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CHAPTER SIX CONCLUSIONS
Introduction
This final chapter recaps some of the key themes to
emerge from the research, discusses how best to understand
the tensions that exist in prevailing adult views of young
people, and argues for a move towards seeing public
attitudes as helping to constitute - and not simply
reflecting - the 'problem of youth crime'.
Key themes emerging from the survey
One of the consequences of the recent focus on youth
crime and 'yob culture' has been an 'othering' of young
people - a tendency to regard them as 'a tribe apart',
distinct and differentiated from adult society
5. At one level, the findings from the 2004
SSA challenge such a view by reminding
us that young people continue to live in households,
families and communities, and that these settings provide
considerable scope for inter-generational contact. At the
same time, however, it should also be noted that a sizeable
minority of all adults have little or no social contact
with young people between the ages of 11 and 24. The
results of this study suggest that such contact
does matter: while there are more powerful
predictors of attitudes towards young people and youth
crime, those adults who have least contact with young
people are consistently more likely to have negative views
of the young.
One of the main aims of this study has been to see
whether the current political and media preoccupation with
issues relating to young people is mirrored in adults' own
talk about the problems facing their own communities. The
results suggest that, to a large extent, it is. When asked
to choose from a list of problems affecting their area,
adults are much more likely to mention problems relating to
young people than any other type of issue (
e.g. unemployment, housing or transport).
But adult views and perceptions of young people are by
no means all negative - concern
about young people is often balanced by concern
for the young. The issue of young people hanging
around the streets is certainly seen as a major concern,
but so too is a perceived lack of opportunities for
children and young people. Most people seem to think that
the behaviour of young people is worse than in past but
also that young people not listened to enough. We return to
possible ways of understanding this ambivalence below - for
the time being, it is sufficient to note that it exists and
that it would be wrong to portray adult views of young
people as overwhelmingly negative or unsympathetic.
Of course, perceptions of young people among some adults
are more negative than among others - but one important
finding from the research is that, contrary perhaps to
expectations, the oldest age group (those aged 65 and over)
is not necessarily the key group here. Indeed, on a number
of measures, those aged between 18 and 24 are more likely
to have negative attitudes towards young people than are
those at the other end of the age spectrum. If one wants to
predict general orientations towards the young, it is much
better to look to factors such as the extent of
individuals' social contact with young people, degree of
rurality and, especially, level of deprivation. In other
words, those living in deprived, urban areas, with
relatively little social contact with the young people in
their own community are most likely to be concerned
about young people and to have negative views of
the young more generally.
The issue of the level of inter-generational contact
between adults and young people is perhaps especially
important, as it appears to influence not only general
orientations towards young people and youth crime but also
actual willingness to intervene directly when confronted
with problematic behaviour by young people. Two obvious
(and related) policy implications flow from this,
especially against the backdrop of an ageing population:
the first is that, where possible, policy should avoid
reinforcing stereotypes of and suspicion about young
people, since this will have the effect of reducing contact
further; the second is that there should be explicit
attempts to foster inter-generational links.
Turning from perceptions of young people in general to
perceptions of youth crime in particular, the study reveals
a widespread belief that the level of youth crime is higher
than a decade ago and a view that youth crime-related
problems are very common in respondents' own areas. But
such attitudes are not necessarily supported by external
evidence (crime rates as a whole are generally accepted to
be lower than ten years ago, while the number of young
people is falling), nor are they necessarily mirrored in
direct experience of problems associated with young people
- a large majority of respondents said that they were
affected either 'not very much' or 'not at all' by each of
four youth crime problems asked about.
This is not to suggest that there is
no relationship between perceptions and
experience. Those people who had been directly affected
were more likely than those who had not to think that the
level of youth crime was higher than in the past and that
specific problems were very common in their area. But,
overall, the survey seems to provide evidence that direct
experience alone cannot explain levels of public
concern.
Making sense of the ambivalence in adult views
of young people
One of the key themes identified above is an ambivalence
(rather than outright negativity) in adult perceptions of
the young. How are we to make sense of this? A number of
possible (and interlocking) frames of explanation suggest
themselves.
The first is that adults can be roughly divided into
those who are sympathetic and those who are hostile towards
or suspicious of the young, perhaps on the basis of their
own age or circumstances (
e.g. whether or not they have children in
those age groups, or are in regular contact with young
people for other reasons). As we have seen, there is
certainly an element of truth here, in that some groups of
adults are much more likely than others to hold positive
views of young people.
A second possibility is that adults make conscious or
unconscious distinctions between those young people who are
known to them and those who are not. As other studies have
noted (see, for example, Anderson, 1997) it is not uncommon
for highly critical views of young people in general to
coexist with warm and supportive attitudes towards one's
own children, grandchildren or neighbours.
A third and related possibility is that adults make
distinctions between 'good' and 'bad' young people based on
criteria such as social class, ethnicity or other
characteristics (
e.g. in rural communities there is often
suspicion about the children of incomers - see Anderson,
1996).
Fourth, it is possible that while some adults consider
young people's attitudes or behaviours to be unacceptable
or problematic, they do not blame the young people
themselves but, rather, see such problems as being the
result of deprivation, inadequate parenting, lack of
opportunities or amenities and so on. As such, it may be
consistent to believe, for example, that the behaviour of
young people is worse than in the past
and that the views of young people are not
listened to enough or that older people have no respect for
younger people.
Finally, we should admit the possibility that such
tensions and contradictions are simply part of age-old
stories in which children and young people are portrayed as
both 'angels' and 'devils' (Valentine, 1996), or
simultaneously viewed both as threat (in that they
symbolise social change and the dismantling of the existing
order) and as hope (in that they symbolise the
possibilities of a new beginning) (Jenks, 1996; Warner,
1994). These concurrent themes can be found throughout
recent Western history, but are perhaps even more apparent
in an era of increased uncertainty and risk anxiety (see
Scott
et al, 1998; Brownlie, 2001).
Rethinking the 'problem of youth
crime'
The problem of youth crime (like the problem of crime
more generally) is not - and has never been - simply about
an objective number of criminal actions (the 'things that
happen'). It is also about individual and collective
reactions to those things and the ability of
communities to absorb, defuse and deal with conflicts that
arise between young people and other groups (see Anderson,
1999). In this sense it is possible for the problem of
youth crime to intensify (or to become less intense)
without any underlying change in the number of incidents
experienced.
In this context, public perceptions of young people and
youth crime are a valuable alternative index of the
problem, in that they tell us something important about how
our communities function and about the collective resources
that can be drawn upon when problems with young people
arise. In other words, public attitudes in this area should
be seen as helping to
constitute and not simply reflecting the problem
of youth crime.
The 2004
SSA provides a starting point in this
respect but, like any such index, its real value will be in
providing a baseline against which to assess changes over
time in the character and extent of inter-generational
links and of how adults perceive and relate to younger
people.
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