AIBU Or will this penalise mothers more than fathers

When I heard this this morning my first thought was it’s ridiculous but then I hope it’s both parents, even if the parent is absent the blame should not fall on the present parent.
I don’t think it is workable though and can’t see it coming to anything

It's not all about the lack of input from the absent parent though.

It's often the lack of co-parenting and the introduction of new partners and children to the home.

And then of course you can add lots of other problems that don't involve relationships.

I can see the point of criminalizing parents where there behaviour amounts to encouraging criminal behaviour in their children, but if you’ve got that situation going on surely the kids should have been removed from their care, probably long before? If it’s appropriate to jail the parents, how can it be ok to have left the kids with them for years to get to this stage?

Also wondering whether it’s the bbc or the government who frame it as jail or docking benefits? It’s like a statement that it’s expected to be concentrated in communities of poverty and then planning to reduce resources for them even further.

Absolutely agree, OP, with your analysis of VAWG, its impact on mothers and sons and the lack of support.

Also think we need to charge absent parents who don’t provide for their children, co-parent effectively or turn up for contact with neglect.

It's not unreasonable because historically, we haven't been able to trust the government and law enforcement to enforce policy correctly and fairly.

From what I can gather, the intent is to provide discretionary powers to force the worst offending families (where the kids are being led by the parents) to improve behaviour because it's clear parents are the ringleaders. Could be wrong but that's how it comes across to me and I'm for it.

We don’t have space in prisons for people who commit actual crimes much less all their parents.

it does seem to have come off the back of the Southport case however which is very much not a DA situation.

You are not wrong. It’s far too easy for one parent to just disappear and ignore their responsibilities.

I'm in two minds about this.
In my neighbourhood I know the council had to either threaten to or actually terminate a council house tenancy for a family where the child was causing serious issues Asbo type, phone theft, shoplifting. Before this the parents did nothing. Crime rates went down significantly.

On the other hand my eldest boy is now 13, and while I as a parent have other levers of punishment, he is most probably stronger than me now. I can really see that this is difficult for a single tired mum to manage.

Compulsory parenting classes and support for parents would be better than hitting them financially.

You may well be right OP. It would be best of all if dads behaved.
Perhaps some low level criminals would be guilted into behaving properly if their mum was going to lose her benefits? Perhaps there are enough families where this may make a difference to make it worthwhile?

A lot more women than men get prosecuted for failure to ensure school attendance. As we know there are multiple reasons why children might not attend school and prosecuting a child's mother is very unlikely to resolve any of them. This seems like a policy of the same ilk.

Some of us live amongst parents who don't give a shit. However, like school absence fines, the wrong people will get targeted, while those who haven't parented even good enough, will have a million excuses made for them. I agree DV is a factor, but when you have a Mother who isn't picky about who she moves in and then eventually has another baby, she's partly responsible for the outcome. People have lost faith in our government, police and whole system. They dud what they wanted, so some sectors are doing the same. We need early intervention. It's another thing that the Torys let go to shit.

Do you know a lot of children involved in crime, particularly county lines, are children who have been removed from their parents already? Putting a child in care rarely improves their life, that's why it is an absolute last resort.
There needs to be better early intervention, and I know schools are for education but they are also places where children spend a huge chunk of their time. We need more pastoral support in schools, better training and accommodations made for children with SEND and/or experiencing abuse, positive male role models, extra-curricular programmes to meet their needs. There needs to be an extra pot for funding it because it is social care more than education. It would be expensive to get it going but it could save a fortune in the long term if the cycle of abuse/criminal behaviour/unemployment/poor physical and mental health is broken. Putting children in care very rarely breaks that cycle. I've worked with many adopted adults who can't function. They've not developed a sense of identity and have unseen trauma from the separation from their birth family.
Generation upon generation of the same issues. Except it's getting even bigger now because we're not meeting the needs of children with learning difficulties who are forced into an intensive education system that's whole focus is academic results.

Ok, so what do you suggest we do with the many many feral children we have? If you have 30yrs experience what do you think needs to happen turn this tide?

I know care is a poor alternative to family life in most instances, but here we’re talking about families where the state is intending removing the parents anyway - so it seems like a complete mismatch of approaches. Don’t place the kids in care because parents are better than the alternative but take the parents away because they’ve done a bad job? It seems fundamentally flawed. Nevertheless I think we need a better way of addressing kids in families like these. (Edit to say : that is I agree we need significant well resourced early intervention)

This post nails it. The systematic failures and generational trauma that feeds criminality will not in any way be solved by imposing either fines nor jail time upon parents. Just look at the prison population- in which the stats show that people who were sexually and physically abused as children, foster children, illiterate and mentally ill people are wildly overrepresented- do we really think that fining their parents when they began these behaviours as children would have helped? It would simply feed the poverty machine and feedback cycle into further criminality imo.

Guess who receives the vast majority of convictions/sentences for failure to secure attendance at school......
It's not daddy