Horrible Boys

It is a truism that much of the crime and disorder that troubles society is caused by disaffected young men. It was ever thus, as Shakespeare pointed out

I would there were no age between sixteen and
three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the
rest; for there is nothing in the between but
getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry,
stealing, fighting.

We feel exasperation and sometimes fear at the behaviour of lads on the street, and when they are caught misbehaving we in the courts have to deal with them.
This thoughtful article should make us all think. Young men have certain hard-wired characteristics, and we have failed in recent years to set up systems, in the family, the school and the workplace that will channel their natural energies in a positive way. As a teenager I worked part-time among men, as did most of my friends. We earned a bit of money, but above all we absorbed the culture of men at work, and felt part of it.
I don't think that we will achieve anything by raising the school leaving age to 18, forcing young men into activity that they can neither understand nor relate to. There is a lot of work to do.