Cut to the chase- what's the solution?

My mother refuses to listen or watch the news anymore. I think her uncomprising stance has something about an ostrich and sand within it but I also think that an increasing number of people are becoming entirely disaffected by what they are told about the world around them.
The issue of the day for me is teenage violence. As I listened to the fact that 16 teenagers have been stabbed to death in London in the last sixth months, I tried to think if it had always been this way. I can remember being scared when I was a teenager and feeling threatened when I was on my own. Nevertheless, I'm sure that young people stabbing or beating one another was not quite so regular an occurance.
Despite this inner (perhaps nostalgic) belief, I'm reluctant to argue that youth violence has got worse. Statistics argue that it hasn't. But if this is the case, why are we all talking about it? Something has changed; it's just a matter of working out what it is. Let's start with the weapon. Is it the knife or worse the gun that's the problem? Are guns more readily available to teenagers today? Not if you take Germaine Greer's point made Radio 4. She argued that all self respecting young men would have carried a knife in her day. I can remember my father's (albeit belated) glee at receiving a swiss army knife for Christmas when I was young. I believe they were considered to be de riguer of masculinity.
If we agree that knives are not a new invention and accessibilty hasn't increased then we need to look beyond the actual weapons. This seems to be something that is difficult even for the government to do. Perhaps this is because knives and guns are controllable, quantative entities whereas human will and intent are not. If Boris Johnson wants to rid London of the 'scourge' of knife crime, he is going to have to look further than the chosen instruments of assault.
People are quick to judge the law and its interminable weakness. To many, the government are failing and this is where the blame lies. We like to push dealing with evil away to somewhere non descript and distanced from our lives, like Whitehall. A policeman has said, 'Until teenagers are more frightened of the law than eachother our task is hopeless.' and I think this starts to shed some light on where I want to head with my argument.
Lord of the Flies- a novel so many of us read at school. I have taught it to my year 11 class this year. In the novel, Golding explores the concept of human fear and how it affects society in intricate detail. It is the fear that eats away at the boys and allows them to degenerate from "civilised" school pupils to murderous savages. Things go wrong for them when 'people start(ed) getting frightened'. They look desperately for an embodiment of evil outside of themsleves, from the water, the air or even a pig's head on a stick. Simon's assertion, 'maybe it's only us' is realised far too late by Ralph as he weeps for 'the darkness of man's heart' at the end of the text.
I think fear is a significant problem in society today. Due to advancements in technology, we can plague ourselves with new fears 24 hours a day. Parents are scared and consequently children are scared. But we do not share these fears enough in the cold light of day. Think about the kind of fear that Carol Saldinack had to contend with when she realised what her sons were capable of. No one wants to admit that potential for evil exists within their own home. This leads to hysteria and ignorance; both of which are cancerous elements in society.
Hysteria leads to hatred; ignorance leads to apathy and a lack of repsect. Are these qualities indicative of the new generation? Have they the ironic access to omnipotence through the web but also the disinclination to use it? Have they the absence of a "cause" to fight for and unite against?
Whenever anyone talks so generically it frustrates me but it is difficult to do anything otherwise. Something is changing in our culture and we need to recognise it in order to react to it. I believe it has something to do with Darwin. Again, an old theory for a new (?) problem.