yes its a big concern, it seems its suddenly become a big issue with the media, its always been there but its getting blown up., I supsect one reason is the media like to prey on our fears, and another is that there is some element of truth in it.
Cause?
Steve has probably diagnosed best, its a lot of reasons, as always, americanisation, media, rich/poor, legal system, rights culture, as Dom says, Thatcher is a bitch and deserves to be pissed on, she imo is responsible for a lot of the evil in society.
anyway, rights and legal is also big, I trained as a teacher about the time of the children's act, which was the start of it, I have no idea about the solution, as you could repeal all these rights laws, yet they are there in their essence to do good and protect children from vicious beatings.
but as rightly said, yobs can do what they want, and get away with it, because,
people are scared to intervene/grass up
the law is stacked in their favour
the police don't bother
judges don't give custodial sentances because of political guidelines not wanting the prisons to fill up
the system is soft...understand/compassion instead of judge
do gooders
parents now will go mad if you slap their kid wheras in the past they would give the kid another slap
kids aren't interested at school, they know the system is purely about success and failure, grades are ALL that counts, winning is all, nothing else, and the underachievers will never achieve, couple this with disparity between rich and poor, and they are pissed and envious and all want to be famous, never will be, so life is shitty, couple that with seeing the gross privilage of celebrity wafted everywhere and you don't wonder why they become a bit off the mark, having to fit tyres all day every day instead of flying to barbados for a 30k photoshoot, for a few hours work, more than they get in a year of hard work.This imo is the big problem, the media/celebrity circus.it combined with soaps is one big cause of crap in this country/world.
to blame it on teachers or parents is woefully simplistic
I suspect this existential boredom is a big thing, too many things to do, too little time, too little cash, people are struggling to keep up with the pressures on them, and kids with little cash are bored.
I got a bit picked on at school for being small and all that, yet I found myself picking on a kid myself, a twang of conscience hit, but I got caught up in the herd culture, when your inhibitions leave you in a group, you feel a stronger sense of impunity, you get influenced/sharpened by other attitudes. call it peer pressure, others atttitudes influence to give an altered mental state, you can feel it in a group
solutions anyone?