The Impact Of Late Modernity

The condition of todays’ society has been described as ‘Late Modernity’ by theorist Giddens (1991). He explains how society has lost its hold on tradition and how the line between local and international has blurred; this has resulted in people trying to constantly adapt themselves into a world that is always changing, hence leaving their traditional lives behind. Giddens (1991) further adds that this particular way of living has decreased structure, stability and security and increased confusion and disorder. Examples of modernity and traditional lifestyles would be ones that are centred on family, religion and community life, whereas late modernity consists of a rapidly changing, consumer society that has abandoned all tradition and is full of risk.
Risk has been defined by Kenney (2010) as a situation that puts human values and/or life at stake and although there was always the idea that risk can be a negative as well as a positive thing, after the twentieth century the latter was considered irrelevant and suddenly the terms ‘risk’ and ‘danger’ became interchangeable (Hope, 2013). When it comes to young people in particular, their overall lives have become a persistent

Unfortunately, to reiterate Shaw’s (2010) point from earlier, the representation of youth has declined in the last 30 years, with young people being largely associated with deviance and anti-social behaviour (Foster and Spencer, 2011), which means policies, like stop and search, are put into place so adults can surveillance young people and prevent them from being at risk as well as causing