I think it is a common thing for many folks to assume that it is the youth that does so much of the vandalism, and there is some reasoning to it. The natural rebelliousness of youth, the time to get into mischief and just the ignorance of youth itself. Problem is, these kids learned the lack of respect of other folks property from their parents or other adult role models, either directly or indirectly. From my own experience, much of the littering, the leaving of trash behind and the reckless behavior at gun ranges is done by folks mature enough to know better. They just don't care. This is passed down to their kids in a never ending circle.
My point is, one cannot automatically assume it is kids. Case in point. My brother lives next door to a County LEO. Few years back the cop comes over and tells my brother that kids have been smashing the jack-o-lanterns on his front porch. He didn't come right out and accuse my brothers sons and their friends, but he sure implied it. Few days later the cop comes over and take my brother to look at the new batch of smashed pumpkins on the porch and this times states that if it wasn't his sons, odds are they knew who it was and wanted to question them. So in front of my brother the County Cop questions my brother's two oldest high school age boys. Of course the denied everything and claimed they didn't know who it was that did do it. Coupla days later the Cop comes over and apologizes to my brother and his boys. Seems he caught the culprits. Apparently the local deer herd had a taste for pumpkins and after staking out the porch watching for the kids to come back, he witnessed several deer smashing the third batch of pumpkins after rolling them off the porch. Maybe they were teenage deer..........
