I would not say that the word itself carries either a negative or a positive connotation, but the contexts in which it is used may tend to be negative. A quick ngrams search for "youths" turns up mostly sociology texts in recent years...and not the kind that say everything is hunky-dory with youths, either.
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I would not say that the word itself carries either a negative or a positive connotation, but the contexts in which it is used may tend to be negative. A quick ngrams search for "youths" turns up mostly sociology texts in recent years...and not the kind that say everything is hunky-dory with youths, either.