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   Public perceptions of teenagers are frequently divisive, ranging from dangerous children who need to be shielded from their own bad choices to immature, lazy schoolchildren who love to sleep in. All of these descriptors aren't necessarily inaccurate; in fact, several of these actions have scientific justifications, but they do highlight how many opposing viewpoints there are in society regarding teenagers.
   The study looks on how one particular group of teenagers—those who interact with the legal system, whether in a criminal or family law context—are described by journalists and attorneys. Although it's complex, there are general trends in how young people are portrayed, which might help to explain what otherwise appears to be a mass of contradition.

   Yet when criminologist Stanley Cohen looked at the Mods v Rockers riots, he realised that the media had exaggerated the extent of the events. The language used in court and in the media had described this small number of teenagers, involved in minor acts of disorder, as representative of all young people.

   Panics about young criminals and rebellious behaviour still occur today. From young people using social media to give themselves “points” for rival stabbings, to “phone obsessed teens” who put themselves at risk of ADHD, language has been used to create panic about young people. This moral panic is fuelled by media and mobilises popular opinion to the point that politicians change laws or policies in ways which are out of proportion to the real threat.

   In a criminal trial involving a person under 18, there are various special sentencing options intended to rehabilitate the offender. Part of the official justification for this is that “children and young people are not fully developed and they have not attained full maturity”. But these sentencing principles are not always applied consistently.

 

 

A Fraught Case. Wikimedia Commons

   In the case of the killing of James Bulger in 1993 by two ten-year-old defendants, the judge echoed the media outrage surrounding the case, sentencing both defendants to indefinite detention in a secure unit and describing them as “both cunning and very wicked”.

But psychologists have since raised doubts about whether the defendants were truly mature enough to understand the wrongness of their crime - especially since one asked at the time whether James could be taken to hospital “to try and get him alive again”.

   Seeing how language is used to describe children in contact with the law can reveal how our mental ideas of the “typical” teenager are formed. Yet one young person can often have multiple ideas projected on them at once – as exemplified by the case of the killers of Bulger. Ultimately, every one of these ideas about what young people is a simplification – a shortcut which enables adult society to form judgements without engaging with the complexities of life as a young person.

   Spotting how these simplified patterns emerge – and the serious consequences they can have for young people’s lives – should encourage a healthy scepticism of the stereotypes about teenagers which exist in our society.