While I agree with you that somebody who, is prone to doing petty crime certainly needs to be monitored to see if he is becoming progressively more dangerous, it is my experience that petty criminals usually stay petty criminals, unless they are subject to conditions that force them to do worse things, such as having to mix with more dangerous people in the state prisons.
That does not mean I don’t support holding the petty criminals accountable for their actions. A better plan would have been to, for every time he stole a couple of pieces of pizza, convict him and have him pay it back doing things like pulling potatoes at some farm for the weekend.
If the person doesn’t have the level of awareness or self-control to not stop doing petty crimes, and spends his life doing chores for the public good, there’s really nothing fundamentally wrong with that. He will, in the end, give back to society more than he’s taken.
Definitely Jonty and that is what I mean by intervention but it does have to be supported by caring parents or relatives or significant adults within a child’s life. Petty if unchecked will rarely just stay that way. It’s a slack attitude that has little self restraint. We know what happens to people who cast off restraint. Your point however is taken that if these kids are actually subjected to hard physical labor and end up doing something good for the community it is far more cost effective than putting them in jail - they may actually learn some skills and how to work.
I have told this story before but I used to have kids (pre-teens) that lived next door - they were a bit cheeky and bound to get up to mischief around the area. I got them to do paid work around my house - hard work too and I paid them for it and would give them coke and treats when they had a break. They never got to come into my house etc though but we would sit outside and I would talk to them about school, football, hard work and their future etc. They have moved now but I hope they learnt some lessons in all that.
Mel
It wasn't pizza, it was Drugs, and his third offense. Apparently his parents and the first two convictions/ stints in jail didn't teach him well enough.