When I was around this age my friend and I shoved melted chocolate in the key holes of someone’s locks in my neighborhood. I don’t know why we thought it was funny, but we did. A police officer came to my house and sat with me at the kitchen table to give me a talking-to. That was all it took for me to feel the gravity of the trouble I could be in. This kid was for sure already shaken by having a cop call him out. That’s where it should have ended.

But, y’know, we could cuff him and lock him in a cage, so let’s do that!