When I was still living in the city, a kid decided to jump on top of the hood of my mother's van. I watched the kid do it, and I went and got his father. His dad about wrung his neck when I told him. He was going to make him pay for it, but after seeing how pissed off he was, I figured dealing with his parents was punishment enough for him. The van was old and the dent wasn't a big deal. I let it go.
When I moved out to the suburbs, another kid shot out the window in the man door to my garage. I watched him do it, and I went and told his mother. She went off on me about how her kid didn't do it, and I couldn't prove it, she wasn't paying for it and I've been picking on her son, etc, etc.
Now I would've let it go and just put a piece of plexiglass in and called it a day if she had held her son responsible for it. But she didn't, so I called up a window shop and had them put a brand new window in. Then I took the mother and her kid to magisterial court and won, and she had to pay for my new window. They still hate me, not that I really care.