Juvenile Violence

One of the greatest disadvantages of our "modern civilization" is the increasing violence among children and teenagers.
This is already a fact: every passing year, the youngsters become more and more violent. In my place, we had 7 brutal murders in the last week, all of them without any reason (the killers were bored or under drugs) and we used to have 1-2 cases like this every YEAR. (Israel is rather small place with only 6 million population)
Questions are:
1. WHY is it happening?
2. HOW can we stop this?
3. When did it start and who can we blame?


my opinions:
1. main reason is lack of attention. nowdays everyone must work hard to live well, including parents. both parents in many cases. this leave the children long hours alone or without loving parents. there are many many more reasons, which are different in every place. for example in my place, the judges are VERY merciful and never give real punishments. killers get 7-10 years in jail. rapists get 1-2 years, if the judge has bad mood. many times they're sent free. the police is helpless, they can arrest again and again but court simply send the criminals free.
2. to stop this, we need stronger education system. powerful teachers and strict discipline. yeah, the poor teenagers will "suffer" but it's for their own sake after all. heavy punishment must be given for every crime. we can't really make all parents work less it's not realistic but we can make sure they spend time with responsible and fit people at school - meaning teachers and staff. by raising the salary for teachers, it can be achieved.


I stand helpless in front of this, and can only feel sad... can't see any real solution in the near future.

Solution: Corporal Punishment

what you mean? something like preventing all teenagers from going to parties? no, that's not solution. this would only make things worse by making them hate the system even more. not all teenagers are violent, remember that!

In schools, starting at a young age, cane them if they misbehave, then by the time their teenagers they'll know what is appropriate behaviour

The only subgroup of people we have a problem with here in the UK are "chavs", everyone else is well-behaved.

Fortunatly, for most of the time, Chavs stay inside their run-down estates and leave us alone. The benefits and "lifelong learning" system in the UK means that any chav willing to get out their hole is perfectly able to (and many have). The only problem is motivation.

Phoenix, not been paying attention to the news? What about the "hoodies"? Its been in the news, shopping centres and schools banning people wearing hooded clothes as their associated with the "yob culture"

"hoodies" are a piece of clothing worn by skaters, "moshers", and most mild-mannered teens. Chavs, on the other hand, wear jackets that feature a hood at the top, rather than "hooded jumpers" (usually with a pouch at the font) which are real "hoodies".

One major difference is that only chavs were the hoods up most of the time. Everyone else wears the hood up only if it starts to rain (or some other environmental factor)

A "Hoodie" is not the singular noun of a member of a subgroup with criminal intent.

An interesting topic that seems to have a global reach. My own thoughts on this and related subjects are strongly biased and I make no apologies for them. Here in the States we see more frequently that law has detached itself from the absolute moral foundation that most people once shared. When the laws made by men are changed by men, they clearly rest on a foundation of quicksand. If what was wrong yesterday is right today, then how can we say anything is right, and how can there be any expectation of respect for such laws? Give anyone a moral compass with no north point and it should be no surprise their respect for the law, and for other people, wanders whichever way it will. It was understood at one time that parents raised their children. They may still do that, but there is an ever growing army of do-gooder bureaucrats that want to stick their noses in how that is done. Spank your child and you may be sued in court. Teach them what you believe and the schools will do their best to unravel it.

It is civilization disintegrating because of its arrogance, pride and pursuit of pleasure as a prima facie reason for existence. Some things must self-destruct before they can be rebuilt. That may be what we are witnessing.

An unusual but excellent post ShadowWizard.

I agree about "pursuit of pleasure as the major goal" part. good point which I have previously ignored. but it's not really related to violence - this is huge issue but not for this topic.
so you suggest we go back to religion? this would surely solve the violence problem but would raise bunch of new problems.
why would the new generation follow some ancient book that force them to follow commands blindly? apart of the moral rules which will always be valid and actual, the holy books are archaic and "boring" for the youngsters. they prefer to have fun and enjoy every minute, and we can't really blame them. so unless new religion rise which somehow combine the old moral rules with the modern world approach, this can't be realistic solution.

Religion appears to serve good in most cases as long as it is not challenged. If two different religions clash then we get a serious problem. There are some groups that appear to use religion as a mask for their own purposes. This is where things break down and it is wrong and should not be tolerated.

Not every case is black and white and we cannot apply a set of rules to every single 'crime' in the same way. It is up to us, 'The People, to decide what we are prepared to accept and how we are going to punish an offence. This means communities MUST come together and work as one and stop turning the other cheek. If someone breaks into my house and steels from me, I expect them to be punished. I personally think this person should be staked out naked in the most public place and ridiculed. BUT...what if this person is poor, desparate and starving? Does this give the person absolution from the 'crime'? Does it infact excuse them? Will the crime stop because of the punishment? I think not.

Society is waking up and realising that each person is different and each peson is motivated to commit crime for different reasons. In the example I have given, the solution would be to take away the reason for crime. Remove the desparation. How? Give the person a job or skill? Society is trying to do this but failing at the moment. The big question is how are things going to change? I agree with the point that that destruction needs to happen before we can rebuild. Taking things to an extreme level. Do we need a nuclear war before we can move on? What a thought. What a terrible, terrible thought? And we are supposed to be an intelligent being.

As this topic started talking about voilence in children how can we stop this? Is the death penalty ever going to happen for a 'child'? I wonder? But why does a child commit murder? When do they know in themselves it is murder and WRONG? Every case has its' own causes and solutions. If a solution in fact exiists. To generalise, I think, is to introduce further problems.


I certainly think that when ever communities grow and introduce new cultures this is where problems CAN begin. Ignorance, zenophobia, class systems, greed and down right stupidity cause difficulties and sometimes violence. We all have our views and we all wish to challenge something we do not agree with. Most of us will not go much further than this. Some will go as far as war. There are always going to be conflicts, arguments and disagreements. The majority appears to rule. BUt, as long as we have freedom of choice then this is fine. We have the choice to move away but this merely postpones the problem. We should work on sorting the problems out in our own house, then our own street, then our neighbourhood and then our City, our region, our country and our world. This is OUR world.

We MUST remember it is a minority that cause the problems. Whilst it is a minority we must accept that this is going to happen. A sad fact but true. There is always going to be someone that steels, someone that is lazy, someone that swears, picks their nose, etc, etc, etc. All these are problems in the wrong situation.

I think someone mentioned the cane and spanking children. This, in England, is now completely frowned upon by 'The System'. I don't actually think society frowns upon this and the media have poisoned us all to think so. If I see someone spanking their child then I consider the child has done wrong and the punishment appears to fit the crime. BUT, because a minority have gone too far then we now say no child can be spanked. What we want to say is, anyone that doesn't understand the difference between a small spank and causing actual harm to the child so that they have GONE TOO FAR, then they should not be allowed to spank their child. CORRECT! But how do we police this? Should we interview every parent and give those that understand the difference a permit? Yes this would be the answer but how silly. How very very silly. Not possible and again someone would be bound to slip through the net and then we would consider the system is failing. When it isn't in the grand scheme of things. Anyway, the lack of a permit wouldn't stop everyone spanking a child if they wanted to do it. So again, a generalisatoin would fail. (This might be a poor example but I'm sure my reasoning is clear)

Everyone one makes errors. We above all can understand that as programmers. But our police is the compiler which alerts us to an error. But even our police fails from time to time and we get an endless loop or alike. I think the point is here, there are always going to be errors but we need to work together to put them right and solve each individual error, endless loop, etc, on its own merits. We cannot turn a blind eye to our mistakes as our users would not put up with it. Neither would we? I hope. We need to put a system in place where by 'The People' cannot turn a blind eye.

This isn't as easy as it sounds. Is it?
Is this possible?
Why do we turn a blind eye?
Is it because it doesn't affect us???
Are we able to do something before it affects us?

When I was a teenager (a very long time ago) I was permitted to own a gun, but the thought that I would ever use it to kill someone was against everything ingrained in my upbringing at home, church and school. I also knew it was against the law, but that wasn't why I wouldn't kill anyone. If the law were my only concern, I would have worried more about getting away with it and less about whether it was right or wrong. There always was a minority more concerned about what they could get away with, and with the institutional attacks on home and church, that minority is still a minority, but a larger one today than yesterday.

The pursuit of pleasure is a major culprit since it is part of the value system. Most families with two working parents could survive without the extra income. It is what that income brings that they want and why they spend time away from their children. They may say with all sincerity they are doing it for their children, but when income takes precedence over attentiveness to children, problems are bound to arise and children will learn by example. Putting food on the table is one thing, but the second (or third) car, an expensive vacation or that wide screen TV you always wanted are about the pursuit of pleasure at the expense of spending time with your children. Pleasure is not just satisfying your wants, but removing the irritants of life, and that may include another person. "What ever makes you happy" can have extreme consequences.

I simply acknowledge a Supreme Being and a Superior Law that is above all others. As long as the Supreme Being of my religion doesn't insist I kill those who don't believe, or treat them disrespectfully, I'll have no problem getting along with my fellow humans. I won't treat them decently because some lawmaker says I have to, but because I am compelled to by my beliefs. The laws made by man (Thou shalt not commit murder) just don't carry the same weight as those made by the Supreme Being (Thou shalt not commit murder), even though they may say the same thing. If parents adhered to those laws, they would know the difference between a corrective spanking and nearly beating a child to death as punishment.

I believe our self-destruction is inevitable for the reasons I stated. As a civilization we are arrogant and proud and pleasure seeking. The destruction I believe is coming isn't necessarily by nuclear weapons, but by our own incivility and our inability to deal with it thanks to liberalized moral standards, an ever increasing bureaucracy of meddlers and our own feeling of insignificance within the social system.

It's interresting you mention that a destruction needs to take place, one such destruction stands out in my mind, the (nuclear) bombing of japan.

Post WWII japan is a post-apocolyptical society. Massive number of casualties, cities destroyed etc, and now they ahve one of the least violent, highly productive societies. (I know their productivity and economy has slipped recently, but you get the point).

As for why violent behaivor becomes worse personally I think it's the overglorification of violence society combined with the inability for many to realize that the violence seen is overglorified. Not just in the movies, and TV but in real life as well.

The saying goes that history is written by the winners, well when there's a history of violence, it tends to get worse through dramatization, telling of stories etc, and rarely does the loser in the situation get to tell their story.

-MBirchmeier