Crime and punishment

We had some excitement this past month - our home was broken into twice in one week.

The first time it happened was on Hallowe'en. Actually, it goes back to even before that. Back in September, we noticed that a bottle of liquor had gone missing from our liquor cabinet. Naturally, we asked the kids first if they knew anything about it (I don't want to give the impression that they're problem kids or anything, but they are teenagers after all...) but all of the kids quite believably denied taking it. Then my hubby asked if anyone had had friends in the house recently. My son, Brent, got a stricken look on his face. I took him aside and asked him about it. He admitted that he had had a friend in the house several days before without our permission or knowledge. This is a big no-no in our house - we are always happy to open our home to our children's friends, but there MUST be a parent present. Then he admitted that he had not seen his friend to the door when he left - he had remained in the basement - so it was possible that the "friend" was responsible for the missing bottle. Brent wanted to confront the boy, but I felt that it was not right to make an accusation without real proof. Everybody got a lecture on having friends in the house and Brent got grounded for 2 weeks for breaking the rules. We figured that was the end of it.

Then on November first, my other son noticed that there were FOUR more bottles of liquor missing from the liquor cabinet. Three of them were unopened bottles of rye (which we do not drink, but for some reason we keep receiving as gifts). We checked around the house and couldn't find anything else missing, but I recalled that the day before (Hallowe'en) I had found the back door unlocked when I came home from work. I had assumed that one of the kids had left it unlocked but now I wasn't so sure. I hadn't noticed anything missing the day before, but I hadn't specifically looked either. So, I called the police.

An officer came and took our information. I told him about the bottle that had gone missing earlier and that I thought this young man might have been involved in the most recent theft. He took the name and address of the boy, but he seemed very skeptical. He kept saying "I don't want to point any fingers..." but basically, he thought our kids were involved and he encouraged me to question them hard to "get to the bottom of it". He said he would go question the boy we suspected, but not until he we were sure our own kids weren't involved. Well, I didn't really think my kids were involved, but that evening my husband and I grilled them all. They all adamantly insisted that they had not taken the booze and weren't involved in any way. The next day I called the officer to inform him, but his voice mail said he was on vacation for most of November! I was a bit irritated, but figured I'd just have to wait for him to return.

One week later, however, my oldest son came home from school to find our back door standing open and evidence that someone had broken into our home through a second floor window (yes, the second floor!). Now, normally I am the first one home, but this day he had last period spare so he was first. He called me at work in a panic and I told him to call 9-1-1 and I would be home in 10 minutes. The poor kid went around the house - this time they cleaned out the liquor cabinet and my boys' gaming system and all of their games (which they bought with their own money) had been taken. By the time the police got there we were able to determine that nothing else was missing.

This time the officer took us seriously. She took all the information and called out I-dent (like the CSI guys) to come and look for fingerprints. (They even found a cigarette butt in our yard that they bagged for DNA evidence! I couldn't believe the trouble they were going to for a simple break, enter and theft. It was kind of cool, though, to see how it works in real life.)

Anyways, to make a long story short, the officer questioned the boy we had identified and he eventually admitted that he and another boy were responsible for all the thefts. Amazingly, the police were able to recover the gaming system and all but 2 games (our stuff had been "pawned" but only 2 of the games had actually sold). They also recovered some of the liquor, but I didn't want it back - ewww. Both of the boys were arrested and charged and are under orders not to approach my children in any way.

Since then, we've changed all the locks in our house, added window locks to the upstairs windows and added a security bar to the sliding door. Plus, we had an alarm system installed on Saturday. What freaked me out the most was not that they stole our stuff, or came into our home so easily. It's that the last time they broke in, my thirteen year old daughter almost was home. She had been feeling a bit under the weather and that morning I had almost let her stay home. I don't even want to think about what might have happened if she had been home...

After all of this, I feel strangely ambivalent towards these boys. The officer told us that the boy we suspected seemed genuinely remorseful for what he has done. Regardless of the outcome of the court proceedings, he is going to suffer some serious consequences - because of this, his mother has kicked him out and sent him to live with his father. Quite honestly, I feel compassion for him - I know he has a difficult home life. I am quite able to forgive him, and I hope that one day I get the chance to tell him that face to face. The other boy, however, has refused to admit his part (though his fingerprints were found in our home). He "lawyered up" (which is his right) and is refusing to cooperate with the police. It's hard for me to forgive under these circumstances. Without repentence, how can there be forgiveness? One day I'd like to be able to tell him this as well.