Why aren't parents held responsible for their children's criminal offences?

[Nat6999]

news.sky.com/story/boy-12-arrested-on-suspicion-of-murder-after-woman-hit-by-car-in-sheffield-12851331

Last night in the nearby area to me a 60 year old woman was killed by a 12 year old who was trying to steal her car. It is a lovely area where it happened, my brother lives round the corner, as you can imagine it has been a massive shock to residents.

A 12 year old boy has been charged with murder, he ran her over with the car as she tried to stop him taking the car, it happened at 7.30pm & she died at the scene. Why aren't parents held responsible for their son's actions? He was armed with a knife as well. If my son had been involved with crime at that age I would have known, he wasn't allowed out unless I knew where he was & who he was with, is it that some parents just don't care?

When your child ' goes out to play ' you've no idea what he/she will get up to.

Mine were well behaved and had good behaviour, or so I thought, the stories they tell me about what they got up to when they were younger 😮

Here is what I know to be true. The person that did the crime, did the crime. Where would it stop if everybody that knew that person was called to account?

The tragedy is that many, many people probably failed this child. It is as terrible as the tragedy facing this ladies family.

There but by the grace of god.

So, how exactly do you think the parents (whoever/wherever they are) should be held responsible - what is your idea for how this works? It’s all very well saying that they should be held responsible but you need to be clear about what you mean when you say that.

I totally agree with you OP. Near where my mum lives a young lad was stabbed and Beaten to death by a group of teenagers. The teenagers families were well known to the police and during the trial they threatened witnesses. They also had a cheek to say that their children did not deserve to have their life ruined by a prison sentence. These people are scum. They should be punished along with their children. It makes my blood boil.

How should they be punished? What should they be charged with? Should there be a new type of crime?

Yes @Tinybrother

Death by a thousand opinions.

I’m not sure what good charging the parents would do. Realistically what crime would they be convicted of? Wilful neglect maybe? But you’d need to be able to evidence that?

I think a better strategy would be for youth offending and social care to work more closely and for more input in early intervention with these families.
By the time a child has committed a serious offence it’s already too late.

@Nat6999 if you have a quick news search reports indicate that he was in a foster placement at her address, so yes CSWS will have a lot of questions to answer.
However I think your thought process it’s quite naive, people can be involved in county lines from nice middle class backgrounds, urban street gangs target these in particular as they run lines out of nice well to do towns and cities across the country.
anyone is susceptible to being exploited… and for love nor money parents can be helpess in stopping it.

Out of interest, would the parent be held responsible until the child is 18?

Who's to be held responsible if the child has been in care since early childhood?

@Nat6999 also he’s not been charged yet, he’s under arrest

How would it work op?
This lad kills a woman. Assuming he'd been living his parents at the time, you try them both for murder, manslaughter or child abuse for not rasing him to be law abiding?
What if Dad left when he was 3 and never saw him again? What if Mom only has him EOW? What if he spends most of his time with his Uncle?

If there's a sibling who behaves is that proof the parents are innocent or of preferential treatment?

And in this case, where the child is a looked after child? What if they've been in care for years?

Bring back the birch.

Hang 'em and flog em

Death penalty

Workhouse

Public stocks

Let's just go the whole hog

😳

If he was being fostered by the lady then there need to be questions asked about the placement & if he would have been better placed elsewhere. I feel for her family & the people who live on the road who had to witness what happened last night.

OK,, so in your example the family also undertake criminal behaviour, so causation seems clear. But what if the family are just am ordinary law abiding family who's kid has gone off the rails? Would you put 3 kids in care for the rest of the childhood to jail the parents of a kid who caused physical harm when breaking the law?

Unfortunately, prior to placement you don't always have the full scope of potential problem behaviours, to make a good placement match. Might well have been an emergency placement for all we know.

Sorry that was to OP.

Better placed wher, perhaps that is the only placement they had available, you do know there is a serious lack of Foster carers in the UK don't you.

Placements are usually considered very carefully, lots of children can't go to homes with other males in because of past abuse and trauma.

There is no simple answer unfortunately and the answer isn't appropriating blame to parents for their children's crimes.

Prevention rather than reaction, but nobody wants to pay for that.

For sure there needs to be investigation into his care and how his risky behaviour and his needs were being managed. What type of placement could have prevented this though? He was 12- no one can stop a 12 year old leaving a house or control 100% what they do when out of the home.

I do not think that should include criminalising foster carer though (unless they have actually been criminally abusive or negligent).

The prison stats show that 90% of prisoners were brought up in care, therefore the government were their parents

I doubt the government wants to be held accountable

Great to hear a teacher say this. That’s exactly what it was like with my brother and myself. My parents tried so hard for him.

I can see how a child could have good parents but still do bad things.

What is it meant to achieve?

Is it supposed to be a warning to other parents - make sure your kids behave or end up in jail? Would that even work? Not sure. It must be a tiny minority of parents who actively cause delinquent behaviour in children, and of those, some of them might actively be choosing not to parent, but some of them will just be completely clueless/struggling heavily with multiple issues of their own, so not sure that it would be much of a deterrent, since someone with that many issues is unlikely to even notice much outside of their own immediate experience.

Is it meant to protect the parents' other children? Because sometimes parents who have one delinquent child have other children who behave perfectly normally, who are probably already suffering/struggling due to their sibling's behaviour. The impact upon them on being removed and taken into care because their parents have been prosecuted would be massive. That kind of trauma may well lead to the same kinds of behaviour that you're hoping to avoid in them in the first place.

If the parents do have other children that they are similarly failing then it might be helpful in that scenario - but again, if you're hoping to help those children not become delinquent themselves, then it might be worth looking at whether prosecuting the parents (and therefore removing the kids) is the best course of action, or whether that might be likely to cause more issues in the kids, or whether supporting the parents might be better for the children.

What about children who are not brought up by their parents? Or who are brought up by a single parent? What happens in that scenario?

I can see the thought process of the surface idea, but I think you have to go back a step - what's the situation now, what should it be, how to achieve that.

I assume you're saying

Situation now: Poor parenting is causing teenage crime
Situation should be: (More/most) parents should parent effectively, therefore preventing/reducing crime
Way to achieve: Punish parents whose children commit crimes

So I think if you're going there you've got to go back to the root of what the situation is now and examine that as a premise. Is it poor parenting which causes teenage crime? Is that the only cause? The main cause? Can we define/agree on what "poor parenting" consists of? Why might parents act in that way? What might help them parent differently?

Parents and any other person caring for a child can't be held directly responsible for the childs crimes because they didn't commit the crime. Parents can be held responsible if their child repeatedly gets into trouble or if they do not take reasonable steps to control their behaviour. They could be asked to attend a parenting programme (although most of these are pretty shit), asked to sign a Parenting Contract or be given a Parenting Order by a court. Social Services may become involved if your child is considered to be 'out of parental control'.

Yeah, right, do you have a link to all that??

Despite the fact it is not a good idea and will never work if it was implemented parents would then be more likely to help their children conceal their crimes so that they didn't also get put on trial.