Wee Willie,

I know nothing about the percentages of juvenile offenders in Europe, but I know about problems with comparing statistics across countries. Too often, the numbers cannot be compared readily since the counting procedures are different.

Two examples: In Germany, there is a much higher percentage of sick leave days among workers than in Austria (in Austria, they are compared to the number of days in the year, 365, in Germany to the number of actual work days, 220-230). In Germany, the probability to die in a traffic accident is much higher than in (?)Italy (in Italy, when you reach the hospital alive, you are not counted among the road accident dead, in Germany all deaths in hospitals up to 30 days after a road accident are counted).

I have no idea whether any of these or similar problems also occur in counting juvenile crimes, so you could be completely right, after all, but I'd love to see the fine print below the statistics tables before I am convinced that the problem is much worse in Britain.

As for the football fans, it's true, each town on the continent would see rather Scotland or Ireland play here than England (or Germany). Why?
A nasty (and not serious) explanation: The amount of home exercise differs. A game lasts 90 minutes and no real Scotsman or Irishman would get drunk from what he can drink in such a short time, whereas an Englishman...

A serious, but not necessarily correct, explanation: The number of fans travelling with the team is larger for Germany and England (both for the larger population and the lower costs of travel). Among a bigger crowd of supporters, you can safely expect more hooligans than among a small crowd and a bigger crowd is a safer place for opportunistic perpetrators.

Wolfgang

Wolfgang