I can't believe what I just heard on local news - rich kids stealing "just being kids".

This was on the local Nashville news about adjoining Williamson County.
If you don't know anything about Williamson Cty, TN, let me start by saying that it is Marsha Blackburn's base.
Williamson is mostly rural and very beautiful, which makes it attractive to rich musicians. Not just "Country Music" artists, but "real" musicians as well.
It is also home to Franklin, which is a haven to the "Old Rich" and to Brentwood which is the place to be for the "new rich" and all the "wannabes".
Anyway, it seems that these bored, rich kids have found a couple of new games: "garage hopping" and "car hopping".
These new "games" consist of the kids stealing items from other people's garages and cars.

Of course, when "kids" play this same game in Urban Nashville, they are sent to jail.

I thought I would vomit when I heard a woman saying "oh, they're just being kids" when I know if the same kids had been blackshe would have said "they're criminals and should go to jail."

Just for the record, I'm white and grew up in East Nashville. I chose to live in Cheatham County right outside of Metro Nashville, but I work in Brentwood and deal with Williamson County residents every day.

edit to add: BTW, Williamson is the richest county in TN and one of the richest in the US. And it ain't just the Country Music stars that live there...

other types of larceny, not so much

Sometimes even a third and fourth. There is a double standard, but maybe making the comparison in front of judges in Urban Nashville would be better than insisting kids in rich TN be thrown in jail.

These sound like planned criminal offenses to me, not some prank pulled on the spur of the moment. And with the number of people who now have guns in their homes, some kid having "fun" is going to get shot. If they deserve the kiddie incarceration, they should get it. Trouble is, too many parents can afford the lawyers who get the kids off into some kind of alternative program that they just blow off.

Lots of things teen-agers do are planned and illegal. Stealing a street sign, a six pack, smoking pot. They don't think of the consequences, they're kids. It's not the end of the damned world. They need serious consequences, real restitution that they are personally responsible for. They don't need to be sent to prison for ten years of degradation.

prison for ten years so that stretch in your logic does not apply to my comments. Secondly, stealing street signs can be very serious--results in collisions.(replacement of signs is also very expensive)
And its wrong to do it. Can we say that to kids anymore? You know, simple, this is wrong don't do it?

As far as real restitution goes...go get it. Most kiddie courts have restitution programs for minor offenses, usually some kind of community service supervised by a probation officer who maybe shows up to see what's up. Teens often work out something with school officials to janitor in the schools or something like that. Up close and personal these are not very effective programs.

Is it a full moon? That's all anybody wants to do today.

Do you know that many states have mandatory sentencing so if you try these kids the way you want, there's no choice but to send them to prison for a good long time.

Do you have some suggestion other than restitution and community service; or incarceration.

You didn't bother to cite which states you're talking about. My personal belief is that the only people who should be incarcerated in the US are the dangerous and the incorrigible. I will make the argument, however, that most people don't bother to check into the laws that may pertain to youthful illegal acts until they are knee deep in the legal system.

For those who make a loose claim that kids are just having fun and this is some rite of passage (gee somehow mine managed to grow up w/o that rite) a night or two in jail shouldn't harm them too much either.

I just don't see the need to villify them in the process.

Although jail is not camp. Nobody should be in jail unless they've acted violently against someone, not even for one night.

If they had been poor BLACK kids, they would have been executed.

the kids would have caught hell for stealing

It's really a stretch, but don't you think these kids are learning that being white and privileged makes it OK to steal, as long as you don't get caught? That if you are privileged and powerful, then crime really does pay and you don't have to follow the same rules as ordinary people?

any action.

if they don't want to get into politics

Where you get shot for that kind of thing...

Almost nobody goes to jail and I have said to myself "damned kids" when it happened in a poor city neighborhood or a wealthy suburb. It really is a right of passage - rich or poor...