By Community Correspondent Georgia Collins

When was the last time you had read about a gang of these so called “chav’s” aka adolescent hoodlums wrecking homes and taking lives? What went through your mind when you read it? I know what was going through mine the last time I did: “Crikey! Is that true? That’s really quite disturbing.” Truth is, why do you think they made it into the papers anyway? That’s obvious, they are actually quite rare.

I feel sorry for citizens who feel so intimidated by all the stories in the modern day media, because they take what they read extremely seriously. More bans are being placed, because some of the public are too afraid to leave the comfort of their own home in the fear that they might be shanked to death, and our calling up the police to stop teenagers and children gathering at street corners because they find it ‘suspicious’. There is nothing wrong with being afraid, but it’s taking it too far when nothing has or will happen to you. These kids aren’t some ulterior life form, they are human beings that live and breathe just like we do, and most of them are probably perfectly ordinary people who might have gotten swept in with the wrong crowd. Sometimes, these people are perfectly harmless--unless you give them a reason to attack you, they won’t do anything; and nearly everyone of them has parents which they feel inferior to. Yes, they have their weaknesses just like everyone else.

So why do we feel so much more insecure in this day and age? Is it because of the acclaimed “rise in crimes”? The statistics say it all, and I’m not saying that they are wrong, but I do think that these sort of crimes have become more public in recent years. If you think about it, statistics have probably been raised because we have started recording more of them when they would have usually gone unnoticed, like rape and family abuse. Several years ago police wouldn’t get involved with matters concerning families because they were dealt with as private matters to be sorted out in the household.

So what do we do? Believe everything in the media is a lie? Wrong. I’m sure you’ll find a lot of facts and statistics that aren’t actually lies--probably more than you can count--we just need to be a little more sceptical about how we interpret them. As far as I’m concerned, the idea of living my life locked away in my home like a hermit doesn’t really sound terribly appealing.

You don’t need to act, just think.