Many shops now will only allow 2 teenagers in at the same time for fear of shoplifting or vandalism.

In the US a new law may be passed in some states forbidding teenagers to drive each other around for three years after they have received their license.

A group of teenagers out after dark can now be arrested for exactly that reason, even if they don’t appear to be causing trouble while others can be driven home if they are out wandering to a friend’s house or to the local shop after 7pm.

While these laws sound as though the government is just creating laws to make being an adolescent harder than it already is there is actual understanding for it. There are certain teenagers creating a bad image for the rest of us.

Not a day goes by without reading in the papers about what one of our peers has done. Whether it is theft, vandalism or maybe even an attack, teen crime is growing and our whole generation is being held responsible for each individual offence.

‘You see them all over the place’, says Sian, 17. ‘At the bus stop, in the park down the shops. They have had too much to drink or are showing off in front of their friends and harass members of the public’. She is talking about rowdy teens and I’m sure she isn’t alone in what she’s seen. I myself see these people who give our generation a bad name all the time and you all probably have as well.

75% of teenagers even admit to taking part in or witnessing these crimes in our own friendship groups. I remember being shocked after a fun night out to seeing one of my normally placid and polite friends yelling abuse at a member of the public after having a drink. Just sitting on a bus home from college and you can overhear groups boasting about various acts of vandalism they took part in the night before also.

Unfortunately it is always a small group. For every 200 or so hard-working, polite and considerate teenagers there is always one who wants to ruin it.

A local run for charity attracted almost 500 14-19 year olds all doing their bit to raise money in aid breast cancer research and yet this doesn’t make the paper and if it does it is normally only a tiny square in the corner. In the same issue one teenage boy had shattered a shop window and this had been the cover story. Its no wonder us teens come off so bad.

Geri, 14, agrees. ‘It is always one. For my school graduation we had a lovely day planned, a dance and a buffet. Unfortunately two boys from our year had climbed up onto the school roof and written something really nasty up there. The whole celebration was cancelled and we had to leave early’.

It can be hard when a few immature youths can ruin our reputation as a generation. Only a few weeks back I was ordered out of a park by an old man yelling about vandalism in the area when all I had been doing was walking my dog. An internet report shocked me this week by claiming that a young girl had been shot dead by a woman after mistaking her for one of a gang of thugs who had repeatedly broken into her house. Its sad that our whole generation gets labelled for what such a small percentage of us actually do.