Something else to remember is that only a minority are as bad as all this.
I agree. And recently I have been becoming increasingly annoyed at sweeping statements from politicians, commentaors and journalists that seems to see evey person under the age of 20 as an automatic menace to society simply because of their age (and an increasingly selfish baby boom generation that seems to be pulling the welfare state ladder from beneath them but that's another matter!)
There will always be tearaways and genuine dangers to society, but we have a society that is increasingly intolerant of children, yet at the same time indoctrinate their own children with misplaced fears over 'strangers', their estranged parents, teachers, doctors, the police and the peadophiles that apparently lurk everywhere (ignoring the fact that 9 out of 10 cases of sexual abuse occur within the family unit)
But then again, every generation complains about it's youth.
EDIT: To topically quote from A. Marwick (any excuse to get use out of those old books!) who saw the late 50's and early sixties (yes those rowdy teens some of whom are now pensioners
) as 'a retreat from the social controls imposed in the Victorian era by evangelicalism and non-conformity'
Indeed as early as 1960 Sir Cyril Black et al tried to fight against 'obscenity' and 'increasing immorality';
The old adage 'every generation hates the one before' (and vice versa!) has never been more true