Graffiti

I was walking through our local park today and saw graffiti
marked on the play equipment there, and, as usual, was disgusted at
the fact that people can have so little regard for things that don't
belong to them. Aside from trying to imagine interesting
technological methods of catching and punishing people who do this, I
pondered what the best ways are to teach children to respect the
property of others, and what attitudes and thoughts lead people to
want to put graffiti on things that aren't theirs.

I think that one way to help children learn to respect the
property of others is to give them situations where they work to
create or earn things of their own -- things which have value to them,
and for which they had to put effort or time into to create or earn.
This would at least give them something to consider if they would want
someone else taking or ruining their possession, and so may be able to
use the golden rule to decide not to damage someone else's property.

Of course, I could imagine that if someone had something like
this, and had it forcibly taken away from them or were unable to keep
it for some other reason out of their control, then they could also
give up on the golden rule by saying to themselves that someone else
(or just existence) didn't respect it for them, so why respect it for
anyone else.

I'm really pained by seeing graffiti, as it makes me think someone
has really lost of sense of value in their life, and as a result, is
unable or unwilling to see any reason not to destroy things that
aren't their own.