SCARY TIMES
Kids These Days
Youth crime, violence, and chess are out of control
The Time magazine cover headline alarms seniors like me:
“The Youth Crime Plague.”
Inside, the story is dire:
People have always accused kids of getting away with murder. Now that is all too literally true. Across the U.S., a pattern of crime has emerged that is both perplexing and appalling. Many youngsters appear to be robbing and raping, maiming and murdering as casually as they go to a movie or join a pickup baseball game. A new, remorseless, mutant juvenile seems to have been born, and there is no more terrifying figure in America today.
Frightening to those of us who are older? Of course.
An apt reflection of our world in the 2020s? Not so much.
A reason to panic? No.
The above is an excerpt from a Time cover story published July 11, 1977 — just under half a century ago.
Yet it’s easy to mistake that the piece applies to today.
I live in the Philly area and the evening news is filled with stories about shootings, stabbings, and vandalism, mostly committed by teens and 20-somethings. The latest crisis is hordes of young people swarming…
