I read this article by G. K. Chesterton some time before the small groups of hookie-playing students and others started living in public parks. Not getting enough attention for their bad behavior, they began seeking to trigger consequences by breaking the law for trespassing (in Boston), pooping on police cars (New York), pretending to be hurt by non-moving police vehicles and damaging police property (also New York), and breaking various other laws.
The goal is to present a false image of suffering hoping to gain sympathy for their cause (being lazy and entitled).
It reminded me of this section from the Chesterton article (entire text linked below) about those fighting for causes that unlike OWS were worthwhile, but were using similar methods to induce small punishment:
I should advise modern agitators, therefore, to give up this particular method: the method of making very big efforts to get a very small punishment. It does not really go down at all; the punishment is too small, and the efforts are too obvious. It has not any of the effectiveness of the old savage martyrdom, because it does not leave the victim absolutely alone with his cause, so that his cause alone can support him. At the same time it has about it that element of the pantomimic and the absurd, which was the cruellest part of the slaying and the mocking of the real prophets. St. Peter was crucified upside down as a huge inhuman joke; but his human seriousness survived the inhuman joke, because, in whatever posture, he had died for his faith. The modern martyr of the Pankhurst type courts the absurdity without making the suffering strong enough to eclipse the absurdity. She is like a St. Peter who should deliberately stand on his head for ten seconds and then expect to be canonised for it.
via All Things Considered : The Modern Martyr by Gilbert K. Chesterton @ Classic Reader.
