Wow... just, wow.

I never thought I would live to see Dungeons and Dragons mentioned in the same breath as crank in terms of threats to our young. Hey, Rene, you left out comic books and horror movies.

The street culture is a nightmare.

We need a National Service for all Americans aged 18-20, like Americorps. It would be nonmilitary but would job-train. It would assist the National Guard (when they are stateside!) in functions such as disaster response and infrastructure maintenance. Trained National Service alumni would have skills for available jobs (i.e., the economy would need to adjust, and current outsourcing and offshoring would need to be curtailed).

Meanwhile, the homeless youth-service centers need to have a work requirement. No mean feat, it would require an infusion of substantial resources, monetary and human.

A sliver of the near trillions for Iraq and the Pentagon could provide the wherewithal. http://www.sensiblepriorities.org/budget_analysis.php

But first the country will need to escape the grip of this administration.

First time these spoiled brats get busted, send them on a one-way trip to Brazil. Seeing REAL street kids in the slums of Rio - and how the Brazilian police "deal" with the problem should scare these clowns straight right quick.

Americans are too soft.

I lived in Tempe for brief period and I can attest the the homeless kid culture is as scary as it gets. one more note... the Dungeons and Dragons reference was a little bit over the top. Generally, Dungeons and Dragons is associated with satanism (although that is also very silly). Please adopt some other fantasy reference source. Aside from the D&D reference which carries a lot of silly baddage, a very interesting and excellent article.

"In this particular case, the kids took names like Shadowcat and Gambit..."

AHHHHHH! KILLER FANBOYS!!!!!

Speeding tickets and bullshit 1 joint pot busts on middle class people. Hoo Haa!

And oh yeah - and putting 500 guys in black jumpsuits around every 'potential target for terrorism' like the Mall of America and the NYSE (which is closing down and going 100% electronic, off the floor soon).

Does a middle aged woman immerse herself in street kid culture?

D&D? Ha ha...1980 wants its catch-all scapegoat back. I suppose Judas Priest played backwards is also to blame...

Why don't cops take these kids seriously? Why would they? Gang violence is far far more pervasive. Look at a city like my fine Boston - how many murders here are gang related (a lot) and how many street family related? (Few if any)

This reads like one of those breathless "next on 20/20 - your kids may be going to RAVES!" pieces of garbage.

"Controlled by self-appointed "moms" and "dads," these "families" are often far more rigid, controlling and violent than those the kids fled. Members commit muggings, deal drugs and participate in gay-bashing incidents. Still, police in many cities pay them little attention, instead focusing their energies on more traditional gangs."

Yes - because gangs are *killing* people on a constant basis! Knives and chains vs. guns. Not a tough one.

I especially liked this part:

No. What is really striking about it is in the past we had hippie cultures and the punk cultures. And there were certainly a lot of criminals that intersected those cultures, but they were largely about something kind of productive and exciting and artistic.

LO fucking L. Yes, because punks don't carry chains and knives, play D&D, wear mohawks or mug people.

This is just an updated "my generation is better than your generation." The problem-children of days gone by were just misunderstood creatives while the problem children of today are sociopaths.

Yawn.

This piece really worked my stomach into a knot. Having worked in-depth with street kids in Seattle for a number of years in the late 80s and early 90s, I have to say that Rene Denfeld is right on the mark, especially in the twisted romanticizing of street-kid life.

I regularly watched warm-hearted, fresh-faced teenagers hit the streets, only to see them swept into the Dante-esque bowels of hell, their souls brutalized, their bodies stomped violently upon. Though long-removed from my time with these kids, when I reflect upon them, I’m still deeply haunted to this day.

I used to work in downtown Tempe (I currently live a few miles away now but still in the Valley) and the street kids are absolutely 100% dangerous and no one wants to confront it.

I was in my very early twenties when I observed the rise of these groups in Tempe so I was the same age as these kids; it wasn't some generational inability to relate. I hung out in the coffee bars and watched it first hand with sick fascination; the beatings, the retaliations, the meth use. One incident I remember clearly was where a group of them took the belongings of a young homeless family and set them ablaze in the city park. When the police responded they attempted an ambush, came out of the bushes with weapons right out of Mad Max. After it was all said and done the cops were accused of provoking the incident and even of starting the fire. It was portrayed as ‘Local Cops Harass Homeless’. No one sees these gangs for what they are, gangs. During this time period it was the late 90’s and the kids had this whole fantasy scenario going about how Y2K was going to hit, there would be a battle and only they would know how to survive. Real Helter Skelter Manson like stuff and they were stockpiling weapons. I overheard all this stuff on the coffee shop patio where they congregated on Mill. One of them told me this point blank and how I would not survive the coming inferno. I told him he couldn’t survive a day without getting food or money from other people. If there was an apocalypse there would be no one to panhandle from and he’d starve. If anything, I would be eating him for breakfast, not the other way around. This was a shocking to him, I could almost see his fantasy world implode in his eyes. There’s a side to this fantasy world they are constantly creating that is almost cult like. My naïve roommate of the time became pals with some of them and invited one back to our apartment to use our shower. I went ballistic and tossed him out. Lo and behold a few days later someone tried to break in, and from the looks of it it was someone whom had been inside and knew where the door locks where because the glass next to it was knocked out in only those locations.

They use the trappings of the hippy generation to appear harmless and bohemian but they are not. Now that I think about it what went on at the old Spawn ranch with the Manson family very much mirrors these groups except the scary thing is the scale they function on is so much bigger and they slip around undetected.