The punishment that I'd dish out would be a whole lot worse than the wink and a slap on the wrist the courts would come up with.
'Tis a moot point, anyway, because all of our kids were raised well enough so that they'd never do such a thing to start with! :-)
My kids knew that my Husband and I would never bail them out. They knew we meant it.
I hear you. Had I done something so stupid at 18, I would have called the police myself just to get away from the wrath of my parents.....or as my dad would always said..”boy, you do ‘such and such’ and I’ll beat the white off you.” Dad and Mom had full control of their five boys growing up.
Kudos to the mom in this story.