Has This Type Of Thing Always Happened, Or Are Some Of Today's Kids Becoming More Violent?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2384792/Korean-War-veteran-Barney-Alcock-81-beaten-yobs-outside-home.html

[jake-the-peg]

You know very well it's always happened - just as there's always been people decrying 'the youth of today'

They certainly nmade a deal of this one in 1961

http://www.edwardianteddyboy.com/page15.htm

In 1961 hundreds of recruits from RAF Cosford marched to a dance hall in Albrighton after Teds beat up two of their comrades. Local police defused the situation by promptly arresting the teds.

[viv38]

Awww poor soul. There was also a recent attack on an 87 year old man in his own home by a thug who punched him repeatedly in the face. The attack was so severer he suffered a stroke the next day. DID the elderly get beaten up so much back in the day ?? I'm not so sure.

[VHG]

I think we now have a society were many children have never been "told off" and they can almost do what they like.

So when they ARE told off, they react like this.

Some schools seem to be scared to tell kids off so behaviour in some schools is terrible, and kids get away with it.

Some kids grow up demanding laptops, smartphones, games consoles, TVs in their room etc. and many parents just give in and give them what they want, so the kids are never told NO.

We also have to realise that the behaviour of some of these kids parents is also bad, so the kids grow up believing that bad behaviour is OK, and if anyone complains then you beat them up.

I also believe that society is far more "angry" than it used to be (re the question you posted earlier about the fight in the ASDA car park).

Anger seems just below the surface in many people and it takes very little to being it to the surface. Even "giving someone a funny look" sometimes seems an excuse to stab someone to death.

If you look at film from say the 1950s people seem much more relaxed and happy and easy going, and it would take much more to bring anger to the surface at that time.

I am not saying there was not anger or fights in those days, just rarer and probably only amongst a smaller "set" of society.

[pixie373]

And it's far more publicised now. Everyone hears everything!

[jake-the-peg]

Whether it was rarer is much more difficult

It's certainly reported much more these days - I certainly dont think Victorian London thugs would have been above beating up anyone in their way whatever their age or status.

You could compare court cases but even then it's likely people just didn't go to the police as much 50 or 60 years ago.

Certainly violent crime in general has been declining in the last 20 years

To actually seriously answer that question is probably much harder than one might think

[anotheoldgit]

jake-the-peg

Was that an 81 year old they beat up?

[jim360]

Thee were fewer 81-year-olds back then too.

[Everhelpful]

VHG,You could be me talking.!!! I agree with every word.

[anotheoldgit]

pixie373

/// And it's far more publicised now. Everyone hears everything! ///

Wasn't there national and local newspapers, radio and cinema newsreels around years ago, and did people close their ears in the past?

Such people as Doctor Crippen, Heath, Christie or the Krays would hardly reach the front pages these days.

[IggyB]

I do take comfort in the fact that violent crime is declining and hopefully these very rare events will become vanishingly rare indeed in the coming decades.

[anotheoldgit]

jim360

/// Thee were fewer 81-year-olds back then too. ///

Oh dear what a shame, who could the kids attack then 71 year olds?

[jim360]

We've had this debate so many times before. Long story short, there's nothing new in what you are saying. The elder generation has bemoaned the decline in standards since time immemorial.

[ummmm]

"Wasn't there national and local newspapers, radio and cinema newsreels around years ago, and did people close their ears in the past?"

Really? You're comparing newspapers back then (?) radio and cinema newsreels with the amount of news we have today?

[viv38]

Iggy where did you hear that violent crime is declining - I think it's on the increase !

[anotheoldgit]

IggyB

/// I do take comfort in the fact that violent crime is declining and hopefully these very rare events will become vanishingly rare indeed in the coming decades. ///

It rose constantly from 1950 until 2005

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/24/article-2313942-1974D490000005DC-694_634x522.jpg

And then it started to drop, couldn't have anything to do with this fact, could it?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-23354452

[Octavius]

I think crime in the "good old days" was mostly inflicted on blacks, gays and women young and old.

You know, the sort of people who would be to fearful of reporting crimes against them for fear of being done over again.

[anotheoldgit]

ummmm

/// Really? You're comparing newspapers back then (?) radio and cinema newsreels with the amount of news we have today? ///

Funny that I seemed to have heard more about WW2 back then, than ever I heard about Iraq or hear about Afghanistan now.

[Hypognosis]

I've seen far too many threads like this before. Quite often, one of the first replies in the thread is
"Stop Reading the Daily Mail!"

No one else has, so I thought I would.

Meanwhile, what's the betting that these thugs haven't even heard of the Korean War?

[jim360]

Did you hear more about WWII at the time, though? Where was the story about what was going on at Auschwitz at the time? Or all those reports about our own POW camps? Or of the Asian campaign? Was there ever any massive security leak revealing all to some wikileaks equivalent?

If you look in the right places just about everything there is to know about Afghanistan and Iraq is out there, now. Well, probably, anyway. We may find out that there was so much more going on in years to come.

But it's ludicous to pretend that media coverage was any more extensive then than it is now. At the very least, there are far more ways to get your news. If the DM doesn't satisfy you, there are hundreds of news sites and thousands of blogs, some more trustworthy than others, but the upshot is that you have many times more versions of a story than the relatively uniform coverage back then.

[Kathyan]

I despair for the younger generation, I really do. They have been brought up in an age when we are not allowed to chastise them anymore. They aren't allowed to fail or lose and so they expect everything. If they can't get it by fair means, they will get it by foul. They 'know their rights' and they also know that the justice system is so soft that they will get away with anything. When I was a young girl in the fifties and sixties, children were scared of the police, but we respected them and I remember one day a police officer stopped me and a couple of mates and asked our names. We weren't doing anything wrong but I was so frightened that my Mum and Dad would find out that he had been talking to us! I think another cause is children having children. It wasn't the done thing in my day, but now there is no shame in having children in your teens. I don't think the soft approach has worked but the liberals won't allow any change in the law, so we are stuck with it!