To wonder what happens? Parents of Children commit serious crime.

[PassingStranger]

Not sure if anyone will know but.
In cases where children/teens commit serious crime/murder do the parents get to keep their other children if they have them?

Do they go into care, or are they subject to any parenting orders or anything..
Just wondered?

For example James Bulgers killers, if they had younger siblings do they stay with the parents?

Yes, I came to say this.

I think every single one of us could be pretty evil under the right circumstances. Yet, psychopaths are born and I absolutely agree there are genetic factors influencing sociopathy.

No two sibling childhoods are ever the same, even with the same parents and same treatment and exposures. Because differences in temperament and a susceptibility to say sociopathy will influence.

I have a sibling I determine to be sociopathic. I am not.

I recall the story regarding the young boy Paris who murdered his sister. There was something very very different there apparent from quite early.

People still now analyse all the failings of Dahmers parents. And there were a fair amount. Yet did anyone ever ask, did the mother do a runner when Dahmer was 17 with the younger son because she knew instinctively he was very scary.

So no. The parents absolutely always must be considered and assessed separately in every single case and I believe are so in order to determine any risks.

It depends on the situation at home, a lot of time it is outside influences that can cause a child to commit a serious crime.

In most of the stabbings carried out by teens at the moment the lad that dies is as involved in the whole culture as the accused. Both wandering the streets carrying knives. Whereas I think everyone would acknowledge there are all sorts of influences on our lives, you would be very naive to think parents couldn't have had a more positive influence

Again, I think that this is over simplifying it and ignoring some really important factors. You’re taking a very specific type of crime involving very specific perpetrators. Looking at the people involved in knife crime, the vast majority are male, of a similar age and from a similar economic background. Their raging hormones and their surroundings are going to have had a huge influence. Far, far more than their parents. All of those middle class parents that stretch themselves to live in a posh area and send their DC to a good school so their DC won’t be associating with kids from council estates know that teens will take far more notice of other teens than their parents. Otherwise they’d be safe in the knowledge that their superior parenting skills and anti-knife crime attitudes would be enough to protect their own DC from getting involved in that sort of thing. Of course there will be parents who shouldn’t have been allowed to care for a goldfish, let alone a child, but there will be just as many who are good decent people who were horrified to discover that their child was carrying a knife.

Anyone who thinks that their parenting is loving and supportive and strict enough to protect their child from knife crime needs to speak to one of the anti knife crime groups that have sprung up in recent years. I think you’d be in for a rude awakening.

Absolutely this (including the recent case in Southport).

Sadly, "prevention" is not a cause people who hold the purse strings like to fund as it is really, really difficult to 'measure'.
Hence them getting away with decimating Youth services over the last 10 - 15 years, and slashing the funding for the wonderful SureStart Children's Centres.

A girl that my parents fostered for a while had a teenage daughter who was involved in a murder and her younger children were not taken into care.

You've just oversimplified as well - two siblings can't be brought up identically because they're two different people, two different personalities with differences in their relationships with their parents.

Me & my sister for example (neither of us has committed a crime afaik), 3 years age difference, I had the classic older child experience of parents being more strict while my sister had a lot more freedom at a younger age. We weren't brought up identically.

Of course. Your upbringing has a huge influence on the person you become. Of course it does.

But my point stands that it is not just nurture. If you’re just blaming the parents every time a child commits a serious crime, then you’re missing out a huge part of the reason behind it.

It’s not just a person’s upbringing. If it was, then every child who grew up with less than perfect parents would be a criminal and those who were brought up by the equivalent of Mary Poppins would be perfectly adjusted members of society. It’s genetics as well. You can’t take one into account without considering the other.

Yes I have. And that’s partly because I’m not a scientist, partly because I’m not talking to scientists and partly because it’s a very simple explanation used only for the intent of explaining that it is both upbringing and genetics. Nature and nurture rather than nature or nurture.

If you want a more complex explanation then read a scientific paper on the subject.

If that were the case then surely all the children are potential criminals?

OP is this hypothetical or has your child committed a crime ? If so hope you and family are ok and getting support.

I agree

Sometimes the killer is seriously mentally ill and it's not the fault of the parents. Eg. The Nottingham killer Valdo Calocane.

It's a hugely debated topic - Nature or Nuture.

I think both can create people who do bad things. But there are other factors that affect a child's upbringing than what the parents and siblings offer.

Teenagers are massively affected by their peers and what they read on the internet etc.

I know a family with 3 now grown up children. The parents both worked, were good people and 2 of the kids were studious, went to university, now have decent jobs, families etc, and the other became a drug addict at 17 and died of an overdose many years later. All raised in the same house. The surviving family all wonder what happened to their deceased child/sibling that made them turn out that way. It's a huge shame for everyone involved

In a nutshell.

They'd only take away other children if there was abuse/neglect/criminal activity in the family. Not all child criminals come from abusive or neglectful homes at all.

Sometimes other children might be in danger not from their parents, but from members of the public targeting the family home because of what the criminal child has done. In those most extreme situations the whole family might need to be relocated.

It depends on the individual situation, the nature of the crime, what factors led to the crime, what actions the parents took to prevent it and what actions were taken in response to it and the implications on other children. It'll be assessed by social services depending on the nature of the crime and then a decision will be made. Either the Social Work team will decide the immediate risks are too high and will apply to the courts for removal or they'll do work with the family and see how it goes to try and improve things where they are, or they'll assess that the parents did all they could and acted appropriately and no further action will be taken outside of a support role.

There's lots of reasons why a young person might commit a crime - they may be being exploited by other people in their community and be victims themselves. They may have experienced significant trauma and been unable to regulate after that. I've worked with a number of young people who suffered from brain injuries that affected their risk assessing and understanding of consequence and led to them getting involved in criminal behaviours. Sometimes it's nothing to do with parents at all.

It’s not just a person’s upbringing. If it was, then every child who grew up with less than perfect parents would be a criminal and those who were brought up by the equivalent of Mary Poppins would be perfectly adjusted members of society. It’s genetics as well. You can’t take one into account without considering the other.

Massive oversimplification.

I’ve been involved in two cases where a teenage boy committed murder.
One was from an otherwise nice, normal middle class professional family. It destroyed them. and no, their younger children were not removed.
One was a boy who had experienced significant trauma, periods in care, and got involved with drugs and gangs. Once they’ve been criminally exploited, it’s so hard for them to get away from it.

True, but just being a psychopath doesnt mean you are going to murder.
I believe that trauma is a massive contributing factor.

I cannot be arsed to point out the bleeding obvious again, so I refer you to my post at 16:33hrs.

Not always. Look at the case of the Southport killer. Parents did their best to get him help. He didn't engage with the help offered. That's on him or his issues. Not his parents.

I agree about trauma but not all trauma starts in the home. A child can be bullied or abused outside the home. Abuse is abuse, regardless of whether it's in the home or not. The effects are no less traumatic.

How is this a massive oversimplification given that it's a post AGAINST oversimplification?!

And yet there are children born into adverse circumstances who grow up to be the most lovely and kind humans you will ever meet.

I never blame the parents automatically. It's just not that simple. Of course a family where a child commits a serious offense will be investigated to make sure all is well, but children from very normal homes sometimes do terrible things too.

The reality is that no, of course the children aren't automatically removed from their parents because you need a court order to remove children. Given that the siblings presumably haven't committed an offence, it will be the family courts making decisions about their situation and the family courts make (or at least are supposed to make) decisions in the best interests of the child. Unless the sibling's crime demonstrates that the parents are manifestly unfit to parent their other children, that's likely to be that they remain with their parents. The parents aren't "punished" for one child's crime by having the others removed or anything like that.