Disappointed

There was a series of Christmas week vandalism in our little neighborhood.

You know, car dented and spray painted upon, garbage dumped near people's garages ... cases of beer stolen from front porches.

I walked past a young man and his dad patching up some tail lights the other day.

My comments were about the string of vandalism plaguing a few blocks.

"You should probably report it." I said.

"What good would that do?"

"Well, it lets them know it happened."

I was disappointed at the "what good would that do?" comment.

It's not like it'll DO anything. The bad guy probably won't get caught and won't be forced to pay th $100 to fix the taillights. It DOES help in seeing vandalism trends in the neighborhood ... something that your police department pays attention to when assigning community liaison officers ... beat officers ... and other resources.

But it's beyond that, the tone was very much ... hopeless. Very hopeless. Like there was no ownership in the place where this occurred. He had a key to the house, so either he lived there, or his parents did. I'd assume that's enough ownership. Maybe it isn't.

We live in communities. The communities are ours, at the block, neighborhood and city level ... county, state, regional and national. We are all a part of it. It is OURS, it's not 'theirs'. We each own a bit of all of it.

So what good does it do?

You're empowered to make change, the first step is thinking you can, and you will.