I've had a few nasty experiences over the years, nothing really serious ever actually happened but got close to real nasty once or twice; far more on the streets but occasionally around the local countryside. And it's not just 'youths', the majority troublemakers around here are those old enough to go into the pubs, get drunk, then look for something to kick. The youths are quickly following though. There are plenty around who aren't like that, but as many that are.
I live somewhere where our local youths murdered an innocent girl not so long ago, for fun. A woman was raped a few hundred yards from my house several years ago; on the street! I don't think it's a unique place.
I used to teach in a big independent EBD school for 11-16 year olds. EBD=Emotional or Behavioral Difficulties. Did it for nine years! I eventually left because the management were far worse than the kids, but that's another story!
The school was, for a lot of them, the last step before a secure unit. Typically they had been excluded from every school they had ever attended (or not) and most had a record with the police.
During that time, I met a lot of kids including the real hard-cases (the easiest to deal with and maybe even get some respect from eventually), serious druggies, drug dealers, thieves, emotionally badly messed up, suicide attempters, mentally unstable, abused in one way or another, 'retarded' (not a PC term), true psychopaths (although doctors aren't allowed to say that about children!) , spoiled rotten and given everything they wanted (rarely) and those bullied into one of the aforementioned. Violence was a common trait. Quite a few ended up in prison within a year or so of leaving us, a few for murder (a couple were reported on the national news). Some improved and got jobs.
In the majority of cases they were from badly broken homes, were in care, or (probably the most) their parent(s) simply should not have been allowed to have children. I met quite a few of the parents; mostly they were only seen on the kid's pre-entry visit or on occasion when they had to collect the child from the local police! Not the sort of people I would associate with. No morals, usually no job, often drunk or drugged, many were career criminals (one was actually a real hit-man!)
No wonder the kids were what they were.
Thing is, is this a modern phenomenon? I think it is, for two reasons. And because of those reasons, I blame the kids the least, the parents a lot, and the government/society the most. The reasons...
1)
People being able to claim this, that and the other when they shouldn't. I used to live on a street (not council houses) where about 1 in 5 people didn't work regularly and yet had cars, better holidays then me, plasma TV's (when they were expensive), etc etc. Years ago most people like that would simply have starved to death on the street if they didn't get work. Now they can claim for just about everything going, sue a few people, take out some nice loans and get them written off, etc etc. Why bother working or having any responsibility???
2)
The law (not the police as such) seems to give such people protection from 'normal' people. Some kid starts getting nasty with you in the street? Years ago he would have got a slap, possibly from the local copper. Do that now and you'll be in court and sued out of everything you own before you can blink. Would that kid, years ago, do it again? Probably, but he would learn eventually. Might never be a nice person but at least most would probably learn not to be stupid. Today? You bet he would!
Many of the kids I knew at the school happily boasted about goading people into hitting them or similar. One stole a postman's bag and ran around the street ripping up letters until the postman managed to grab him. The kid immediately fell to the ground and 'injured' himself. He was on quite a nice payout for that and the posty got a record for assault. I even had one kid try it on me at the school; literally ran into me and tripped himself over, then started wailing that I'd pushed him! Little **!&"*!.
And what if his father came round to get nasty over the slap? He'd get one himself. Now that father would duff his kid up a lot more, then drive to the nearest solicitor, followed by the police. Truish story, expect the kid had injured himself at the school by banging his head against the wall deliberately! Then said staff had done it... The police eventually came to the correct conclusion, but it nearly cost a teacher his job and certainly made his life hell for a few months.
...
Thing is, there seems to be no end of people to feel sorry for these types, pander to them, and protect them. Why should they change?
/rant.