This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Reith Lectures.

This lecture in the series This Island Now, given by George Carstairs, was originally broadcast in 1962.

This Island Now. The BBC presents the third of a series of six wreath lectures given by GM Carstairs,

Professor of Psychological Medicine in the University of Edinburgh.

In this lecture, Professor Carstez discusses the vicissitudes of adolescence.

I'm going to talk about teenagers,

and that means, almost inevitably, that I'm going to talk about violence and sex.

But I'd like to make it clear from the start that I regard the present increase of crimes of violence

and the present state of confusion in the roles governing sexual behaviour

as problems not only of adolescence but of our

society as a whole. I believe that juvenile delinquency and sexual promiscuity can be

regarded as pointers to areas of uncertainty of confused values in contemporary adult life.

Adolescence is, after all, the period of apprenticeship to one's adult role.

There can be no doubt that this apprenticeship is not working smoothly just now.

If we begin by considering crime and violence, we're confronted by some astonishing facts.

There are nearly three times as many men in our prisons today as there were 20 years ago,

and nearly half of all the indictable offences are committed by youths under the age of 21.

This increase in crime was the more remarkable because it reversed a long-standing trend.

Early in this century, crime and especially theft was associated with poverty and it was believed that

when extremes of poverty were relieved crime would diminish up to a point this did in fact occur

two surveys of London life and labour published at the turn of the century and in 1930,

showed that during that period the incidence of severe penury had been greatly reduced,

...