Mindless Vandalism

Fifteen cars were vandalised and two windows smashed in by vandals on Friday night in Jersey. The incidents took place in Les Quennevais and Clos De Dables area of St Brelades, it's though the damage could cost in excess of two thousand pounds. A group of youths were in the area at the time and one was known to be in possession of a golf club or a metal bar.

http://www5.channelonline.tv/news/templates/jerseynews2.aspx?articleid=16186&zoneid=2

But it is not just Jersey which suffers this, a similar story (of many) was in the Evening Chronicle (29/12/2007):

Yobs Go on Rampage to Smash Cars; Angry Families Left Counting Cost of Mindless Vandalism. Evening

FAMILIES have told of their anger after vandals smashed up more than 20 cars on the same road. The vehicles were parked in Blackhill Avenue, Wallsend, in North Tyneside, when youths went on a wrecking spree at around 11.15pm on Thursday. Most of the cars had their windows put in. The damage is likely to run into thousands of pounds A mum-of-two, who lives in the area with her partner, had two windows in her Vauxhall Cavalier broken. "We all came out and saw our cars had been damaged. I don't understand why they would do something like this, what's the point of it? It's just mindless vandalism."

A. Seij is the chief of the police force of NV Nederlandse Spoorwegen, the Dutch national railway. He is a member of ASIS, and has published a serious study of vandalism, trying to take the "mindless" out of it and make sense of it. He published a paper called "Vandalism: A European View" in the Magazine "Security Management". In it, he makes the following points:

Access to even more information is necessary if the problem is to be tackled in an integral way. In fact, all approaches to vandalism contain their own particular requirements for information. Persons interested in the social aspect of vandalism would want to know the housing and living conditions of offenders. Where vandalism is viewed as stemming from educational shortcomings or from unemployment, one might examine offenders' educational achievements.

Information is necessary not only for preparing and creating policies but also for executing and evaluating the measures taken. Data is also required for gauging changes in the magnitude and geographic distribution of the problem.

In addition to the lack of information, another hindrance to fighting vandalism is the lack of a joint approach. For some reason the various players are entrenched in ad hoc and purely subjective approaches to the problem. Companies, local authorities, and the courts stick firmly to their particular priorities and different assessments of the problem. Here and there I have detected a slight tendency toward closer cooperation, but we still have a long way to go.

Prestige vandalism. The youngsters involved in this kind of vandalism are usually aged between 12 and 16. Here the play element is very much secondary. The vandalism often arises from dares and is aimed at gaining the admiration of friends. The element of competition is strong, as is the degree of craftiness involved. Often the emphasis lies on the extent of the damage caused -- for example: "How many panes can you break?" As in the vandalism during play category, the absence of social or parental control plays a crucial role.

Vandalism out of boredom. This sort of vandalism overlaps somewhat with the kind just mentioned. It is viewed as a way to expel boredom--"There is nothing else to do anyway." The theory has been put forward that such youths turn to being destructive only because they cannot think of any other way to occupy themselves. As soon as suitable alternatives arise, such as fairs and pop concerts, the urge to be destructive is considerably reduced.

Vandalism out of revenge or frustration. A great deal of vandalism that looks utterly pointless on the surface falls into this category. For these kinds of offenders, vandalism is a way to vent bad feelings. In some cases,
such acts serve as an outlet for those who feel they have been unjustly treated or who harbor deep-seated grudges. Often such a grudge proves more imagined than actual, and the object of destruction is only indirectly or symbolically linked to the original source of frustration. Still, the ultimate destruction remains the same.

Vandalism differs from other crimes in its intention. Acts of vandalism are generally deliberate, but the vandal is not always aware of the consequences attached to his or her actions. Likewise, the vandal is often oblivious to the fact that he or she is going against an established norm.

Vandalism goes back a long way. Darryl Ogier studied the period immediately after the Reformation. The Islands had both turned to an extreme form of Calvinism, with a clampdown on anything that might consitute enjoyment, especially at nightly revels or "vueilles".

In 1563 Royal Commissioners found Guernsey "full of yowthe"(2) and the control of these young people, both natives and foreigners (often servants), remained a concern of the authorities throughout the Calvinist period. The Guernsey Colloque's records (which survive for 1585-1619) demonstrate this. In 1586 the Colloque drew the Royal Court's attention to the great numbers of girls present at vueilles. The following year it protested to the Court again, referring to participants of both sexes. Some order was demanded in respect of those persons "who hold dances, likewise veilloys de nuict, not without great debauchery and dissoluteness." The church also complained that "those who are found there do for this purpose run from one parish to another and lead the horses of others astray."

Clearly there existed in Guernsey throughout the Calvinist era a lively counter-culture, aspects of which appealed especially to groups of young people. This characteristically included night-time assemblies, running from parish to parish and household to household (gadding in the English parlance) and "debauchery" of various types, all of which were reprehended by the civil and Church authorities.

But this was not just restricted to Guernsey, as the same kind of activity happened in Jersey.

On 16 October 1600 Jersey's Royal Court noted that the inhabitants had been troubled by nocturnal and tenebrous companies which run and gad [trotent] by night from house to house around this island, some masked, others with cudgels [embatonnes] and disguised, committing an infinity of insolences and debaucheries, to the dishonour of God, contempt of court, and public dread.(There are, then, several features common to the Jersey and Guernsey activities: the house visit, the disguising and masking, the night time setting, the violence or the threat of it (alluded to in connection with Marguerite Perrin's vueille in Guernsey, cudgels in Jersey), and the complaints which the activities provoked from the religious and secular authorities.


Vandalism is a continuing facet of society, and has been around for a very long time in our Islands (as elsewhere). I think before it can be tackled, there must be, as Mr Seij argues, an analysis of the kind of vandalism that is going on, so that we can see if it is due to prestige (peer group), boredom, or revenge. Certainly the pressure might be taken off if there were more facilities for young people to meet at night and interact socially and freely (without a Big Brother kind of supervision), but that would probably not deal with the "prestige" side of vandalism, which is obviously an element in Jersey - not only with the damaged caused to cars, but also in the case of throwing eggs and flower at Halloween.

What does not help is putting people behind bars where they can learn from other criminals, often professional ones. Restorative justice might be a way forward, and the Restorative Justice site gives resources on this. Here are the basic three principles that form the foundation for restorative justice:

- Justice requires that we work to restore those who have been injured.

- Those most directly involved and affected by crime should have the opportunity to participate fully in the response if they wish.

- Government's role is to preserve a just public order, and the community's is to build and maintain a just peace.

Restorative programmes are characterized by four key values:

Encounter: Create opportunities for victims, offenders and community members who want to do so to meet to discuss the crime and its aftermath

Amends: Expect offenders to take steps to repair the harm they have caused

Reintegration: Seek to restore victims and offenders to whole, contributing members of society

Inclusion: Provide opportunities for parties with a stake in a specific crime to participate in its resolution

Interestingly the Restorative Justice site has a section on Jersey, where it places the Parish Hall enquiry as central to this kind of mechanism in Jersey. It cites an article in Probation Journal - "The Parish Hall Enquiry: A Community-Based Alternative to Formal Court Processing in the Channel Island of Jersey" . Perhaps this is the foundation we need to develop a better system against vandalism?


Resources:
Night Revels and Werewolfery in Calvinist Guernsey
Journal article by Darryl Ogier; Folklore, Vol. 109, 1998.

Vandalism: A European View
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Vandalism:+a+European+view.-a07494057


Restorative Justice Website
http://www.restorativejustice.org/resources/world/europe1/alldocs/index_html/jersey