Ah yes, it is the fault of the *current* younger generations...it always is.
What you are seeing is the result of growing inequality.
This inequality is largely due to regressive economics and things like the Bogan Bonus which encourages breeding for cash while potentially responsible parents wait for the "right" time to raise a family. Most of my generation have either given up or have already bred...and are stuck in dead-end jobs and declining suburbs as you describe.
It is also an aspect of uncontrolled multiculturalism where "anything goes" has alienated Australians who do think our culture is a valuable worthwhile thing. There seems to be a belief that immigrants have no need whatsoever to understand or avoid offending our culture. Apparently by living here we have no rights to our own cultural values: they are always superseded by the needs of big business and it's need for growth.
So blame the youth is you must, but remember we are the first modern generation to go backwards economically. Secure jobs have been sold overseas for short term profits, new technologies and industries have been ignored by traditional rent-seeking management. The grey ceiling is preventing any real career options for many and the optimism of past decades has been replaced with "too bad...you will have to pay for us instead of achieving any progress".
The media and politicians have spurned progress for what can only be described as pandering to ignorant conservatives.
Then there's the politician led Culture wars...disrespect has been made official!
When older folks start talking of "burning through the kid's inheritance" and preside over a countries decline you can expect a loss of respect. There is a very real perception that "intergenerational theft" has occurred, and some impressive numbers to back this up. Can an entire generation *really* go bad simultaneously without societies help?

I don't believe that young men are any more irresponsible than they have ever been. The fact that old people are fearful of the young is not the fault of the young. It is the result of the influence of the media constantly telling them how dangerous the world is. The reality of course is that crime rates are lower today than they have been for many years and continue to get lower.
I don't believe that young people are any more disrespectful of their elders today than they have ever been. But if they are it is unsurprising when the only time they hear from old people is when they complain about young people and accuse them of being lazy, violent, disrespectful, lacking in values etc.
If your fathers biggest problem in life was that the boy next door played drums then he has certainly had a fairly blessed life.
Perhaps he should have considered double glazing rather than moving house. It would almost certainly have been cheaper.

Ozandy is an extreamist broadcaster.
I don't see any reason to put a blanket over the youth of today. The ones in trouble could be traced back to home life.
The majority of young people are honest and dillagent to my finding.
The population of AU has grown since my younger days, maybe that is what you can see.
I don't see any reason to say youth of today are programmed to be violent or against law and order.

Yes, older people often become intolerant of young
people, but it's nothing new:

"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for
authority, they show disrespect to their elders.... They no longer
rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their
legs, and are tyrants over their teachers."

[Attributed to Socrates]

"What is happening to our young
people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They
ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions.
Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"

[Attributed to Plato]

Maybe people just get grumpy and fearful as they get older.
I'm sometimes annoyed by the drone of my neighbour's
lawnmower at 7am, but I figure it's a case of live
and let live. It's part and parcel of living in
society. If the drummer guy wasn't exceeding permitted
sound levels and he restricted his playing to before
9pm, he has every right to do so.

I'm not a great fan of graffiti either, but I don't find
it offensive and some of it's great art. Billboards
generally annoy me more.

Gated communities are quite sad, aren't they?
Imagine voluntarily locking yourself into the
equivalent of a luxury prison in order to feel
safe. But apparently increasing numbers of
older people are choosing to live that way,
as Mr Holden points out.

The amount of violence attributed to young males has to be seen in context, it's all about reproductive rights, believe it or not.
The more young men in society the greater competition for women and the more violence, we've seen this most recently with Indian students.
Students from the subcontinent are notable for several things within the scope of this discussion , their high levels of violence amongst each other, their high rates of offending against women and girls and their over representation as victims of violence.
What's not often mentioned is the massive gender disparity among students from that region, figures of 280 males to every female have been quoted.
We have a number of other chauvinistic cultures and races in this country as well, where women, though present in more or less equal numbers are mostly kept separate from society and from their male counterparts and the young males are out and about competing for the attention of women but, again their unbalancing effect on gender ratios causes friction with other males.
I could sit here and give example after example but the rule of thumb is:
Every time you put more males in a society, even a few thousand more that society becomes more violent and lawless generally.
The question is, If I as a lay person can see this why can't the authorities?
If the authorities are letting large numbers of men, particularly young men into the country then they should be expecting more violence and higher crime rates.
So why do it?

I regularly employee two young males. I don't have any problems with them, and only wish I could employ them permanantly.

Why is it that this author rarely has anything positive to say about the male gendeer.

Is it because of the author's background working in the highly feminist education system?

<<Your grandparents will tell you that the problem comes down to the lack of respect by today’s young people for their elders. That may sound simplistic - but I feel that there is a lot of truth in it.>>

For what it is worth, my take on the situation is if young lack respect for elders then surely the parents (and perhaps even grandparents) have to wear some of the responsibility. We're all in it together.

salaams

What a depressing article Mr. Holden.
I agree with others when they say that all older generations blame the younger generation for all society's problems.

Yes, todays young people are different from when we were young, but I don't think that makes them 'worse'.
We were different to our parents or grandparents generation.

What amuses me is that many of the older generation who are now complaining about the young, were of the generation that were young when Elvis and 'rock and roll' were born.
That generation were expected to come to no good because they loved the 'evil' rock and roll music, and danced like the 'devil'!

My Grandfather was a bit of a gambler and womaniser, so was my father.
They were both considered 'bad boys' in their day.
My brother and nephew are both wonderful young men though, holding down good jobs and in stable relationships.

At the end of the day, there are good and bad amongst every generation. There always will be.

Recently I hated living through the wall from a procession of ill-behaved youths. They didn't have a clue about their impact on those around them, and every decision they made seemed to be wilfully irritating or worse.

Just like me 25 years ago.

Who was it said crime levels are falling? Must have been a politician, as it sure isn't true.

We have all these apologists who want "harm minimisation" for the young, not punishment for drug, & alcohol fuelled crime, & then they blame the victim, the elderly.

My motherinlaw lived in the same Chatswood house for 40 years. In what then was a poor working class suburb, in the first 20 years they had no problem at all, & could not find the front door key for many years.

In the next 10 years, as the suburb gentrified, they were broken into 3 times, & had to find that key.

In the last 10, with the place full of the flotsam & jetsam from the rest of the world, despite deadlocks, bars on the windows, & "crimsafe" screens, it was 12 times, twice while she was at home.

When she had got to feel so insecure she had to move to, yes a high rise in a gated community she joked that it would be hard to get used to not having a new TV every 10 months, courtesy of the insurance company. Of course the much lower insurance premiums will probably pay for something more useful.

I suggest you apologists go try to convince her that crime is down, & society is no worse.

That's the thing Hasbeen.
If we had proper crime figures that broke down offenders by ethnic background we'd know one way or another whether certain groups commit more crime than others.
As it is people live in a state of apprehension regarding the "other" in less salubrious neighbourhoods.
I grew up in "poor" areas, nothing causes more problems than rumours and suspicion among the disadvantaged and if good people are divided then hoodlums can just run roughshod over them.
Where I lived as a teenager everyone knew who the drug dealers were in the neighbourhood but everyone kept their eyes down and said nothing until some "viglilantes" jumped the two main dealers and severely bashed and tortured them.From that point we had to keep another open secret about the idetity of the assailants, whom everyone knew as well, more suspicion, more paranoia.
If people hadn't been so scared and suspicious of each other it would have never gone that far, the dealers would have been disposed of by legal means.

In my neighborhood the police don’t come. Someone breaking down your door and you know the police wont come, Thursday – Sunday, forget it.

BUT when they do come into contact with young men (teens) the police hurt them deliberately, I’ve seen it. There isn’t respect for the police here in any way shape or form and they deserve none. They are as bad as the ones they chase.

So how do we blame our boys when the grown men act this way? Same with girls Vanna, they are just as rough and the police hurt them too.

How do I deal with it… I have a fish donga hanging behind the front door (and a copper roof tile beater) and males and females in the house that know if anything happens they have to be ready to step up, it has happened and I am sure will happen again. I do not want to be here at 65 that’s for bloody sure.

I'm trying to find this program talked about with no success so far:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw-act/stopping-youth-crime-american-style/story-e6freuzi-1225969232670
BLAKE spent his childhood on the juvenile justice conveyor belt, rolling in and out of the Children's Court. Behind the faint smile he wears today there's pain - hints of the tortured past that set many young men on similar paths.

Hasbeen, It is fairly simple to check on the crime statistics. The Australian bureau of statistics has access to crime statistics on line as do the various police forces.
A politician would never claim that crime is falling. There is much more political capital to be made from claiming that crime is out of control and that you will "crack down" on it. Likewise a newspaper or TV will be unlikely to claim that the world is getting safer. Fearmongering is far more likely to sell papers and attract viewers.
Of course there will always be crimes and victims of crime. But there always has been and it is no worse today than in the past.

There are as many irresponsible young females as males Brian, many who are disrespectful and ill mannered towards the general public, of any age. However, I come across some beautiful young people males and females under 25 yrs who are genuinely respectful and well mannered to myself and others.

Most people are robbed, return to work, and do not mention the events Rhys, other than to close family and friends.

Anyone kidding themselves about crime in Australia not having risen to a high rate within most states will receive the shock of their lives after becoming a victim for the first time.

I estimate that every second person will become a victim of crime at least once, prior to their 70's, in some way Rhys; if you work or interact with thousands of people regularly, most people are able to share either of the following;

. a break-in at their premises/home/workplace at least once in 18 years.

. a handbag, wallet or purse theft
. a vehicle theft
. an assault[s] without provocation
. road rage or damage to one's own vehicles without provocation
. Online theft & Fraud - this alone within Australia has cost thousands of people a great deal of their money
. vehicle fraud - for those innocents uninsured or purchasing a second hand vehicle privately over the years
. Paper theft/fraud to sieze another person's assets
. Robbed at either ATMs, ticket machines or at one's own vehicle at knifepoint or a simple snatch and run
. Murders of children and adults without provocation

Almost finished a lengthy process regarding a theft.

Send the $%#@@'s to work on either SES Management teams monitored at all times, or force them to join the army, despatching them overseas risking their lives as they have risked their victims and/or taken their victims and families lives

@ We Are Unique.
The S.E.S are decent people, putting criminals in their organisation would destroy it and unless you're sending an Army out to exterminate another population you need people of good character.
It's quite simple, enforce the law. Governments aren't enforcing the law for the reasons noted above, it has a name, "Anarcho Tyranny".
The government refuses to enforce the laws of the land which creates chaos, good people suffer but when they start to actually do something about crime in their neighbourhood they're ridiculed or punished.
There's nothing new in the way governments operate,it's a type of contrived class warfare, the criminal underclass preys on the working class who usually don't have the means or the unified structures to defend themselves.
When educated and organised middle class people try to intervene in the situation or unify the working class they're punished by the media and they system and branded "extremists", "Far Right" or even "Racists" if they point out certain facts about certain ethnic groups in relation to crime rates.

Increasing inequality is one of the causes of social unrest. We have divided into a society of property speculators, owning a “portfolio” of two or more houses, and those who must rent with no hope of ever saving to buy their own home. Our tax system rewards speculators and forces the rest of us to pay increasing taxes and charges to fund their prosperity.

Population levels which are unsustainable in this country also contribute greatly to social and environmental problems.

Our habits of environmental degradation and pollution have almost ruined this country in little more than 200 years! We are, as individuals and as a society, a part of our environment, and our health will always the health of our environment.

Noise in the suburbs.......I emphasise with the older couple you talk about. I am cursed with above-average hearing and my main problem comes from almost constant building and construction in my suburb (Ascot in Brisbane). Again, our tax system makes it profitable to renovate and enlarge one's house. We now have the biggest houses in the world! Our tax system favours property developers building more and more and more houses as urban sprawl and inner city high-rises blight our formerly beautiful landscape. And still we bring in more immigrants, encourage more births, and build more and more houses – many of which are empty.

The clever country?

Time for my two bob's worth. From where I'm sitting, the article is a standard lament for the "good old days", whatever they may have been.

I have a business premises in an industrial area with a lot of residential around it. Prior to that I was in another premises in the same area. A total of six years here so far and the only crime I have seen were a couple of suspected "inside jobs", when one of the other tenants had some plant stolen. I often stay at my business premises at night (I have a small flat I improvised) with my dog and I have never felt threatened by burglary. I rarely lock my vehicles and I often forget to lock the building properly when I'm staying here.

Other than that, the only crime I have experienced was when I was silly enough to leave my cat unlocked on the street at home, allowing someone to lift the couple of items of value that were unsecured - including the $2.50 or so in change. My attitude is that if they were that desperate, good luck to them.

I may have been lucky, but all my life it's been pretty much the same story - I've simply not been a crime victim to any significant degree.

All the stats point to crimes against property falling, crimes against the person plummetting while drug arrests skyrocket.

As a marijuana smoker, I feel far more threatened by the police than I do by criminal individuals.

Brian:

With some lateral thinking and forward planning the neighbourhood problem your uncle was subjected to, should have been attended to successfully and progressively without the need for personal upheaval and moving. The point missed in your article and all the posts above is this: Team work! The simple recipe of successful enterprise is team work. Without team work failure is assured.

Your Uncle failed to reply to the aggressor using a coordinated team work of friends and relations in a planned counter attack using a combined array of tactics ranging from surveillance of his movements, his network of contacts, his movements outside his home and locations he frequented aimed at mapping a complete profile of the aggressor in order to respond to harassment from the neighbour in a measure of equal force aimed to convince him of the undesirable consequences of his antisocial behaviour

@ Diver Dan.
That's Stalking....see what I mean, the system is set up to punish the innocent ,divide and conquer good people.

Good post antiseptic,
I live in a working class suburb, South Lake in WA and have never had my house broken into. The previous occupants had one burglary in 18 years here.That makes one serious incident of property crime in nearly thirty years. South Lake has a higher level of property crime than the surrounding suburbs. I rarely lock my doors and never lock the windows. My car has never been stolen. The worst I have encountered was when a respectable looking middle aged man attacked me in a supermarket car park due to his perception that I was driving too fast (I wasn't).
Like antiseptic I too have far more fear of the police than of young people, thugs or criminals. If I am attacked by some thug at least I can defend myself. If attacked by some overzealous policeman, I will likely be charged with assaulting an officer and possibly face imprisonment.

Jay of Melbourne:

That may be so JoM, but it is a swift alternative to no support offered by the authorities (in the case of Brians uncle). The trick though, (as in Antiseptics case of a confessed user of illegal drugs, also a crime) is do not get caught; the imperative in the game play

LOL Diver Dan I love your strategies and you're 100% spot on!

Diver Dan,

I fully doubt the author's claim regards the noise of the drummer. The police would have responded to the noise complaint, at least in QLD anyway.

They will investigate complaints of excess noise.

The author has rarely said one good word about any male in any article he has written, and appears to hate males and is a suspected feminist.

As far as gated communities, I have two relatives who live in retirement villages.

The residents in those villages are continuously complaing, about each other.

They complain about the sound of the TV set or radio, or complain about someone's garden, or complain if someone doesn't mow their lawn, or complain about the noise of the lawnmower, or gossip about each others relatives etc.

At the retirement villages, complaining about each other seems to be the main form of entertainment and interest for the residents.

“Positive values of peace = negative value of risk invested by the individual to achieve it”.

When Governments talk of peace they reference an ideal in their own eyes totally divorced from the reality of the citizens ideal of peace: They refer to the dislocated global view of peace primarily comprised of back slapping and fawning. Their view of peace equates into support of murderous wars in Vietnam, Iraq and lately Afghanistan where extreme violence is continually excused as vindication for a search for peace when peace is actually what was removed.

The citizen view of peace differs to what appears to constitute the official definition. The peaceful citizen realizes that for a life filled with personal peace, of primary importance is freedom from harassment, whatever form that may take. Governments exercise a double standard against their citizens by excluding the use of their own tactics and forbidding access to the same arsenal of weapons needed to achieve a peace acceptable to its citizens rendering their own example of peace keeping hypocritical.

Contrary to community expectations, the Police force of this country is too often a barrier to peace and effectively transposes the meaning of peace with injustice by disallowing the acceptable use of personal force to counter harassment in order to achieve peace. A mans castle is not his home when its peace is assailable by laws which exclude any form of retaliation to attack from external forces upon it, outside passive police intervention aimed at subduing the complainant.

Yes Jay of Melbourne, the above is an anarchist view of injustice but a police force is not the answer to law and order issues and neither are more and more innocent citizens incarcerated a solution to our modern day conundrum of freelance harassment