I am not going to advocate that the answer to young male crime is bringing back conscription, but national service was the last time we had a formalized coming-of-age ritual for a majority of young men. Many men talk of their time in the military as the making of them: it helped them to leave behind a chaotic childhood, and was a time of re-parenting. ‘I’m yer muvver now, son,’ says the sergeant major to the private. We do need to find a way of dealing with unsocialized masculine energy.
