violation n 1: a crime less serious than a felony [syn: misdemeanor, misdemeanour, infraction, offence, offense, infringement] 2: an act that disregards an agreement or a right; "he claimed a violation of his rights under the Fifth Amendment" [syn: infringement] 3: entry to another's property without right or permission [syn: trespass, encroachment, intrusion, usurpation] 4: a disrespectful act [syn: irreverence] 5: the crime of forcing a woman to submit to sexual intercourse against her will [syn: rape, assault, ravishment] It is amazing how so many crimes and acts are attributed to one single word. I find myself angered by the lack of separate terms for those meanings. I want a word that means all that and more. It doesn’t seem fair. Violation, Violated, doesn’t seem a strong enough word to cover what I feel and what has happened. Yesterday afternoon 3 youths broke into the storage building my grandmother and father own, located about 200 yards away from her house. She lives there with one of my uncles and a big Rottweiler dog that is, I'm afraid to say, too stupid to be a guard dog. They smashed a window and climbed in through the boiler room. They went through where we store our equipment and stock and simply started smashing things. Taking hammers to antique popcorn makers and snow cone machines that are probably older than I am. For no reason we can find, they just smashed things. My grandmother called my mother because she heard noise and saw one of them in the building. My mother had her call the police and went down herself to help (Gran isn’t one for confrontations). Mom arrived less than a minuet after the police. The kids (9, 12, 13) parents were called to come down and mom and uncle Larry went through the building making notes of damage. That's when my uncle noticed something. A pile of shredded magazines on the floor. Collectable Penn State magazines he’d collected as a teenager that were worth a decent amount of money. They’d been stored upstairs with a large number of other collectibles and antiques – family antiques from my great grandparents. They had thought the damage was only downstairs. They went upstairs and my uncle- for those of you who haven’t met him, he’s a quiet man who doesn’t show any emotion. Its just the way he is, quiet and introverted.- nearly started crying at the damage. The ‘children’ had taken golf clubs and smashed everything they could reach. Antique dressers, furniture my brother and I had stored there, dishes and baby items my aunts and uncle had stored up there, not to mention all of the memorabilia my family had saved from the past 2-3 generations of my family. They swung at things until the golf clubs bent in half. Boxes of first edition baseball cards were torn open and thrown about. Bottles of paint remover and paint were torn open and just thrown around. It was pure destruction. Needless to say my mother (the Valkyrie of the family) was furious. As she was coming downstairs she heard to officer asking the ‘children’ if they had been upstairs and they said no. the lied and my mother called them on it. In that voice that still puts the fear of god into my brother and I she told them they had better stop lying because if it wasn’t one of them they had better give her the name of the 4th kid that was with them. The officer stared them down and told them it was their last chance to be honest. The admitted to being upstairs and the officer went with mom to look at the damage. She said even he paled when he saw the damage upstairs. They went back down and the ‘children’ were arrested and processed. While being searched they found a personal CD player, a stack of CDs, two stacks of first edition baseball cards, and a signed Phillies baseball stashed on the children. The player, CDs and cards belonged to my uncle, the baseball to my grandfather. We have until Monday to decide as a family if we want the felony charges they have been sited on now to stand or if we want to drop the charges in favor of a lessor set. I'm torn people. When I heard what they did I said keep the felony charges and give my five minutes alone with each kid and a golf club to teach them a lesson. Over the course of the day I talked with mom and my brother and their reasoning was pretty strong against keeping the felony charges and I’ll admit I'm agreeing now, but I don’t think anything the police are going to have them do could possibly make up for what they’ve done. Only a few of my things were stored at the building and mom couldn’t find any of mine that were trashed, but I still feel as if someone has tainted my life. I had a vision of someone breaking into my house again (happened when I was about 8 the neighbors kid and a friend broke in and stole a large sum of money and a few other odd things while we were away), only this time they just destroyed things, even in the basement and attic where all of my collectibles are. Things my grandmothers and aunts gave me for my future home, and my one day maybe children. I have a doll collection worth over 5,000$ right now. I have things stored that can’t be replaced. The people who gave them to me are dead and gone and these are all I have left of them. My grandmother had cases of photographs stored in the building. Pictures dating back to the late 1800’s, photographs of family I have never met, baby pictures, wedding pictures, military pictures. My history stored on paper. I'm scared to ask whether or not they were destroyed like so many other things. I feel abused and violated, though I still don’t believe it is a strong enough term. I don’t feel safe. I didn’t fall asleep until 10 o’clock this morning after everyone had gotten up and started their day. I couldn’t sleep until I knew people were moving around and making noise, and that I was safe. I want to wish a painful suffering on those children and their parents for not teaching them better, for not watching them and allowing them the opportunity to destroy our property and our possessions. At the same time I feel sorry for them because they may have just ruined any chance at having a good life. Felony charges are not deleted at the age of 18. They are for life. Anyone studying to be a teacher or any similar position should know – if you have charges and they aren’t sealed you can do next to nothing. No, political jobs, no governmental, no educational, and many more I can’t think of.