Although most parents say that under-16s should not be on the streets after 9pm, kids still hang around on every corner. Don't jump to conclusions though. Their parents might think they are all round at Lauren's house watching High School Musical.
My friend's son is 15. On Saturday, he was playing pool, and rang to ask his mother if he could stay out until 10pm. He's a decent lad, and she knew where he was and who he was with, so she agreed. When he arrived home, he casually mentioned that he had been in a pub for a pint. "A pub!" she despaired. "What can I do?"

So what can she, and all those other parents of teenagers do? Being a sensible mother, she sat him down and told him that under-age drinking is a criminal offence, reminded him of his reputation at school and with his football and cricket teams, and explained that he must set a good example to his younger sister. Serious though it is, in the scheme of things, going for a pint is pretty small beer. At least no-one got stabbed.

They are the kind of family who can handle this sort of thing. But so many families – 110,000 according to the Government – cannot. The new £100m "youth crime action plan" will see the worst offenders targeted with special support. The families of up to 20,000 out-of-control teenagers could face eviction from council houses if they fail to comply with parenting sanctions. How kicking them all out on the streets will solve the problem of youth crime is lost on me, but maybe I'm missing the point.

I wonder if the Ministers are missing the point too. There is sound evidence to suggest that intensive one-on-one interaction from social and youth workers can improve behaviour. Yet, for every family which allows this level of intervention in their lives, there will be many more which refuse even to entertain it. And their kids will still run wild.

These are the families that have absolutely zero confidence in their ability to bring up their own children. Whether they live in a council house, or on a posh estate, they exist because the instinct to exercise parental discipline has been eroded by decades of wishy-washy liberal policies handed down from on high.

Some children need firm handling, simple as that. But it takes a brave parent these days to make a stand and show their kids who is boss, especially in public. Believe me, I've tried. I once told a health visitor I had put my defiant three-year-old under a cold shower to teach him a lesson, and the look on her face suggested he was one step from the at-risk register. It is good that children know their rights – and my now five-year-old son regularly reminds me of his – but it is important that they recognise that with their rights comes the need to respect other people.

Gordon Brown can go on about his desire to establish "boundaries of acceptable behaviour", but if parents have no idea how to set them in the first place, then intervention programmes will never be more than sticking plaster being used to hold together a desperately broken society.

This is where knives come in. Left to their own devices, young people will make up their own rules. Knives are proliferating because they are a way of creating order out of chaos and, as such, are used by youngsters to negotiate their way through an increasingly-threatening Britain.

Much of this knife culture has been imported from the worst kind of macho American rappers. With their complex gang structures, they have filled the moral vacuum with their glamorised world of "fallen soldiers" and "revenge killings". If I was in charge, I'd set up a task force to deal with this before anything else.

It is true, however, that it is time for all parents to take responsibility. But it is far more than thinking you know where your kids are at night. We must reclaim the right to sort out our own family discipline, support legislation which stamps out violence-as-entertainment in music, film and television, be decent to other people ourselves (so no screaming at the ref or bad-mouthing the teacher) and remember that it is parents who are the most influential role models that our children will ever have. Which sadly, says a lot about the state our society finds itself in.