About a year ago, my then 19 year old son spent the night on New Year's Eve with a friend at his parents' house in a small exclusive community. I received a call from the mother the next morning asking me to come to her home. She only said that the boys (all 10 of them ranging in age from 17 - 19 yrs) had been involved in something during the night. When I got to her house, she explained that the boys had gone out into the community on foot and opened unlocked car doors taking stuff out of the cars and bringing it to her house. We called the police ,they woke the boys, read them their Miranda rights, and questioned them. When we went downstairs into the basement area where the son lived, there were bottles and bottles of alcohol and beer. The parents had allowed the boys to drink: all under age. The consequences of this have been steep and horrible for all involved. My son now has a criminal record of several theft charges; we paid a lot of money for an attorney as well as going through the stress and sorrow of having mug shots reported on our local television, my son lost a college athletic scholarship; we paid an unbelievable amount of restitution for broken or missing merchandise and cash that was reported missing, my anxiety, stress, and shame have been overwhelming to me, etc. I'm wondering why the parents were not charged by the police with allowing these boys to drink in their home. I did not know this was part of the over night deal and had talked to the mother of the friend prior to giving my son the go ahead to stay over with the family. Also, the local police dept was lauded for their work in "solving" this case -- which was a self-reported crime with the stuff returned the to the police on New Year's Day . I am horribly bitter with both the parents who hosted this wonderful party and the police dept who led us to believe that the boys would be treated differently since they were cooperative and reported the crime themselves. Is there anything I (and other parents) can do to create a more revealing picture of what went on during this night of madness?

