To the Editor:

Pat Healey's editorial in the December 30th issue was well-written but, I feel, somewhat short-sighted.

As one of the volunteer firefighters whose vehicle was burglarized in Mid-December, I agree that, yes, vehicles should be locked to prevent theft, but mine was unlocked for exactly the reason he stated...in the middle of the night (or any time there is an emergency call for the fire department) seconds DO count. I accept full responsibility for leaving an unlocked vehicle to tempt thieves and have learned from this experience to make sure that this vehicle is now locked at all times.

I sincerely hope that in the middle of the night, with harsh weather, frozen roads, etc. that there will not be a resident of Enfield who may need those extra few seconds I (and others) previously tried to save.

Where I feel Mr. Healey is short-sighted is that while taking law abiding residents to task for providing an opportunity for theft, he glosses over the fact that there were two 15-year-old females committing these crimes and does not lay blame on their actions or the lack of parental supervision or awareness of what their daughters were doing. In fairness to the parents, perhaps their children were not truthful about their actions and they were in the dark about what was going on with them.

He states that '...many will say the book should be thrown at the parents...' and promptly dismisses this as not being the real issue. It is indeed the core of the issue. Is it unfair to think that the parents should provide better supervision of their minor children? As I stated above, maybe the respective parents had no idea but perhaps if they had been more involved, this incident would not have occurred. Is it wrong to think that young teenagers should not be roaming the streets in the middle of the night, even if they are not committing crimes?

Mr. Healey further states that the young “ladies" '...are old enough to know that stealing is wrong and they will pay for their crimes...'. This remains to be seen and I personally doubt that they will get much more than perhaps a stern lecture and a mild slap on the wrist from the judicial system. Any true lesson learned by these two should come from the home but will it?

Yes, Mr. Healey, we can prevent opportunistic thieves by locking our vehicles (and hope we have nothing valuable enough inside that will cause them to break a window to take it), but there is nothing we can do to make parents more involved in what their children are doing on a daily (or nightly) basis. I would also ask where the local neighbourhood Watch groups are and is it any more fair to blame them or our local RCMP detachment for not providing more late night street patrols?

Ed Estes,

Enfield