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2009-04-11

Police Chief Greg Anderson issued an alert Friday asking for help in tracking down the individuals responsible for a series of dangerous pranks pulled on motorists traveling on Burlington Road.
There is frequently a disconnect between the citizens and police in such situations. Pranking is usually done by the young, and is usually done as a sort of self-test to determine ones own boundaries relative to the adult world. We all did it during that age. The citizens may desire police intervention but expect that the intervention will follow the form of 'OK, this is what happens, go and sin no more' which is the 'proper' form for the intervention to take to ensure that proper development of the young citizen in question takes place. Unfortunately, the state of the police paradigm is such today that there is no distinguishing between ritual interaction with our youth, and regular police-function interaction. The result is that the pranking youth is victimized rather than guided and leaves the experience with no feeling of obligation to the society he is trying to find his place in. I think that the main cause of this disconnect is that too many police officers are not old enough to have seen there own children go through this phase, and may not recognize that the pranking is a necessary part of growing up and is not, in fact, an indicator of criminal intent or tendency.