Why do people have such low opinions of young people? I watched Newsnight tonight where they were talking about young people and crime rates and how people are fed up with it. Professor Rod Morgan from the youth justice forum was saying that 7165 cases were bought to social services in one area and only 215 of these were put on the child protection list. I would like to know where these figures came from and the time period that it was in. Camilla Batmanghela was saying that it was the adults fault and that we were not showing them love. She also said that young people today were suffering form emotional poverty. They were also talking about how having an ASBO was something for young people to boast about and it was a cool thing to have. But why would young people think that having an ASBO is a good thing? is it that they have no respect for authority and are making a joke out of our criminal system? or is it a case of they know the police have no time to do anything about it so they probably wont face any further implications because the Police are too busy? The main thing I think that came out of the debate, or should I say shouting match, was that they think the fault is with the parents and adults they come into contact with. They say that we do not love them enough and that there is not enough time spent together as a family. I remember thinking that when Sunday trading came into affect that it would mean that less time for families to be togehter and that it would have an impact on the role of family life. Are we seing this coming into effect? It was also said that they are not born criminals it is adults that make them like it. It was aslo said that there has been a 27% increase in young people being criminlaised in the last few years. I think that a lot of teenagers get tarred witht the same brush. They are not all like this. Alot of young people are well behaved and very intelligent. I think, however that this is going to become worse before it gets better and the government may say they will tackle it but without the right resources nothing will change.