Young people today are nothing but trouble. They slouch. They're lawless. They tote knives and flob on the ground. Look into their eyes: there's no gratitude there. Just blank-eyed nihilism and belching. Although the belching's coming from lower down, from the mouth bit. Young people undermine society. They come over here, into our present, downloading our ringtones. Would you want your daughter marrying one? Young people think they own the place. Well they don't. Yet.

But what can be done? The softly-softly approach is as much use as a Plasticine ladder or a glass trampoline. Take a group of youths hanging out by the local bus stop, intimidating innocent pedestrians with their 21st-century patois. Now approach them. Try to point out where they're going wrong. Be patient. Take your time. Use diagrams. Will they listen? Will they heck. They won't even look you in the eye. While you politely set them straight, they stare at their shoes and snort, because you're old and dull and they hate you. That's how their minds work. They've got no respect for their superiors.

You can't win with young people. But you can punish them. The older male generation loves dreaming up punishments for the young. It's the only thing that still gets them aroused. Last week, moon-faced political letdown and professional idiot David Cameron suggested a new kind of penalty.

"I'd like to see judges and magistrates tell a 15-year-old boy convicted of buying alcohol or causing a disturbance that the next time he appears in court he'll have his driving licence delayed," he said, through his fat failing mouth, adding, "And then I'd like that boy to tell his friends what the judge said."

Dribbling gump though he is, Cameron's on to something here. And that bit where the crook-boy has to tell his mates what happened is the key.

In the mind of a young person, being told off is cool. An asbo, therefore, is like a badge of honour: a sort of alternative Victoria Cross. What's required is a form of punishment that genuinely humiliates the offender.

Every so often a comedy judge in America will sentence someone to some kind of embarrassing public penance: walking down the street in a chicken suit, and so on. We need to go one better, by establishing a dedicated 24-hour digital TV channel on which young offenders humble and debase themselves.

Here's how it works. Let's say a 16-year-old called Ryan has stolen a shopping trolley and spun it round and round in the town centre while screaming abuse at horrified passers-by. He's arrested and charged and hauled into court. The judge sentences Ryan to five hours' community service on Channel Loser.

As part of his punishment, Ryan has to hand over his mobile phone, so the police can search through his address book and text all his friends, telling them what time to tune in. Let's say it's 4pm. As the clock strikes four, Ryan's friends flop down on the sofa, switch on the box, and this is what they see.

Ryan is wearing nothing but a pair of bikini bottoms. "Hello," he says, reading slowly from the autocue. "My name's Ryan Daniels and I stole a trolley." Then the Thomas the Tank Engine theme music starts playing and Ryan has to dance to it. When the tune comes to an end, it instantly skips back to the beginning and Ryan has to start again. This sequence is repeated until he bursts into tears.

Then Ryan's mum walks in, spits on a bit of tissue, and wipes his face with it. Then she produces a bag of his laundry and goes through every item in it one by one, complaining bitterly about the state of his underpants and so on.

Once she's gone, Ryan climbs into a paddling pool filled with ice-cold water and sits down until his genitals have shrivelled to squinting point. Then he has to stand up and pull down his bikini bottoms, at which point a girl from Hollyoaks walks in, points and laughs in his face for 10 minutes.

Then Ryan has to push his face into a cow's backside. The sole concession to his personal dignity is a bucket on the floor to be sick in. Finally, there's a three-hour interactive section where the audience at home texts in phrases that Ryan has to read aloud. This, the simplest section, is also the most entertaining. Picture it.

Come the end of his punishment, Ryan will never offend again and probably won't even go outside again. Problem solved. What's more, we've all been entertained. Everybody wins. Cameron, if you're reading - you can have this idea for free.

Next week: solving climate change with kites.

· This week Charlie went to the Edinburgh Festival: "I've written this before seeing anything, so I don't know if it was worth bothering." On the way, he played Scrabulous on Facebook on the train: "Quite the most dizzyingly modern thing I've ever done."