when i was growing up, we'd always play pranks on people (phone calls, moving stuff around in their garden, sending pizza deliveries round etc), i guess we did it because there wasn't anything else to do - i'm talking 15 years ago - we never did it to hurt anybody, but just for fun.
my girlfriends mum and dad had an issue going on for a year or so where the same few boys would go round their house, bang on their door, make loads of noise, it was really intimidating for them - we never did it persistently to one person - but they were eventually identified and the problems stopped, but it must have taken 8/9 months to get enough cctv evidence to identify them.
if they were asked why they did it, i suspect they would cite the same reasons; there isn't really that much to do in smaller villages for kids. the village i grew up in closed its youth club many years ago, i don't think it has one now. i guess there's the widespread access to internet and video games but not everybody is into that.
just like me, i would think that they have never even thought about how their behaviour effects and terrorises people - i certainly never did and looking back i probably wouldn't have done many things that i did.
i do however think that this is part of growing up, whatever society says, kids aren't adults, and no amount of social indoctrination will force them to behave as such, they're kids, everybody handles growing up differently if there is one thing that has changed since i was growing up is that kids have an awareness that even if they get caught and reported to the police, in all but the most extreme circumstances, nothing much will happen to them. we on the other hand were scared witless of being reported to the police and our murky behaviours being found out by our parents.
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And i don't do pranks. If i want to slag someone off, or annoy them, i phone them, and actually speak to them, or face to face!
