirrelLoveFlannel
That's beyond shocking, how awful.

Don't police do extra walks around there? There must be a way to identify them and crack down.

Ring door bell?

Yes, I'm sure the schools will be criticised but I'm not sure what staff are supposed to do if it's more than a handful of kids.

Just like in wider society, things work becuase the vast majority follow the rules. If that breaks down, military rule is the only way to control things.

I think we have some scary times ahead.

You can acknowledge a cause without seeing it as an excuse, I think.

Agree that poverty is a big factor. A lot of people in places like York don't earn a lot of money because the jobs are in tourism. I grew up in a similar place and for all the noise about public sector salaries etc in my home town a nurse is on good money relative to everyone else. And there are no free museums or free public transport either.

Also yes social media makes it easier to connect and in small towns with lots of loose overlapping networks it happens more readily than in a big metropolis.

Those things are the root long term causes I think. But shutting down education, health and social services for an extended period while all of that was in the mix anyway for young people on the cusp of and early years of adolescence who were already impacted by these entrenched social ills, yeah, that's going to compound it.

Nope not round here in Cheshire but when I lived in Manchester it was a regular occurrence as a teen. Chavs shouting "wot u looking at?" Abusing strangers. I think many of them have shitty backgrounds zero parenting and nothing to do so cause havoc.

Kick them out of school and put them on a fast track to prison. Normal people shouldn't have to put up with bullshit like this. It's not the fault of the government, covid, "society" it's the kids themselves and their useless ineffectual parents. Yes it's always happened to some extent but it's definitely worse now as there are no repercussions, no-one has ever said no to these kids, not at home, not at school. Years ago the police would have just gone in mob handed and started cracking skulls and that would have largely controlled it. Nowadays if that happened you'd have lefties bleating about "human rights" and the like and blaming the Tories.

This (the door kicking thing) is a big issue where I am, in London. Happening a couple of times a day on our road at the moment, each time a small group of teens. Really intimidating.

I've not had any experience of the bigger groups described elsewhere on this thread personally.

Gosh that’s terrible, there needs to be harsher punishment from the authorities. There needs to be intervention from the first episode so it doesn’t escalate to worse behaviour. Instead of having excuses for bad behaviour look at the impact it is having on innocent people. I can’t imagine how terrifying it must be to have thugs bursting into your home like that, especially if you’re elderly.

I don’t think it has anything to do with poverty. My grandparents’ generation grew up in abject poverty, but never carried on like this.

I think it has to do with failing educational standards (which have declined massively since the 1960s), permissiveness, drugs and the internet, but not poverty.

My grandparents left school at 14. Their bookcase was stuffed with all the classics. My grandfather bought the Times for the crossword, which he did every day. Their children had read all the children’s classics by the time they were 10. They went to grammar schools, where they worked hard and took the opportunities they were given to pull themselves out of poverty. This was a sacrifice - working class kids were expected to get jobs and contribute to the family finances at 14 - but everyone was prepared to make sacrifices because so much value was placed on education.

This is what working class families used to be like. Now they are just viewed as consumers of junk food, junk TV and cheap tat, and because they have no values and have never had any structure or discipline, they have become feral and society has started to break down.

But it’s nothing to do with poverty. Just decay.

York seemed fine today. Lots of tourists, lots of empty shops though.

However, who knows what it's like in the evening. Lots of stag and hen parties and who knows what McDonalds is like in the evening.

Interesting thread. I've just come back from a few days in Newcastle where I lived for 20 years. I've literally just been discussing with DP the massive rise in the number of kids acting like twats in town. Loads openly drinking wine out the bottle and so on. Some groups had adults with them who were clearly on drugs and looked really unwell. It's was quite unsettling and I'm sure it didn't used to be this bad.

I'd never vote for the Tory crooks but Labour/Lib Dems etc are just as soft.

Woke nonsense/liberal do-gooders may have a lot to answer for but the Tories have been in power for 13 years. A police force that may as well not exist, kids running amok with no consequences is on them.

I've just been to town with my dd and it was exactly as you describe. Lots of large groups, shouting, swearing, throwing and kicking bottles of drink at each other. There was always a few kids hanging round but it was a lot worse today and very intimidating.

I had lunch with a friend from Yorkshire, Leeds Headingley area is no go at night for students unless security are around so many rapes and robberies the last couple of years. Bradford many areas you just don't venture into.

Most places though it ebbs and flows. Staff at McDonald's are forever calling out the police at night it's a magnet for bored kids. They're pre teens these days which is surprising because you never used to see them this young

I live in Yorkshire and travel weekly for work, a lot in London. I’ve not noticed any ‘wild yoof’.

They tend to ignore me because I’m 39, and therefore ancient, practically Victor Meldrew (not that the uncouth urchins would know who he is). My decrepitude renders me invisible as they focus on their teenage dramas.

But…are they as bad as many posters on here are making out? Bear with me, as this will be quite the ride.

When I remember what it was like when I was a teenager in the heady Nineties: sneaking out to go drinking cider with the lads in the park, smoking, sleeping around (in the latter years), FHM ladette culture, the occasional spot of cow tipping…kids today, well, they’re just a bit lame, aren’t’ they?

Let’s compare 1998, when I was a wayward fifteen-year old, to now (or as early as we can).

🚬 Smoking is down - 13% of 11-15 year olds were regular smokers in 1998, compared to 1% now
🍻 Drinking is down - 20% of 11-15 year olds had at least one drink a week in 1998 compared to 6% now
💊 Drug use is down - 29% of 11-15 year olds had ever tried drugs in 2001 (earliest figures) compared to 18% now.

Source: NHS Digital Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use among Young People, England 2021 (latest figures).

Ok, so, they’re not using chemicals to look cool or numb their pain anymore. Cool. Cool.

How about sex? 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

🤰Teenage pregnancies down: from 47.1 conceptions per 1,000 women in under-18s in 1998, to 13.1 per 1,000 women now.
Source: ONS, Conceptions in England and Wales, 2020

🤒Chlamydia is down: from 145,000 detected in 15-24 year olds in 2012 (earliest figures) to 88,000 in 2021
Other STIs are also down: from 451,000 in 2012 to 312,000 in 2021.
Source: OHID Sexual and Reproductive Health Profiles

So…if they’re having sex (which, current figures suggest they’re still the most active age group sexually), they’re being smarter about it than we were too. Must be the lack of drink and drugs 🙃

Ok, ok, but a lot of people on this thread are complaining about their increasingly violent tendencies. So, antisocial behaviour must have gone up, right?

🥷 Antisocial behaviour…down: from 3.87 million incidents recorded by the police in 2007-08 (earliest figures) to 1.07 million in 2021-22.

There’s no age breakdown for ASB, unfortunately, but it’d be a stretch to say that there hasn’t been a fall for under 20’s when it’s dropped by over 72% overall in 14 years.

“But!” I hear you say, “that’s because the police don’t bother recording it anymore, not because there’s less.”

So…let’s move to the perceptions of antisocial behaviour that is measured in the long running Crime Survey for England and Wales, shall we?

👯 For the hugely relevant, ‘teenagers hanging around on the streets’ indicator - no surprises here but it has also dropped from 23% of respondents in 1996 saying it’s a problem to 13% in 2022.

Source for both: ONS Crime in England and Wales, 2022

So…evidence clearly shows that teenagers are drinking less, smoking less, taking less drugs, getting pregnant and catching sexually transmitted infections less, engaging in less antisocial behaviour and are seen as less of an issue by the general population than our generation ever was.

Let me say that again.

Teenagers today are nowhere near as bad as we were.

The proof is literally in the statistics.

But let’s have a look at some other statistics, shall we?

😔 Admissions to NHS children and young people’s mental health service UP: from to 290,000 referrals in 2016-17 to 1.09 million referrals in 2021-22
Source: NHS Digital Waiting time into children and young people’s mental health services 2016-17 and 2021-22

🧁🤮 Eating disorders UP: from 2,971 hospital admissions for under-18’s in 2015-16 to 7,767 admissions in 2021-22.
Source: NHS Digital Hospital Admissions for eating disorders by patient age

🔪 Self harm UP: from 1,305 hospital admissions for under-18s in 2007-08 to 4,214 admissions in 2021-22
Source: NHS Digital Hospital admissions relating to self harm

That’s…bleak. Right?

So, maybe next time the posters on here want to go on a rant about the terrible state of today’s youth, they might think about actually looking at the facts.

Kids today are overwhelmingly making better choices than we did but are paying a heavy price.

Mental health outcomes are hugely poorer today: they are self-harming and developing eating disorders in increasing numbers.

There’s additional pressures of social media to handle that we never had.

County lines drug operations are preying on young people who are increasingly vulnerable. Knife crime is increasing in turn.

They’re also learning to talk about their struggles more - where we self-evidently handled our shit with (fun) but destructive behaviours, they are asking for help (sensible gits - go on a bender and smash something, fer Chrissakes).

So, we need to be supporting them more. Not letting our increasing vulnerability and insecurities scapegoat them.

They Are Not The Problem.

That is evidently clear.

It’s quite normal to demonise younger people though - we never thought we were that bad at their age because we had those rose-tinted glasses - you don’t realise what a twat you are when you’re young and by the time you’re old enough to know better, you’ve forgotten.

But a look at the evidence shows that the vast majority aren’t doing so bad on the behaviour front. When you see bad behaviour, it’s the exception, not the norm.

However, in case you think that we’re the first generation to unfairly tar all young people as dissident wastrels with no manners or standards, I’ll leave you with this quote:

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

Socrates said that. Nearly 2,500 years ago 🤣.

Essay, over!

Your local, friendly stats lover.

Well, all those statistics might be true, but there are many differences between then and now/them and us.

They are spoilt beyond belief and we weren’t. They despise the older generation and we didn’t. Their ‘human rights’ have been respected and ours weren’t. They have never had a clip round the ear or been humiliated by a teacher. They have probably never even been shouted at. They are ruthless, entitled and arrogant. They don’t care about other people because the world revolves around them. Some of them - too many of them - will kill without remorse.

I don’t what the solution is, or even if there is one. If we could go back 50 years and do things differently, society might have a chance. Sadly, I think we are finished.

Well, all those statistics might be true, but there are many differences between then and now/them and us.

You can prove anything with facts.

@User8646382

They also had 2 wars to contend with and I think this made them more resilient

I think there were more opportunities in some ways without necessarily having to go to university. Now you need a degree to do a similar job which a 16 year old used to do.

I think people read more because there was no tv or social media