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?

Wtf has driving a car aged 12 got to do with it? Many kids can drive at 12 - mine all could.

Bettyboop3 if my ds had murdered someone I would feel responsible, it is a parent's responsibility to teach their children right from wrong. If my child was a minor I would expect to be punished for their crime.

So a minor is up to age 18.

What if you're an uninvolved parent? Are you still going to be held responsible? How's that going to work?

Also, feeling responsible is different to being responsible

Well, the fact he killed a woman with a car and he’s a 12 year old child. It’s hardly anything to brag about!

Have you ever heard of the theory nature versus nurture you smug individual? A parent can do their absolute best and their child still do bad things.

Why? That's not how the law works.

Do children going in to foster care not get assessed for challenging behaviour? I know we have a shortage of Foster placements & social workers & there needs to be more funding for Children's services.

@Meandfour driving a car aged 12 isn't the issue. The fact that someone has died is. The two are different things.

Mine all drove at 12 and didn't kill anyone.

It's not causation.

Do you blame your mother for the fact you chose to bunk off school?? Was that her fault?

Assessing children isn’t the issue. Having the resources and support available to address the, often very complex, needs of children and their families is the issue. Also the reality is that abuse/neglect, especially very early on in life, can have have life long affects. These things aren’t easily addressed.

My sibling was never out of trouble as a teen. Which one of my parents would you hold responsible and what would you have done with the rest of us if you held them both responsible and sent them to jail?

BettyBoop3 no it wasn't her fault but after she found out she made damn sure I never did it again, she made school put me on permanent report so I had to get it signed every lesson.

I didn’t realise it was legal to have a driving license at 12. If I’m wrong fair enough, I’ve never considered it normal or acceptable for a child to be in charge of a vehicle.

@Meandfour where did I say they had a licence? You can't drive a car on the public road until age 17 but I never said they were on a public road (they weren't).

The driving of the car age 12 isn't the issue. The breaking of the law is. But the driving of the car - in and of itself - is not the issue.

Your statement was "!The fact he could even drive a car…. It’s terrible"

I don't understand what is terrible about driving a car aged 12.

That’s fine. We can agree to disagree.

Very many wealthy children or children from farming families are driving at 12.

They aren't criminals or likely to become criminals just because they've learnt to drive cars and other vehicles early.

Does that include drugs runners, radicalisation? All the parents fault?

Key point AFTER. What about before? What if you had killed someone or did something illegal, should your mother have gone to jail for it?

And what if you were bigger than her, violent and she was scared of you? Would you still think that's all on her that she couldn't physically get you into school? What if she had spent years begging for help from gp, camhs, police, cab & nobody would help? Even though she had 2 children good as gold, going into school every day? Still sonething she must be doing wrong?

Fuck right off. If the parents had been parents then perhaps....I grew up in a rough intact very rough working class area. The worst criminals from my age group were the ones who parents didn't give a shit.
Yes some good people had kids who were naughty. But the rapists,murderers, burglars I knew all had shit parents

Sorry OP but the notion that a person should be criminally responsible for the independent acts of someone else is not only unworkable (for some many reasons) but also contrary to the fundamental principles of fairness and individual accountability.

That said, it would be natural to question the upbringing and experiences of a young child who goes on to intentionally commit a serious violent crime. IMO these families probably need more support, not more criminal convictions.

Not everything can be blamed on the parents even kids from great backgrounds can form friendships with the wrong people and kids need to take responsibility for their own actions. People scream about people taking responsibility for their own actions and then you want the parents blaming for their 12 year old running a lady over.