Is it time the parents were punished as well when their teenagers murder people.

[dottypotter]

A youth has been found guilty today of stabbing a 53 year old man outside a supermarket in Redditch. Ian Kirwin.
The teenage gang had gone out looking for trouble and stabbed this man after he challenged them about their bad behaviour in a supermarket toilet where they had urinated on the floor and banged loudly on his cubicle door.
When is this thuggish and horrible behaviour going to end?

Isn't it time the parents of these feral teenagers were held to account now?
How can it be nothing to do with them when their offspring are out with knives?
Does anything ever happen to parents of these teenagers?
What happens to other children they may have are they taken away from them?

Aren't they bloody embarrassed that they have raised little shits?
Boils my piss. Nothing ever changes.
You can't even name the teenagers, everything's on the yobbos side?
Isn't it time we asked about the parents and held them partly responsible.
How will it change otherwise?

Which parents should be punished?

I have 2 adopted DC who came to me at 7 and 5 - well past the most important stages in their neural development

In common with many adopted children, the abuse and neglect they suffered in their early years has had a profound effect on their brains, specifically their executive function, empathy, reasoning, ability to risk assess and ability to link cause and effect. They are more likely to commit crimes when older as a result.

Should I be punished, or their birth parents?

Why on earth would you blame the parents.

OP, were you a particularly compliant child? Did you always do what your parents told you? Even as a teenager?

Don't you think teenagers have their own brains and make up their own minds about things?

Nobody is responsible for their child deciding to murder someone unless they put them up to it, in which case they will be prosecuted as an accessory.

Also what's the difference between a teenager doing it and someone in their early 20s doing it. At what age do you think someone is mature enough not to blame their parents for their conduct? 20? 25? 45?

This attitude is a peculiarly British thing. Mainly so people can preen themselves when their kids behave well. Nope, you're just lucky.

If there's one thing I've learned as a parent it's never, ever to be smug. Just because everything's going swimmingly just now, doesn't mean things can't change in a blink of an eye.

Once your DC have raised their own children to be fully contributing adults, maybe then you'll be in a position to judge others, but by then you'll have realised how ridiculous that is.

FFS. I don't have the will to respond to this absolutely batshit idea, but to summarise: don't be stupid.

What might be better would be putting effort into preventing violent crimes happening.

Quite.

Another excellent point. Or maybe the care system that many of these children have been in and out of?

We have a mental health crisis, social services in crisis, domestic violence and drug addiction services cut down to the bone, community centres shutting down, no support for youth, youth activities and youth work are a post code lottery and mostly only available through religious groups now. There is nowhere for the kids or the parents to go to. If they don't work, they get their benefits cut. But if they aren't at home nobody is supervising their kids who have been excluded from schools (who have to exclude more quickly due to being cut to the bone with funding and staffing). 13 years of austerity policy have left nowhere for them parents or problem teens to turn, and after having their childhoods torn apart by ideological political choices, they become angry and disenfranchised. You want to stop youth crime, start with supporting families from newborn upwards, because by the time they are teenagers it's often too late to reach them. You get the mums of 2 day old babies trusting the system and knowing it's there to help them, and keep them engaged and happy from those early days, and a lot of those problems later on simply would not exist.

Parents don't need locking up in prison too when their kids do dreadful things, they need proper social and institutional structures in place including health, education, housing, employment etc. and to have a safety net eg, refuges, mental health services, addiction services etc. to turn to when things go a bit off kilter for whatever reason.

But the tories don't believe in society, so good luck trying to convince them that there is an alternative to this current system.

I was a trouble teen but there was a way back when I was young, I know that won't be true for my own kids

Not to mention the government (whether local or national) officers who cut these services to the bone while maintaining a very nice pay packet with other benefits for themselves, thank you very much...

Presumably the op could devise a formula, weighting the years etc!

If there's one thing I've learned as a parent it's never, ever to be smug. Just because everything's going swimmingly just now, doesn't mean things can't change in a blink of an eye.

In case of any doubt, my previous comment was in no way aimed at less-than-perfect parents, of which I am also one. I'm talking about the ones who constantly scream and swear at their kids, otherwise always ignore them, actively teach them to be selfish and disrespect everybody else, encourage them to commit (initially petty) crime etc.

Do you have teenagers op? I had a teen go off the rails, nearly caused me a mental breakdown. He was a lovely boy but he just changed after COVID due to anxiety at school and bullying plus he had sen. I called and pleaded for help from every person I could social worker, police, cahms but if he didn't consent or engage then they wouldn't help. If I tried to discipline him he would break or smash things so we would call the police because if my husband got involved it become heated due to two alpha males. My husband could have gave him a good hiding and so could I at times but then we would have got into trouble. You can't keep a teenager in against their will and there was no way I was kicking him out. There isn't enough support. Luckily he has calmed down and I hope he stays like it.

@Prokupatuscrakedatus - of course German has a word for it, it never lets us down!

I sat in a professionals meeting with the parent of one of these "ferral" children today. Mum has been begging for help ever since he witnessed the suicide of a friend. He has been hospitalised himself. Almost all these children have suffered significant trauma to bring them to this place and if you can't understand that you need to consider yourself very fortunate.

Yep. And if your child is clearly traumatised by something huge in their life, and you try to get them appropriate help at an early stage when they're "only" having panic attacks and failing classes, CAMHS will flat out refuse to see your kid! They will reject referrals from the GP and close your case without consulting you, because your kid hasn't (yet) made an attempt on their own life. Which leaves more vulnerable kids in the community to be exploited and groomed.

Children aren't born bad. They are badly let down. The only way to get mental health help for a child just now, before it escalates into something horrific, is to pay 💰 for private help.

Quite possibly, but our views are shaped by our experiences.

I do think some of the blame lies at societal level.

Lets be clear here, we're not talking about teens generally, we're talking about MALE teens. This is all the fault of toxic masculinity. Can we stop toxic males having kids?

And what would the punishment be? Prison time? A hefty fine?
If so I’ll tell you about the lovely upper class family who go out and leave their kids while they do cocaine and drink til 4am. One of their kids has ADHD and autism.
But you know, one rule for the well off, another for struggling minority families who can’t and won’t be given help

Poor parenting and absent parenting does contribute to delinquency but it would be very difficult to legislate that, especially absent parents.

Yes, this was the idea of Sure Start back it was set up.

Catch them before they fall and support parents and children so that they never end up in deep trouble for whatever reason.

Let's think through your scenario - OK the parents get prosecuted and locked up as well as the child. What happens if there are other children in the family who were not problematic - why are they being punished? Why are they now at risk of worse outcomes due to their family being broken up because one of the their siblings did something wrong? How far should the effects of your collective punishment go?
I know of one family where the son did kill someone in a dispute over drugs would that fall within your collective punishment regime or is it only worthy victims that count not fellow drug users? Should both parents be punished equally even though some of the son's behaviour may well be down to the father's coercive control within the household. Is his mother still culpable when she was also a victim?

or a contributor to the Daily Fail …..

A young man I know, who was a pupil at my DS's school, has just been imprisoned for a violent crime. I've known him since he was a toddler. He was always aggressive even when playing, and that carried on through childhood and into young adulthood. His parents tried every avenue available to get help for their son, with little or no response, because he hadn't hurt anyone at that point. The anger he carried around seemed to be some kind of internal, inbuilt rage. Maybe he has a psychiatric diagnosis but he definitely wasn't shaped by his upbringing.

Also maybe it's because parents, teachers and the police can no longer punish these kids and give consequences for their actions so they soon learn they can get away with it. They don't respect the rules or the people enforcing it because they know you can't do anything!

Do you have teenagers op?

course not.

Good point.

Do you get bonus society brownie points if your kids turn out well rounded members of society when you've been a single parent in a shitty council estate? <asking for a friend>

In addition, the justice and penal systems can't cope with the number of actual accused for crime at the moment, let alone bringing in third party culpability.