Should parents...

ambro25

...be held responsible for crimes committed by their child, until said child reaches majority and acquires legal responsibility?

I don't know if this has been posted before, but just thought the issue worth debating after reading yet again about the perennial (and apperantly increasing) problems of joyriders and juvenile crime.

It works in countries which have such legal provisions or statutes, why would it not work here?

Nuttzz

Yes and No, where do you draw the line? If a 17 year old kills someone do the parents take the rap? Does the kid get off with a slap on the wrist? I know some parents who have tear away kids yet they are law abiding people, just the kids fell in with the "wrong crowd"

The penal system for kids is not detering them, what about the boot camp option instead?

Zombrex

ambro25 wrote:

...be held responsible for crimes committed by their child, until said child reaches majority and acquires legal responsibility?

I don't know if this has been posted before, but just thought the issue worth debating after reading yet again about the perennial (and apperantly increasing) problems of joyriders and juvenile crime.

It works in countries which have such legal provisions or statutes, why would it not work here?

Not quite sure the point this would serve, other than a deterent and even then it is rather weak (I don't think most parents expect little Timmy to rob the neighbours).

Possibly fining the parents for children that constantly commit crimes might work, but actually charging the parents with the crime, and possibly locking them up would be unfair and counter-productive (last thing a disruptive child needs is a parent in jail).

Sleepy

I would absolutely fúcking LOVE to see some law along these lines brought into being.

I don't see it as something that would have much of an immediate effect on the current crop of brats, I do think, however, that it would change some people's attitudes to how they raise their own kids.

the_syco

"Where's your da?"
"In jail."
"Cool. What did he do?"
"I crashed a car"
"No way maaaaannnn... What happens when you crash this one?"
"Dunno mate, but me da won't say anything; he'll just be in jail longer"

=-=

If the parents do the jail time, whats to stop the brats from getting worse?

=-=

Also, most "rough" lads no longer fear their parents, or are bigger/stronger than the parents. So the parents can't really stop them from going out.

billy the squid

penalties for criminal damage should be financial rather than custodial imho. hit the parents of uncultivated little brats where it hurts. crimes resulting the injury of another person should also be punnishable by a custodial sentence being placed on the chile. or, make the parents pay a share of feeding and keeping their child while they are in custody.

I am also in favour of evicting anti-social families from council houses and would like to see it extended to privately owned houses.

parents should be made very aware of these laws when they go to register their children, that way they cannot claim ignorance.

ambro25

Sleepy wrote:

I don't see it as something that would have much of an immediate effect on the current crop of brats, I do think, however, that it would change some people's attitudes to how they raise their own kids.

Precisely my point, in respect of posters who have written that it wouldn't amount to much with 'current-generation' problem kids (so to speak).

I agree that bringing in such legislation would have little impact with existing problem kids and 'wrong crowd' effects, but the idea is that it would 'pervasively' increase the onus on parents to be aware of little 12-year old johnny's whereabouts at 21:00, and not simply from a parent self-sense of responsibility POV only (which can vary to cosmically-distant extremities, let's be honest), but also from a pecuniary POV (which is a much greater incentive, again LBH here, felt by any person).

The effect brought in by this legislation would gradually (over years) improve things, rather than attempting to find solutions to deal with the problem 'after the fact' - e.g. who to blame and how in case a crime is committed (with fair notice, obviously), rather than who to blame and how after a crime has committed.

mycroft

billy the squid wrote:

penalties for criminal damage should be financial rather than custodial imho. .

And if they can't afford it?

Zombrex

mycroft wrote:

And if they can't afford it?

then they should be put in stocks in the village square with rotten tomatoes beside them

Actually what is the procedure for someone who can't afford to pay a criminal fine? Like some fines are 200,000 euro (if I read the anti-piracy thingy right last time I was in cinema), who can afford to pay that?

gurramok

Agree with Billy here, its about time parents took resposibility for their kids terrorising the neighbourhood.
Hit them in the pocket so they will not go to the pub next time leaving their kids to roam the streets after dark.

simu

ambro25 wrote:

I agree that bringing in such legislation would have little impact with existing problem kids and 'wrong crowd' effects, but the idea is that it would 'pervasively' increase the onus on parents to be aware of little 12-year old johnny's whereabouts at 21:00, and not simply from a parent self-sense of responsibility POV only (which can vary to cosmically-distant extremities, let's be honest), but also from a pecuniary POV (which is a much greater incentive, again LBH here, felt by any person).

The wrong crowd effect can be very powerful. Some kids with responsible parents go completely off the rails (while their siblings may be very well-behaved), the parents know well that they're up to no good but can't prevent what's happening - it hardly seems fair to punish the parents in such cases.

ambro25

mycroft wrote:

And if they can't afford it?

Then their earthly belongings are repossessed for auction to the tune of the damages.

simu wrote:

it hardly seems fair to punish the parents in such cases.

But does it seem fair, comparatively, to punish (financially) the victims? For instance if the damaged property is not insured or by way of increasing premiums?

mycroft

Wicknight wrote:

then they should be put in stocks in the village square with rotten tomatoes beside them

Actually what is the procedure for someone who can't afford to pay a criminal fine? Like some fines are 200,000 euro (if I read the anti-piracy thingy right last time I was in cinema), who can afford to pay that?

The full force of the fine would bore down on some wholesale distributor.

gandalf

Yes of course parents should be held responsible for their childrens actions. They are supposed to be under their guardianship.

If their child is involved in crime against property be it theft, criminal damage, the parent should be responsible for re-imbursing the victims of that crime and any associated costs. Payment should be taken from point of salary/social welfare if they cannot pay it in one go at a set weekly rate that the court sets based on the parents earnings.

If its a crime against the person, assault, rape, manslaughter or murder then obviously a custodial sentence is warranted against the child and if the parent has other children then they should be flagged with Social Workers as a suspect parent with regular checks that the other children are not getting into trouble.

For children that go off the rails, this obviously will not happen all of a sudden, for cases like this their should be help available in the form of therapy and support for the children and parents. Turning up in court and saying we couldn't cope with little Johnny would therefore be negated if they had not engaged in this process.

Obviously this will mean the government put more resources into Social Services to make sure there are services available to manage this process but the benefits will mean a reduction in juvenile crime and preventing some children being left on the fringes of society when they are adults.

simu

ambro25 wrote:

But does it seem fair, comparatively, to punish (financially) the victims? For instance if the damaged property is not insured or by way of increasing premiums?

All property should be insured and yes, insurance exists to help in such cases.

ambro25

simu wrote:

All property should be insured and yes, insurance exists to help in such cases.

But you are castigating victims! :eek: Surely, you cannot -in equity- justify telling a victim of juvenile crime: "Oh, too bad, you should have got that insured, it's your fault!" when they are out-of-pocket (not to say out-of-remedy altogether, since the cuprits are not held legally responsible).

Please tell me that I have misunderstood your position...

billy the squid

mycroft wrote:

And if they can't afford it?

if they cannot afford it then the court could decide a repayment method, similer to when someone is caught for social welfare fraud, where it is taken from their payments, and in the case of workers, it would be direct debited from their wages until it is repayed.

the fear of being hurt in the pocket might encourage parents to be more observant as to what their kids are up to.

mycroft

ambro25 wrote:

But you are castigating victims! :eek: Surely, you cannot -in equity- justify telling a victim of juvenile crime: "Oh, too bad, you should have got that insured, it's your fault!" when they are out-of-pocket (not to say out-of-remedy altogether, since the cuprits are not held legally responsible).

Please tell me that I have misunderstood your position...

And then the social services who should be trying to sort out the child are running around after the parents.

See you're running around of a vicious cycle here, the cost time and effort of sorting out the parents should be spent trying to sort out their kids.

Ulitmately you reach a point when you have to start legislating child birth.

Newsflash it's irresponisble people who have many children and have them early, why, cause they're irresponsible in the words of the allmighty hicks could you calm down on the rutting till we sort out the whole; food, air deal!

Once you start down this road, you'll eventually notice the stark realities of the course, the state is failing these kids now, there's no support structure as is, and you want to remove the parents from the equation.

Beruthiel

I personally blame the parents, after all, when you have some 9 year old throw rocks at your door @ 10.00pm at night (my door) then you have to wonder where exactly his parents think he is at that time of night.
They seem to just roam around looking for thinks to do, in fact one of them actually told me he was bored when I confronted him. If he was my kid he wouldn't tell me he was bored twice, I can always find plenty for you to do if you are....

simu

ambro25 wrote:

But you are castigating victims! :eek: Surely, you cannot -in equity- justify telling a victim of juvenile crime: "Oh, too bad, you should have got that insured, it's your fault!" when they are out-of-pocket (not to say out-of-remedy altogether, since the cuprits are not held legally responsible).

Please tell me that I have misunderstood your position...

That's what insurance is for! Twould be the same in case of a natural disaster. Maybe it's not a perfect solution but as I said before, I don't think it's fair to blame parents for their children's deeds unless it can be proven that they have failed as parents somehow. What if, despite all your best efforts, one of your kids turns out to be a monster - should you be put into enormous debts (buildings don't come cheap) because of this?

uberwolf

simu wrote:

That's what insurance is for! Twould be the same in case of a natural disaster. Maybe it's not a perfect solution but as I said before, I don't think it's fair to blame parents for their children's deeds unless it can be proven that they have failed as parents somehow. What if, despite all your best efforts, one of your kids turns out to be a monster - should you be put into enormous debts (buildings don't come cheap) because of this?

but you have failed as a parent if your child is somewhere doing something and you know neither his where abouts nor his actions. That is your responsibility.

It may not be easy, or always rewarding but it's only reasonable. If the state doesn't view them as adults then that is because the state is still paying the parents to look after them. Which is one way of sorting out fining teh parents - remove their chidrens benefits.

I've always argued there should be a licence to have one anyway

ambro25

simu wrote:

That's what insurance is for! Twould be the same in case of a natural disaster. Maybe it's not a perfect solution but as I said before, I don't think it's fair to blame parents for their children's deeds unless it can be proven that they have failed as parents somehow.

And how do you propose to solve this highly-subjective question, exactly? Not to mention the time and cost taken to answer it with much experts and the like for each case that comes to court...

No, I disagree. Insurance is for situations where your kids have done the dirty, not for when some kids have done the dirty one you. :mad:

I know it's seemingly trading horses for courses, but note that there is a sizeable difference between the premiums of the kid's parents increasing and -say- my insurance premiums increasing as a victim of said kid.

What if, despite all your best efforts, one of your kids turns out to be a monster - should you be put into enormous debts (buildings don't come cheap) because of this?

In a word as in a thousand: yes. If there is no "sword of Damocles", so to speak, there is no more incentive than the current situation -which is unsatisfactory at best- and the legislation in question and this discussion appear totally moot.

simu

ambro25 wrote:

And how do you propose to solve this highly-subjective question, exactly? Not to mention the time and cost taken to answer it with much experts and the like for each case that comes to court...

No, I disagree. Insurance is for situations where your kids have done the dirty, not for when some kids have done the dirty one you. :mad:

I know it's seemingly trading horses for courses, but note that there is a sizeable difference between the premiums of the kid's parents increasing and -say- my insurance premiums increasing as a victim of said kid.

Actually yeah, there's a better solution - all parents could get child insurance in case their kids turn into lawbreakers!

ambro25

Makes perfect sense to me. You have to insure your pets, for which you are held legally responsible, so why shouldn't you insure your kids?

mike65

ambro25 wrote:

Makes perfect sense to me. You have to insure your pets, for which you are held legally responsible, so why shouldn't you insure your kids?

Trouble is if you can't afford the insurance, you can't sell the kids!

Mike.

halkar

Kids commit crime and insurance goes up for every crime. Yeah insurance companies would love that

bonkey

ambro25 wrote:

It works in countries which have such legal provisions or statutes, why would it not work here?

Do you have any info regarding the countries which have implemented it, and how successful they were? I'd be interested in reading that....first I've ever heard of it.

jc

Slutmonkey57b

I think this is a piece of legislation that everybody thinks is a great idea, until it happens to their kid. Have none of you read A Clockwork Orange?

Responsible parents will already pay for damage that their kids do (if it's a neighbour). Irresponsible parents will never do it.

Asbo's are a better idea I think. Identify the behaviour and challange the child to stop doing it.

mycroft

ambro25 wrote:

Makes perfect sense to me. You have to insure your pets, for which you are held legally responsible, so why shouldn't you insure your kids?

And if the parents can't afford insurance, or had the kids when they were underage?

Then parents with uninsured kids would be used as an excuse to drive up the insurance of ordinary parents so raising the coast of childcare for the rest of us.

Heres an idea aged 13 vascetomy for all boys. Period end of discussion. Might hurt deveoplment and growth etc, but we can have hormone treatments.

When a couple want kids they have to submit bank details and evidence that they are in a long term loving relationship, and can financially support a child till college. Then the operation can be reversed.

It's kind of stupid, but essentially it's the way you're argument is running at the moment.

pause......

Whats worrying is I think, myself and everyone with one ounce of common sense will look at the plan, and despite every liberal bone in their body will go....."hey thats not actually that bad an idea" and then run screaming from the implications of the thought for their worldview.

elivsvonchiaing

Kids that kick football through windows - scrape your car with object - act generally little b*stards - insurance debatable...

What I thought of at start of thread is Jamie Bolger + the three kids in Trondheim - 3 6 y/o boys murdered 4 y/o girl - (1993? can't remember exactly when) when this occurs parents - have to lose civil rights - maybe camera in class room - too. Someone (else maybe to blame for this possibly!).

When kids murder - think civil rights of parents/guardians/teachers have to go out window - in phased basis - might be obvious immediatlely parents to blame - but if not - teachers etc...

To clarify - parents to blame if 18 Rated video shown to 11 y/os... but was that the full picture?

Trondheim - think there has to be more to this than cartoon - i.e one fúcked up kid - rest sheep! haven't researched this tbh!

In an nutshell if yer precious 'lil darling commits a crime - you must carry some rap! - think such a law can only improve things for most people! Could wreck your heroin clientelle tho if that's what ya do!

Law needs revision here...

Slutmonkey57b

Aaagh! my eyes!