I saw this article too, heartbreaking. Parents still have a responsibility for their kids, there was a time when if you did stuff like this, your parents would be embarrassed and you (or say hypothetically a youthful me) would get "my comeuppance" as my grandmother said. (-for the record I never maliciously damaged personal property, but I may have had a pretty good collection of street name signs during my misspent youth)
If you start holding parents accountable for their kids stupidity, (financially, civic clean-up duty...) a lot of this kind of stupid would stop.