Britain's Mean Teens

Time:

Staying home in the face of danger isn't the British way. After suicide bombings in July 2005, Londoners continued working and socializing. Yet a survey by kids' charity TS Rebel found that last year more than a fifth of Britons avoided going out at night rather than risk encounters with a different form of terror: groups of children. Britons are frightened of their own young.

On any given Saturday night, in any town center across Britain, it's easy to see why. "It usually starts outside McDonald's -- that's the hot spot," explains one London youth. "You might go with one mate, then you get a phone call. Give it an hour, there'll be 10 people there, with nothing to do. Intimidating people is something to do, a way of getting kicks. Like, 'Oh my God, did you see how they ran?' "

Jason Steen isn't an obvious target for muggers. The 40-year-old heads his own company advising on mergers and acquisitions, and usually strides through life like a Master of the Universe. This evening, though, he looks shaken. Two days earlier, he was accosted outside his central London home by eight kids -- the youngest was 11 -- who punched him to the ground, hustled him to the nearest cash machine and forced him to reveal his PIN number. After a series of attacks in the area, local residents have gathered in Steen's apartment to talk to the policeman handling the case. His advice: "Don't go out unless you have to."

Read the whole story: Time

Comments

[LordMoon]

And now you wonder why?

The reason is clear, these children have no fathers. The courts in Brittian, just like America, have found the father to be unnecessary. Now there is no dad to keep young males or females in line.

Brittian has the lowest marriage rate since the 1870's, since statistics started being kept 150 years ago the marriage rate has never been lower.

[BlackbirdHighway]

Interesting that the story starts out with a mugging of a guy who "heads his own company advising on mergers and acquisitions".

So the first thing I noticed is that mergers and acquisitions always result in layoffs of low level workers, making life hard for them and their families, expecially there children. So there is a bit of poetic justice that he was mugged by a gang of disadvantaged youth.

Then I think that this business executive is exactly the sort that usually complains about any sort of "socialist" policies that help the poor and disadvantaged. Is it a coincidence that the countries mentioned in the article that have the lowest youth crime, the scandinavian countries, Netherlands, France, etc, are also the ones that are considered the most socialist?

The free market movement comes with a price; lower wages and lower standard of living for everyone but the top 20% income group. This leads directly to increased violent crime, drug use, alcoholism, teenage pregnancy, prostitution, etc. The freepers solution is to just keep building more prisons.

[sparkey]

I bet the gangs in south L.A. could take 'em.

[baldblackman]

I think is just another example of American and UK pop culture (mods and rockers; punks, and skinheads).

[1will]

I've read where some gun owning (the very few that are left) Brits were locked up after defending themselves from home intruders. In one instance the wounded intruder even sued the home owner and won. Of course the home owner was also locked up for using his shotgun for defense.
My question is do Brits really have a culture of defense anymore or has nanny state emasculated the nation?

[larry278]

I'd be grateful if HP provided translations of Timespeak into American or British English if HP continues to post articles from TIME.
larry lynch

[geobushono]

buy and carry a gun.......­......ooop­s, no pistols in England...­...
I'll bet way more than 20% of American citizens avoid going out at night.

[taurus271828]

Looks like the future that Anthony Burgess predicted in "A Clockwork Orange" is starting to come true.

[wm1066]

Weren't they called "droogie's' in the movie?