Christine M. Flowers: Anti-social networking

'RUDE and disorderly behavior."

That's how James Golden, chief safety officer for the Philadelphia School District, described the conduct of some teens who have been congregating at the Gallery's food court over the past months.

Mr. Golden needs to go back to school and crack open the dictionary to where it says "criminal."

The hooligans who trashed Macy's earlier this week in what has been called a Facebook-

orchestrated flash mob are simply the latest outburst of the mini-felons who have infested this city. They've apparently just changed their shopping habits, moving westward.

It's beyond frightening - and frustrating - to think that this is what is being spawned in our urban incubators these days, clueless, rudderless and amoral boys and girls who don't give a damn about private property and the safety of others. Their anti-social, criminal behavior shouldn't be cleaned up with euphemisms.

IN RECENT times, bleeding hearts who have more sympathy for the lawless than for their victims have urged understanding. Argued against stiff sentences. Opposed placing these baby felons into adult proceedings and have even, somehow, convinced the Supreme Court that minors shouldn't be eligible for capital punishment, no matter how heinous their crimes.

It's time to stop looking for placebos for these "problem children" and deal with them as we would with any other infection: a dose of strong medicine.

Shut them away, for many years, with no hope of parole when they take another life. Isolate them from polite society, and put them to work to help them pay restitution to the families and businesses they've destroyed.

I got some grim satisfaction when I heard that the killers of Sean Patrick Conroy would spend many years behind bars. These unmoored truants decided that the life of a decent man was worth a few laughs, attacking him on a SEPTA platform and causing him to have a fatal asthma attack. They are, thankfully, paying off their serious debt to the society they robbed of someone who actually took life seriously.

I'm angry, sick and tired that my beautiful city of the majestic architecture, verdant parks, winding rivers and ethnically rich neighborhoods is being dismantled piece by precious piece by those who have no stake in the future, who don't care what happens to themselves - much less others. And I'm also weary of hearing the same refrains from the social workers and defense lawyers that these are salvageable souls, and we need to give them a second (and third, and fourth) chance.

Why, I ask myself as I remember the names of the victims, as I look at the neighborhoods that have been systematically turned into battlefields by the indifferent youth of our city.

Of course there are some good ones, some worth saving from the depths of Graterford and Muncy.

But they are far fewer than we are led to believe, because anyone who is capable of the type of random violence that happened at Macy's this week is just starting out on a life of crime.

These seem not to be the kind of young people who got the lesson about consequences. And it is only when someone fears what could happen to them that they are reachable.

Most of these kids don't care what happens because they've seen that, ultimately, nothing really does. They get a lawyer, happy to be paid for his legal acrobatics, and plead out to some lesser charge. They get probation. Some don't even get suspended from school.

An Inquirer columnist recently wrote about a young girl accused of inciting a riot at the Overbrook train station. She was found guilty of conspiracy, and it seemed that the book was thrown rather hard at someone who didn't actually raise a fist in the fight.

BUT THE CRIES of her defenders that she was "innocent," merely a victim of a racist legal system (she was black, the prosecutor white) is an example of what often happens when children commit crimes. It's either "They didn't do it," or "They didn't deserve the penalty" or "They need another chance."

Then you have the bright lights on City Council who want to sue Facebook for not monitoring its site. Well, how about suing the parents for abdicating their responsibilities?

All I know is that some criminals went shopping in Macy's this week. And someone had better hold them accountable for their spree.

Christine M. Flowers is a lawyer. See her on Channel 6's "Inside Story" Sunday at 11:30 a.m. And listen to her on Sunday afternoon on WPHT AM/1210 from 4-6.

E-mail cflowers1961@yahoo.com.