Why do they do it?

A little while ago, while jogging through my neighbourhood park, I noticed that several of newly planted saplings, measuring around 8-9 ft in height, were now just broken stumps poking out of the ground! When I got near I saw that each sapling had clearly been snapped off about 8-10 in. from the ground, leaving a thin splintered stem, and the rest of the sapling, probably more than 95% of it, was nowhere to be seen. In one case the vestigial stem or thin trunk was practically level with the soil!

It was more than clear to me that this was the handiwork of vandals, and this was confirmed by the park-keeper on a later occasion who said that the saplings had been planted by a charitable group of nature lovers at their own expense. Worse still was the fact, as he told me, that the broken-off part of the saplings had been cast into the sandpit of the nearby children's playground! Just to rub the point in and add insult to injury, as it were. He also informed me that the stem which was flush with the ground had been broken a second time to make sure it would not re-sprout, as it had started to produce new shoots.

Quite honestly, readers, I’m at a loss for words (but not quite!) at the wanton destruction represented by such an act which, I recognise, is by no means a rare event in today's society. What possible benefit to the perpetrators, probably teenage youths, could such an act of mutilation be? One can at least understand the motive behind such acts as theft, burglary and fraud, unpleasant and reprehensible as they are – we can all understand the money motive behind these – but to commit gross acts of damage to the environment for no discernible gain is just beyond me. And it is all the more worrying because it has a sinister psychological undertone to it.

I say it is “beyond me” but of course one is forced to conclude that the sheer act of destroying public amenities and environmental improvements must bring pleasure to the warped minds of individuals whose mission in life seems to be to undo the efforts of those who strive to improve and embellish our surroundings. Given the nature of the act, it is very likely to be youths, as this seems to be the speciality of young people who have gone astray and have nothing better to do than damage and destroy property and amenities.

All this of course begs the question of what family background these young miscreants come from which makes it okay in their minds to commit such acts of blatant vandalism. One wonders what kind of parents they have, what sort of family life they experience, and what values are inculcated into them at home. The sad fact is that more often than not the children are a reflection of their parents and that the latter are wholly or partly to blame for such anti-social behaviour on the part of their offspring.

Often destructive children are brought up in a household where the parents swear a lot, smoke heavily, drink alcohol in excess, and use physical violence against their partner and kids. Such parents tend to be poorly educated (if at all), constantly in and out of work (more out than in), and badly behaved themselves. So they set their children the worst of examples by their own aberrant and undisciplined conduct. The children naturally take their cue from those closest to them, from those that bring them up and figure large in their life, and then they in turn export such anti-social behaviour into the wider world around them.

Instead of such kids going into a park to play in the nromal way and generally use and enjoy the amenities and the landscape afforded them, their idea of fun is to ruin things for others by wreaking damage and destruction on the environment. They are never so happy as when they are indulging in anti-social behaviour and making life less pleasant for others. They are the ones who will break what can be broken, steal what can be stolen, deface what can be defaced, and generally get up to as much mischief as they can for the hell of it.

This kind of anti-social conduct says a lot about any society. It says that schools have failed their pupils, that parents have failed their children, and that society in general is failing to properly educate, instruct and guide its young people and to instil morals in them which would set them on the right path to being good and considerate citizens. Somewhere along the line, society as a whole is failing and many youngsters grow up without a set of moral guidelines that would prompt them to do good rather than bad. And of course a proportion of them grow up to commit more serious offences and even become hardened criminals.

This is what they
should look like

Well, there you have it. It's all very sad, and though we must be optimistic (I suppose), it rather seems that vandalism, hooliganism and anti-social behaviour in one form or another are here to stay, being the by-products of a society that promotes selfishness, self-interest and opportunism, among other things, and praises materialism to the skies. To create a society of good, honest, caring and considerate citizens, very differen ideals and goals need to be fostered and encouraged. And I'm not talking about creating 'perfect' citizens, simply 'good' citizens, because none of us is or can ever be perfect. Is this an impossible aspiration? It's getting to look like it.