>>And in all that skirmish/ruckus/rumpus or whatever silly word they use, everybody forgets that there wouldn't be much of a problem had the young had a future ahead of them, jobs and a few dozen notches above poverty level. That's somehow always too far out of the picture. You blame the government for youth programs absence or failure, or blame the youth for this or that, or blame the crime for being too well organized, or blame the lawmakers for making it a crime at all, but please don't ask why were those kids on the streets in the first place, don't mention jobs, future and other things not mentioned in polite company.
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>Interesting perspective, but not completely accurate. Here, the areas with the best schools and the wealthiest parents living in the nicest neighborhoods (many gated communities of 500,000+ homes) have the worst drug problems. The drug and truancy and general trouble-making runs from the poorest to the wealthiest.

But not completely off the mark either. What's the life like for those kids? "Gated community" is just a politically incorrect expression for a well off ghetto - and I'm not sure the "well off" is entirely true, because of how much of it is actually debt. And the internal policies of such places can be downright maddening, can't do this can't do that because it wouldn't look nice on a picture or a tour for a prospective customer, and our only goal in life and elsewhere is to pump up the value of the property so we can sell it and go fishing. While I didn't spend much time in such places, I can see how it can drive any sane person to abuse some substance - at least sugar, or ethanol, or plain water. Between police-state high schools and "everybody follow these rules strictly or we all lose value when we sell" Upper Ghettoville home, it's good that they aren't worse.

And their future, as they, supposedly richer kids are about to have, is what? To pay off the parents' debts so they can keep on living in similar imitation life polished ghettos and pile up more debt of their own?