This scenario is not based on a specific community. The events are fictional.

Introduction and Setting

“Yes, Chief,” Officer Donald McFarland muttered reluctantly as he left the Danyaville Station with his partner, Officer Garver, to attend to the latest noise violation complaint. It was another Saturday night in Danyaville, a quaint Midwestern suburb about 50 miles west of Chicago and comprised of about 35,000 mostly middle class residents, one high school, one hospital, and a small private university. All in all, there was not a lot of crime and chaos in the town, but lately, there had been a trend of unruly teenage house parties complete with loud music, broken glass, and plenty of underage drinking.

McFarland and Garver pulled up to 7101 Sunnyranch Drive, and after letting out sighs of frustration at what they saw, began to bang on the door, although they doubted their knocks were audible considering the volume of the music inside. They spotted a teenage boy peering through the peephole, and immediately, the raging music came to a screeching halt. After a minute or so of delay, the young man inside opened the door to a living room adorned with beer cans, flipped over furniture and a broken glass window. The house was packed with close to 100 high schoolers trying their best to hide under sofas, in closets, and behind doors.

The officers entered, announced that there was a noise complaint, and demanded that all of the kids come out of hiding. In an instant, the teenagers came into view, and most scurried out the door before the officers could even blink. Alone stood John and Amanda Harden, the brother-and-sister pair of residents whose parents had trusted them to stay home alone when they went out of town for the week. Amanda and John began profusely apologizing to the officers for disturbing their neighbors and begged for them not to alert their parents. After some questioning and a stern warning, McFarland and Garver eventually cited John and Amanda for minors in possession of alcohol and left the premises.

However, news of the weekend events made its way to John and Amanda’s parents. Upon receiving a disturbing telephone call from their next-door neighbor indicating the presence of policemen at their home, Bill and Judy Harden returned early from their weekend away. They quickly learned that their two teenage children, John and Amanda, had thrown a huge party at their house and left not only the house in shambles, but also a street of unhappy neighbors.

When the Hardens questioned their children, they said they had never meant for the party to get so out of control. They had invited a few friends over, and somehow the word spread. Before they knew it, almost 100 people were in their house. When the Hardens asked them how they got the alcohol, their kids reported that it was fairly easy to buy alcohol at several local liquor stores because the clerks never asked for identification. Although John and Amanda had supplied some of the alcohol, one of their friends had brought four kegs and actually made a handsome profit from charging people to enter the party.

The Hardens were shocked. They always locked up all of the liquor in their home. John and Amanda had received all the school lessons on refusing peer pressure and saying no to drugs. Just recently, Bill and Judy had sat down with both of them and discussed the hazards of alcohol and drug use, and they went over the rules they expected John and Amanda to follow why they were out of town.