No one can fix an accurate price tag on vandalism, which is not always reported, not always identifiable as such and covers everything from toilet graffiti to arson....
Contemporary life invites the vandalistic act. The media play so endlessly on themes of violence and aggression that they become, to the young at least, an accepted part of life. Wholesale renunciation of traditional values —the death of faith, the obsolescence of marriage, the campus as a locale for riot, the cop seen as pig—casts the adolescent adrift from all aspects. In this respect, vandalism is "an attempt to show you have some effect on your environment. Destructive acts are chosen because they are more readily seen and because they are often more easily accomplished than constructive ones."