Opinion: We must realise that even yobs matter

The framing of the debate about children and young people over the past couple of years has, in England at least, been guided by the five aspirations of Every Child Matters: safety, health, achievement, successful transitions to the labour market and citizenship. Early on in that debate I made the point that the young people on whom a great deal of public policy attention has been focused - now generically referred to as "yobs" - are the furthest away from the realisation of those aspirations. Two observations from an earlier era of debate constantly came to mind. I think it was author and broadcaster Julia Neuberger who noted that when society abandons its responsibilities to young people, it should be no surprise if young people don't hold on to theirs. And Beatrix Campbell, in her study of Britain's dangerous places, suggested that when ordinary people abandon public space it becomes occupied by lawless masculinity.

This has caused me to reflect on what I believe to be the overarching agenda, and challenge, for contemporary social life: what is the relationship between young people and the various communities within which they live?

In turn, three key words emerged as particularly significant - and, no, "respect" was not one of them. These words - safety, engagement and justice - have the potential to bridge the youth/community divide, but they have rather different connotations for each side.

In the case of safety, communities are certainly anxious about protection.

But equally we should be concerned about maximising a sense of security for young people. In terms of engagement, there is a lot of rhetoric about community involvement, as we exhort a sense of civic responsibility among ordinary people. For young people, however, we should be thinking about attachment and how we ensure the provision of services to meet their needs.

And in the case of justice, the high ground is currently occupied by questions of civil and criminal justice, in response to concerns about youth offending and antisocial behaviour. But there is also the question of social justice in relation to young people who are often damaged and disadvantaged.

In a sense, none of this is a new debate. It resonates with the old welfare or punishment issues that have always informed policy and practice in juvenile justice, only now the debate is taking place on a broader canvas.

The pendulum invariably swings wildly from one side to the other and is currently stuck in an anti-yob position. Only when we realise that the issues are not diametrically opposed but integrally linked will we start to grapple effectively with the presenting challenges and build more constructive relationships between youth and their communities.