Police look to unemployed teens to explain more criminal mischief calls

When school is out, Cedar Rapids police say they expect more calls to come in involving teenagers.

“Kids who don't have jobs have more free time on their hands,” said Captain Steve O'Konek of the Cedar Rapids Police Department. “I think it's a common thing in the summer time and we are experiencing that right now.”

Yet what police are also experiencing this July are more calls on criminal mischief, which covers intentionally damaging property without permission, such as vandalism. Between July 1 and July 22 of this year, 129 criminal mischief calls have come in. That compares with 88 criminal mischief calls during the same three-week stretch in 2009, according to Sgt. Cristy Hamblin.

Earlier this month, investigators arrested three males, between the ages of 17 to 21, for vandalism at Kingston Stadium. The incident was captured on surveillance video that police later released to the media to locate suspects.

Filling that idle time with a first job can be difficult.

As unemployment for all age groups is at a high level, for teenagers, jobs can be very difficult to find. Chicago-based employment-services firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said the national unemployment rate for people ages 16 to 19 is about 29%, about three times the rate for all workers.

“Especially these days, younger people have it harder,” said Brandon Whalen, 17, senior at West Delaware but who is spending his summer in Cedar Rapids. “People say, ‘he's younger, he doesn't know what he's doing'.” Whalen was one of about a dozen people at the Riverside Park skatepark on Thursday afternoon.

Thomas Gerdts, 15, said he has applied for jobs but “there's no way, I'm not getting a job for a while.”

Even as the teenagers enjoyed an afternoon with their friends and their skateboards and bikes, the skatepark itself is now covered with grafitti, another case for police to try and investigate.

With these higher-profile vandalism cases at Kingston Stadium and Riverside Park, what leads younger people to criminal mischief?

“They get mad and think, ‘I'm mad at society, I'm mad at my parents', so they are vandalizing and that is their way of expressing themselves,” said Miranda Bohlken, a licensed social worker with Family Psychology Associates in Cedar Rapids. Bohlken said, many times, teenagers who find themselves in trouble were not “disciplined consistently”.

As Cedar Rapids police deal with more criminal mischief reports, O'Konek encouraged parents to guide their teenagers into constructive activities and pay attention to their social circles and where they are. Until these incidents pass, O'Konek said people should keep their lights on to discourage the opportunity for vandalism.