Thanks to the resident who quickly called the cops, and thanks to the Menlo Park PD officers for their great work in arresting these young criminals.

Seems the criminals today are getting younger and younger. I often wonder if our schools offered a more creative way of teaching boring subjects such as history, math, science and English to middle- and high school kids, if the kids' energy and attention might then be directed in a manner where they would be making a positive difference in their communities instead of engaging in criminal behavior for which we taxpayers are footing the bill. That's something to think about, folks.

Go Menlo PD, good job and kudos to the alert resident for their prompt action..

Pearl -

As the number of criminals in our jails has increased, our crime rate has decreased.

I wonder if these two data points might be related?

@Pogo,

Seems logical enough, but recent numbers show that states that REDUCED their imprisonment rates the most from 1994 onward have had the greatest REDUCTIONs in their violent crime rates.
Web Link

There are greater correlations between reductions in violent crime rate and reduced childhood exposure to lead paint, or to reductions in unwanted pregnancies due to Roe vs. Wade.

@Pearl,
Juvenile arrest rates have declined drastically since the mid-90s and are about where they were in the early 70s when I was a kid.
Web Link

Teenage pregnancies are also down, especially in Colorado where the state has instituted availability of long term birth control for every teenager on Medicare.
The trendline we should really worry about teenage obesity. Just saying we should focus on the real trends vs. our perceived trends.