This week, Ricky Garcia, head of youth services in Bromley, tells JON CHEETHAM adults should show young people more respect if they want to be treated respectfully themselves.



THERE are around 24,400 13 to 19-year-olds in the borough. In a recent MORI survey of Bromley residents' levels of general satisfaction, 69 per cent of participants said young people hanging around with nothing to do is a major problem.

Mr Garcia, 31, believes the problem is largely one of perception.

After all, youth workers and teachers do not think they are going to get stabbed every time they approach a gang of young people.

Mr Garcia said: "People won't go on the top of buses, not because they are going to be attacked, but because they think they are.

"It is the perception of young people which is the problem.

"If you go to primary schools or secondary schools, the kids in the playground are running around making a lot of noise.

"Schools kick them out all at the same time so when you put them on a bus, you are going to have a noisy bus."

Behind people's perceptions is a social trend to criminalise behaviour which would not have been in the past.

Think black and white photos of Edwardian urchins smoking and scrapping on street corners.

And think of the bully in the playground who stole the first-year pupils' dinner money.

Children have been rebelling since Shakespeare's day, so is the media responsible for creating a panic in society on the issue?

Mr Garcia said: "People should realise just because it says things in the papers doesn't mean it is happening all over the place.

"The impact of the media doesn't help. The Shop A Yob campaign is ridiculous because it just reinforces people's perceptions."

He added: "Printing the faces of people who have committed serious crimes is one thing, but for a bit of graffiti, it is not good.

"If anything, it just gives the kids more of a criminal reputation among their friends.

"It also convicts them before they have been found guilty by saying this young person is a yob before the police have got to them."

Young people are responsible for some of the anti-social behaviour on buses.

And Mr Garcia concedes if someone is writing graffiti on a bus seat, the chances are it is a teenager.

However, he points out fewer than half of Asbos are given out to people aged under 19.

The majority are given to adults aged 20 to 45. And the majority of crime is committed by adults.

Mr Garcia said: "The difference is young people are very visible in the street.

"They hang around in places where there is light and where they can buy a fizzy drink. They want to be somewhere where they feel safe."

"If kids are hanging around outside a shop and the shopkeeper comes out and tells them to go away in an aggressive way, they are going to react in an aggressive way."

He added: "Normally you treat people the way you want to be treated, but people do not apply the same rules to youngsters.

"Respect is something you earn but if young people only have negative experiences of authority, why would they respect it?

"Don't shout at kids and don't be aggressive towards them because you will get the same back. Talk to them like human beings."