An Eye For An Eye

Teenage crime is the latest sexy story for newsrooms in this country to get their hands on. Beats the cop bashing that reporters have milked the teets out of lately I suppose but kids’ getting into trouble is nothing new and you get the feeling it won’t be long before they try and link the two. It’ll be the Mans fault that teenagers are tagging next, you wait and see.

We got up to some good times in my teenage days. Stoning the assistant principal’s house on the way home after a night out on the large was one of our regular feel good moments. Probably scared the hell out of his wife and kids but he loved it, we could just tell by the way he chased us down the street in his jimmy jams. That’s why he was such a prick to us at school; he was gagging for us to retaliate in the dead of night like we did. It was reverse psychology at its best.

Pinching stuff was always a big source of enjoyment. Usually it was pure opportunism like street signs, car badges, milk and newspapers from the letterbox, or even the mail if it looked remotely like a stickmag. It never was and always inevitably turned out to be something lame like LawnMowers Monthly. Some of our biggest heists were off the cuff, like the day we cleaned out the squash club broom closet of all the boxes of spare Coke cans for the vending machine they had stored there. The only downside was that school was still a 20 minute walk away down the main street and your average school satchel doesn’t quite conceal a box containing 3 doz Coke cans. But we made it back to school and we made a tidy profit on selling them to the masses.

My mate Paul was like a magpie when it comes to the ‘ol five fingered discount. There wasn’t much he couldn’t nick including a wetsuit (he wore it out) a 3 foot garden gnome and any matter of small electrical appliances that had started the day in a locked cabinet. My other mate Rob stole to order, usually whilst out with his mates completing their many smash and grabs. If they had no orders, then it was just a smash, obviously. My best period at the school cricket crease was due to the top of the line bat he nicked for me from the window of Stirling Sports. I was a little disappointed that the bat had a dent in the side that Rob had sustained as he yanked it through the security mesh they had inside their window. I had a good mind to take it back to the shop for a replacement actually because it was hardly ‘new’ in that state.

Coops was hardcore though. He’d pocket bits of ham he sliced at the deli in the supermarket he worked, to eat whilst on his break. He’s the kind of hardened criminal you read about as starting their recidivist offending young! My biggest personal haul was the day I though I had struck in big back in intermediate and scored a whole box of the coolest plastic pencil cases I had seen up till that point. These things were like pistol magazines and that had to be cool. The only bummer was that they only came in green and pink but we fellas soon divvied up the green ones and looked to offload the poofy pink ones on the girls. That was until they pointed out to us, only after they had stopped laughing hysterically, that my score was actually a box of tampon holders.

Yep, teenies getting in trouble is nothing new. Stuff gets serious when you throw in a whole bunch of contributing factors. Of which there are too many for me to list here because I can’t be arsed noting all of societies failings, but you can guess alcohol, lack of parental responsibility and boredom are top of that particular list. Why we allowed our politicians to decide on our behalf that lowering the drinking age was a good choice is beyond me. It was a bad decision before they made it and it’s been a catastrophically fucken bad one since they did. Alcohol may only be a small part of a bigger problem but it’s now one of the more accessible ones and you’d have to be pretty naive to say it wasn’t the best social lube since KY.

But then that’s what happens when you let businessmen who make their money out of selling piss to teenagers influence government.

As far as punishment goes I’m a big fan of an eye for an eye and all that. I don’t believe all the civil libertarians - who have never had anything remotely bad happen to them - when they say ‘punishment doesn’t deter or rehabilitate’. How the fuck would we know, because thanks to them we’ve never been allowed to try it! I reckon you get two chances to make a social stuff up. The first time you get a chance at redemption – providing you do something minor – but the second time is over and out. If you didn’t get the message the first time that you'd fucked up then clearly a second or third is of no use to you. If you choose to step out of what society deems acceptable then you no longer have a need for the restraints society applies to those who only make the one booboo.

So for people who kill, they get killed. People who cause physical harm are incarcerated but are thrashed within an inch of their life, given time to recover and then thrashed some more. Those caught tagging or stealing lose a limb. And lets not get hung up on ‘but what if he didn’t do it?’ which again, is an argument perpetuated by someone who has never had anything bad happen to them or their family. I say if you’re caught in the act, then you’re up for the punishment. If there’s doubt over the guilt then we work something else out – but alas my kneejerk theory hasn’t got that far yet.

It may not stop teenagers from stealing ham from the deli, or stoning the assistant principal’s house at night, but it might make them thing twice about knifing each over some graffiti.