This touchy feely, sociological naval gazing is the reason we have these problems. We look at criminals and go out of our way to see victims and sad stories. These kids are cycling around in £60 hoodies, £100 trainers and organising their mayhem with £200 smartphones. Later tonight they'll go home to their playstations. They deflect all criticism and any encouragement to reflect on what they do because bleeding heart hippies keep dreaming up these hard-life narratives to excuse and exhonorate them. They have first world problems. Their parents generation and the generation before them had it much worse, they didn't live in this wonderful technological age of plenty, they lived through deeper, harder recessions and wars and national disasters and they never resorted to this scale of anarchism.
Don't give them the benefit and comfort of your liberally minded defenses. They ARE just scum, and rejection and isolation on a social level is exactly what they need and deserve!