Gang Graffiti

Can someone please explain to me why people feel the need to vandalize other people's property? At what point in someone's life do they decide that they're going to be a blight on society instead of a productive member? Is it an actual decision or just a path that they turn down after one too many times of making bad choices?

Obviously, we got tagged with gang graffiti. It was kind of a scary deal, too, as the night this occurred was the night that Nate was out of town. I'd sent Nate off to his out of town meeting and was settling in for a night of junk food and Lost when I heard a knock on the door. Seeing as it was 8:30pm at night and we don't know the neighbors too well I was a little concerned about who was at the door. Upon opening the door I found this hulking man on the other side. He introduced himself as one of our neighbors (at which time I did remember that we'd previously met) and asked if I'd seen what was done to the side of our fence. I hadn't so I followed him around to the side of the house where I saw that someone had spray painted gang graffiti on our pretty white fence.

The graffiti on our fence

Now I wasn't upset so much about the cost of fixing the fence as it obvious that a can of white paint would do the job, but I was upset that someone hooligan had vandalized my property, interrupted my 'alone' night, and made me nervous about being in the house by myself. Luckily, my neighbor informed me that he worked at the local Justice Center and had a few phone numbers for me to contact to deal with the problem. I felt better just knowing that someone who obviously worked with problems was nearby to help if I ran into a serious one. Well, I contacted the police that night to report the crime (that sounds so, I don't know, intense) and to see what the next steps were in fixing the fence. An hour or so later a policeman stopped by the house and let me know that a lot of areas were hit with graffiti that night, that we have a problem house nearby when the mom isn't home, and to call if there were any future problems. Again, it was nice knowing that help was just a short call away.

The next day, I figured that it would be better for me to quickly fix the problem than have Nate have to come home to it after a long day of driving. With a quick trip to Wal-Mart and a few minutes of my time I was able to paint over the graffiti and no longer be 'that' neighbor that begins the downhill slide of the neighborhood by not taking care of their property. A quick resolution to an annoying problem.

All in all I was pretty proud of myself. I calmly took care of the situation by reporting the crime and fixing the problem. Of course, I still grin a little at the double checking of all windows and doors to make sure every possible entrance into the house was locked up. :-)