We’ve allowed a society to emerge with less space for young people - and then criminalised them for existing in the gaps left behind. Young people haven’t become the problem. What looks like a problem is really the absence of space, support, and opportunity.

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We stripped youth provision, erased spaces genuinely designed for young people and cut the extent of opportunities. Then acted shocked when they showed up elsewhere. Loud. Visible. Messy. Young.

Young people in public are treated as suspicious by default. “Anti-social behaviour” is often just young people existing in public, after we’ve decided there’s nowhere for them to belong. 

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Instead of asking what we take away?

We ask what’s wrong with them?

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Remember, adolescence is meant to be chaotic. Risk-taking and boundary-testing aren’t failures. It is development. Yet, we are now in a world where mistakes cost more than they used to. So when dedicated youth spaces and support are removed, that development doesn’t stop. It becomes exposed. Available. Bored. Exploited. In streets, parks, and that dry undercover car park, become the arenas for growth that should have been held within youth centres. You know, those spaces designed for young people. Now those risks are on show, and suddenly you see a problem, a label, and a young person is redefined by their most visible behaviour rather than their unmet needs.

We stopped funding relationships and started funding reactions. Now we’re surprised young people feel invisible. So moving young people on doesn’t solve anything. It just teaches them they’re unwanted and not listened to by adults.

If we’re serious about safer communities and better futures, youth spaces aren’t nostalgic - they’re preventative pillars of your communities. Close and defund them, and you don’t save a penny; you just delay the cost and deepen the damage.

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Section 507B exists to protect youth services, yet authorities bend it to suit their budgets, leaving young people’s risk and energy visible and ignored. Oh, then blame them for the privilege.

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So before blaming young people for what we’re seeing, ask the harder question:

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Where’s their youth club gone - and why did we think they’d be fine without it?

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