Anti Social behaviour, is it a growing problem or is it the same as it's always been but just reported more?
When I look back on my youth I see a lot of similarities.
I first had a knife held at my throat at age 14, although knives were everywhere throughout my childhood, virtually everyone carried one (including me) but almost no-one would dream of using them.
Fights were commonplace but were mostly fought with fists, very rarely were weapons seen or used during one, it was considered cowardly if you couldn't defend yourself without resorting to the threat of the knife.
Indeed the knife at the throat incident was sorted out using fists, I still have the scar on my thumb where I'd grabbed the blade before knocking the kid out.
I saw my first gun at 15, a school friend I met at the weekend in a local town turned up with one in his pocket, it looked real and he said it was and I wasn't going ask him to prove it, The estate he lived on was renowned for trouble, my uncle lived there and he would tell me of the usual weekend gang fights, but I don't recall anyone actually being shot despite guns being available, and this was Seventies Essex not inner city London.
Football matches attended usually had a dark overtone with fights breaking out in the ground, outside the ground or at the station, but we'd still go every week.
When I left school at 16 I started drinking and going out, no need to stand around on street corners when pubs never worried about age and the beer was cheap, strangely there was hardly any trouble at pubs, people would get drunk but everyone seemed to be happy.
Disco's on the other hand seemed to attract the troublemakers, rarely would a night out end peacefully without at least one person threatening you or trying to fight you or a riot breaking out.
The only time I was actually stabbed was at one of these Seventies disco's, after some drunken idiot accused me of staring at his girlfriend, I didn't remember staring at any girl but he decided to knife me anyway, luckily I saw it coming and managed to dodge most of his lunge just ending up with a small wound above my hip, I grabbed his knife hand and kicked him in the nuts, when he went down I carried on until one of the bouncers grabbed me, the bouncer told me to clear off and a little while later the guy was dragged out by the bouncers and thrown into the street.
One noticable change with today's teens seems to be the lack of respect to adults and Police, my friends and I all respected our parents and almost all other adults, if someone came out and told us to clear off we would usually do it and say sorry.
The respect of the Police was born out of fear, a couple of my mates got arrested one for fighting and another for TDA (car theft), both were taken in and given a going over while handcuffed followed by a night in the cells, no one ever questioned the bruises and cuts and both ended up doing six months on the carrot farm (or young offenders centre), So if the police said move on, you moved on without any backchat.
Sadly today's political correctness which sees most adults afraid to say anything to kids has a lot to do with it.
The gobby twisted kids of my youth who would talk about doing some of the more unsavoury aspects that happen today would not risk actually going ahead with it for fear that someone would sort them out if they did.
People were able to sort out their own problems, I saw many incidents of adults giving kids a "thick ear" if they had done things like throwing stones or shouting abuse, the Police were never called and your parents were likely to do the same if you told them about it.
So to sum up as I see it the majority of kids are no worse than those of my youth, but where they would be made to think about the consequences of their actions and what would happen to them, that dissuading factor has been removed for all but the most serious offences nowadays so kids will push it to the limit and I imagine it will only get worse.
Over 50% of the TV news taken up again by the Ross/Brand story (sigh!).
