As events in Hawke's Bay courts highlighted this week, considerable numbers of Hawke's Bay children will be without dad at Christmas because of what were some fairly silly decisions, even if desperate.
The jailing of young men for service station and dairy robberies are the early signs of the consequences of a spate of dairy, service station and bar robberies that plagued Hawke's Bay from May to October this year.
And they seemed to resume this week.
In all, there've been more than 20 in probably the worst year for this form of crime in Hawke's Bay.
But fortunately several offenders have been apprehended and are now being dealt-to in the courts for a crime that ticks all the boxes in terms of penalty and the prime purpose of criminal incarceration - public safety.