A sick scene greeted our eyes this week when we viewed a youngster hogtied and from all appearances badly beaten after he was caught stealing vehicle parts in Parika. Obviously the members of that community have grown tired of the whole idea of waking up each morning, only to be greeted by another vehicular part theft. They finally came to the point where they said enough is enough and devised a plan to catch the thief. Their dragnet landed this youngster all beaten and bound to the satisfaction and amusement of the crowd. One can sense the frustration of the villagers who vented their anger on this young man. While this situation carries all the hallmarks of vigilante justice and an entertaining spectacle at that, I do not find it funny at all instead I find the entire situation sad and depressing. Here we have a teenager who should be in school growing up as a normal youth, engaged in criminal activity for some corrupt elders. Yes my most scathing rebuke goes out to the senior members of that gang of thieves, they are the ones who should have been humiliated and beaten. From time to time we view these scenes of school aged teens taken out of school and used to carry out nefarious acts only to be handed a mere pittance for all the dirty work. His employers are the facilitators who make criminals out of our young people and I do not in the least think much of them as they go about poisoning the minds of Guyana’s future. Were I the magistrate in this case I would refer the lad to the Ministry of Human Services for him to report to school to finish his education and for those his employers huge fines or imprisonment.