REMEMBER WHEN you were 10 or 11 years old, how you set up a lemonade stand, mowed lawns, or shoveled snow (depending on the climate), in order to make a few dollars to spend on candy and baseball cards and such? "What an enterprising youngster you are," one of your parents probably said to you at the time, adding, "Small-scale risk-capital endeavors will teach you the pleasures and pitfalls of cash-flow management."

Every so often you hear about a child tycoon--the Girl Scout who sells tens of thousands of dollars of cookies, the bookworm who organizes and finances a lending library. All across the county, parents point out to children the moral of the tale.

So when the story broke recently that 10 Vermont youngsters were running a child prostitution ring, reaction was mixed. "Gross" is the most common response, but it is a "Gross" tinged with respect: Every child has money-making schemes, but these kids actually went through with theirs. And successfully: if not for an anonymous tip, which led to a month-long police investigation, the ring might still be going.

Details are sketchy, for obvious reasons, but what is known is that 10 eight to 13-year-old boys and girls in Brattleboro, Vt., organized a prostitution operation and ran it without an adult pimp for up to a year before it was shut down last week. Police say the idea originated when a girl was sexually molested by two or more adults sometime last year. It apparently occured to the child that there was money to be made.

"One girl told another girl, who told another--it was a way of making money," one city official said. Two adult "clients" are being prosecuted. The children are being treated as victims, as most people seem to feel they should be.

But why are we letting these kids off the book? They knew what they were doing, and they knew it was illegal. Just like all criminals, they chose illegal acts over less lucrative, more mundane legal options. Sure they're young, but that shouldn't excuse them of all responsibility. We don't have a juvenile court and corrections system for nothing.

Think for a moment about the hypocrisy of treating 12-year-old prostitutes as victims, while treating 18-year-old prostitutes as criminals. Brattleboro police excuse the kids by saying they were brought up badly, they didn't know right from wrong, they had negligent parents, etc. And they are probably right. But don't these same arguments apply to prostitutes of all ages, and in fact most criminals?

BRATTLEBORO, VT., is a small town. But the decision the city has made will have big ramifications. If pre-adolescent prostitutes in southern Vermont are victims, then where do you draw the line between victim and offender? At age 18? You can't expect a kid who grows up thinking he can get away with everything to stop breaking the law on his 18th birthday. At certain crimes? Then you give the green light for kids to commit, say, petty theft. At multiple offenses? Even more than the one-time offender, a kid who commits several crimes needs help, not punishment.

By deciding that these children are not responsible for their actions, the town of Brattleboro has opened up a question that will not soon be resolved. In thousands of cases across the country, lawyers can be expected to argue that their juvenile clients are victims, too, of a bad upbringing.

It's impossible to predict how drastically the Brattleboro policy will affect the America criminal justice system, if at all. But it stands to reason that if we let the Brattleboro ten off the book, there is no sense in prosecuting other children who break laws.

It's always sad when a kid commits a crime--it means that something or someone is applying pressure, be it poverty, parents, or peers. At least the town of Brattleboro gave some thought to the question of cause. May be now they'll find some answers.