A lot of police forces have a system of neighbourhood policing - here's a link to a page about this in Essex, where I live. It might read like PR, but it can mean something more than that.

When there were some problems with kids around our way, neighbours got onto the local designated officer, and he was genuinely interested in trying to help, and able to do so in various ways, incluidng settimg up a meetinmg that let to a residents organisation, and supplying diary forms for people to record incidents to be sent to the neighbourhood officer.

If your local police haven't go into this kind of system, maybe it woudl be worth it trying to get them to do so.

I think getting into stuff like sprinklers and so forth is completely the wrong way to go about this - most ordinary kids would be likely to find that kind of response really exciting and enjoyable. And be honest, that would have been as true in any generation.

Victor's neighbour with the kids sounds as if he might well be a good father, but just a bit too trusting of his son's word, which isn't such a bad fault in itself. It'd be wrong to assume that he doesn't care what his kids get up to - and even good kids in good families can behave pretty badly sometimes. I know I did.