Aggravated assault and

"serious criminal trespass" charges have been laid against a ten year old, a thirteen year old and a sixteen year old.  The police are apparently not ruling out more charges against them and other miscreants.
What, the Senior Cat wanted to know, was a ten year old doing out at that hour unsupervised? It's a good question. 
I had an even better question, did these three really have nothing better to do? They were apparently "bored". 
I don't remember being bored as a child. If we dared to suggest it Mum would find us work to do very smartly. As we already did a fair bit of that our free time was precious. 
My two younger sisters were more fortunate than me or my brother. They would disappear for hours into the surrounding country side and come home when they were hungry. If Mum wanted to be rid of all of us all day we were given a sandwich and - if there was any available - fruit and biscuits and told to come back when it was dark. There were other children whose mothers did the same thing. You could do that in the sort of places we lived in. 
We got filthy dirty and we did some things which would now be considered to be far too dangerous - like climb trees. (Remember that "flying fox" R... the first one that collapsed the first time your brother tried to use it?) 
I read a lot of books outside too - trying to find place where there were no bull ants and the ground was clear of undergrowth and snakes. 
We would all sneak into the schoolyard to drink the water from the rainwater tank - and everyone knew the importance of making sure the tap was not so much as dripping. 
There were the occasional scuffles among children, particularly the boys. Those scuffles were over pretty quickly though. In a small "town" (village or even hamlet to those of you in Upover) it is important not to have major arguments with the other kids. 
I don't remember anything being vandalised apart from once - and that was a minor thing. The punishment was major. It was not because the Senior Cat handed out a massive punishment to the boy in question but because everyone in the district knew what he had done - written something on the seat of the small bus that took him to and from school. His parents felt the disgrace as much as he did. They were not happy with him.There was no escaping it. It is what happens when "everyone knows everyone".
Years later, at university, another mature age student had her kitchen vandalised by a boy in her son's class. She went along to the court proceedings at the request of the magistrate hearing the case. (This was in order to try and make the boy aware of how serious the offence was as he had tried to set a fire as well.) The magistrate asked the boy, "And what did your Dad have to say about all this?"
The answer was, "He belted me - for getting caught."
He was transferred to another school and given ten hours of "community service".  I have often wondered what happened to him. In a big city he was anonymous.
Perhaps that is part of the problem too. But, the bigger problem seems to be that some of these young offenders are "bored". They don't know what to do with the free time we found so precious. They expect to be entertained - and for that entertainment to be "exciting", an adrenalin rush. 
Ms W wandered in yesterday afternoon. She was not bored, just tired from having spent a vigorous day in the afternoon. I showed her the article and asked her what she thought.
   "They don't read enough books," she told me, "If they read more books they would have more ideas and then they would want to do things. Can you show me....?"
And she was asking what she had come to find out. 
I am not worried about Ms W. She reads a lot.