In the UK teenage criminals must be called “young persons”, not “youths” – to avoid offending them.

It is not a word usually associated with causing offence, even when those referred to have broken the law.

But ‘youth’ has been banned from guidelines on the treatment of criminals aged 16 and 17 – because ministers think it is too demeaning.

Instead, offenders must be referred to as ‘young persons’ in the latest code for prosecutors. The newly fashionable phrase is used 101 times in the document.

I have a better idea. How about calling them:

inchoate hooligans

scelestious yahoos

pimply purveyors of turpitude

flagitious degenerates

iniquitous ingrates

delinquent desperados

benighted bastards.

There, I feel better now.