Actually you are spot on. My in laws at their previous house had problems with kids grafiti'ing his back gate (double gates to allow access for the camper van he owned), stones, litter etc finding their way onto the camper and back garden.
He tried contacting the law who said they did not have the resource, and more or less said "tough, nothing we can do".
So he took photos next time they were vandalising his property.
Within a day the police were round, and not because he now had evidence of crimes being committed against his property. One had shouted pedo, told his parents and they had in turn reported him to the police for taking photos of kids.
The police then turned up to quiz him about taking the photos of kids! He was then taunted for a period of time by the same kids.
In the end they moved home.
So I have no time what so ever for these type of society scum and their no doubt waste of space parents. The law doesnt stand up for the right people and cant help them. Yet the scum get the support.
So, if I were in the situation you were, I would quite happily pay someone to ensure a lesson is learnt. The softly softly approach is what has got is into the situation we are now, where no discipline exists any more, and it's time it were brought back.
i agree the softly softly approach has caused lots of issues, and i'm not a softly softly person, but you have to gauge the person your dealing with and the best approach to handling them. i'm not affraid to say it but there are some kids that are lost causes. and in some cases kids are institutionalised from an early age and stay that way till they die.
personally if you jump up and down and rant ans rave they'll just laugh at you.
i did and still do work with the odd juvernile scumbag. (alot less these days as i'm in a nice school) the trick is to build a relationship. sadly these days you have to earn your respect before you can really get things going. its a 2 way thing. you earn theres they earn yours. you may not like it that respect isn't automatic but thats the way it is. kids are far mor e independent then they used to be.
i'd personally like to thank the EU for that and now the current labour govenment for systematically undermining teachers and there abilities. and giving the kids more power than the teachers. the trick is to make them think its the other way round
coupled with that you have a chav nation of pram faces and dole seekers breeding like rabbits, all funded by the governemt. this problem is only going to get worse.