Juvenile Delinquency

Due to the outbreak of World War II, Britain was divided into three sections: evacuation (people in urban areas, where bombing was expected), neutral (people that didn't accept or send away evacuees), and reception (rural areas for the evacuees). This was the plan, headed by Sir John Anderson, to evacuate all children out of Britain's large cities. As children and teachers migrated to rural areas, around a million children were without education. From then on, increased activity of juvenile "hooliganism" was reported, mostly on public air raid shelters. Young boys and girls were misusing these public shelters for sexual activity with one another. It was more a problem not what the teenagers were doing to each other, but the crimes they committed to the other citizens. They broke into the houses of those who went to shelters and stole the possessions of those sleeping in the shelters. The headmaster of the Ashurst Wood Council School gave many reasons for the uprising in youth delinquency. These reasons include bad housing, poverty, no recreational activities, a weakening in the standards of parental control, lesser religious influence, and a lack of amusement. Another factor was a lack of discipline for young men due to their fathers enlisting. Without a authority figure in the home, young boys took advantage of their freedom from parental control. 

One of the biggest problems was teens increasing raids on the Home Guard stores. At one time, a gang would steel thousands of rounds of sten-gun ammunition. Although some were arrested, the possession of these weapons in young hands was very dangerous to society in general, not to mention them stealing valuable resources. 

The government should've tried harder to stop these young people of Britain. They caused great damage. I'm not aware of the extremity of punishments in those days, but it should've been harsher to signify to other teens that this was a serious problem. I also believe that more education should have been put back into their lives because clearly the problem rose when a million kids were left without schooling. We don't realize how important education is, but it not only sets us up for the future, but keeps us on a focused path.