Introduction
The juvenile system of justice refers to the laws that govern juveniles, which refers to persons who are under 18 years of age. Consequently, juveniles can be punished for the crimes they commit and even in some cases, they can be tried in the same way as adults. However, there are several instances where parents have been fined or convicted for crimes done by juveniles. Additionally, there are laws that have been established to hold parents accountable for the various crimes committed by children who are minors. The issue of take the parent’s responsibility for their children’s crimes is a significant problem because parents are not entirely to blame for their children’s wrongs. There are aspects like the media and educational institutions that are partly responsible for the delinquent behavior of juveniles. Even so, the main reason why parents are held accountable is the need to curb juvenile crime. The juvenile justice system has been able to achieve a certain degree of success, but at the same time the system of making parents liable for juvenile crimes has not entirely dealt with delinquent behavior among juveniles. As such, the research has proposed some solutions to deal with the existing problem as well as the likely implications if the solution is implemented.
Discussions
Statement of the problem
The problem the essay is dealing with is that of parental liability for juvenile offenses. There are several cases in which parents are expected to take responsibility for the crimes committed by their children who are minors. The research attempts to look at the ways and situations in which parents are held responsible for violation of the law by their underage children to the extent of being convicted.
The problem of Parental Liability for Juvenile offenses facing Juvenile Justice System
The idea of holding parents accountable for crimes done by their children is a significant problem with the current justice system for juveniles. This is because it is not possible for parents to be with their children wherever they go. Furthermore, some of the crimes committed by children may be done not because their parents have not taught them properly but because they are defiant. Interestingly, there are laws that hold parents or guardians legally liable for the crimes done by their children. These laws rely on the theory that parents have a legal obligation to help their children avoid engaging in criminal acts (Junger-Tas & Dünkel, 2009). Furthermore, these laws were established with the belief that making parents accountable would effectively help to reduce the rate of juvenile crimes. Actually, parents are charged for not fully exerting their parental control of their children, as this would have prevented a child from engaging in crime.
According to Grigorenko (2012), some of the juvenile crimes which parents can take responsibility for can include that of things like computer crimes. When children engage in activities like hacking and distributing pornographic images over cell phones they tend to result in serious legal consequences. Even though computer crime is a new area of law, parents can still be held responsible for their children’s wrongs. Additionally, laws for delinquent youths impose a liability on the parents for allowing their children to take part in delinquent behavior. Usually, the penalties can increase and recurrence of such incidences may lead parents to be charged with negligent parenting. Parents can be held responsible if their children have access to firearms, especially if the firearm belongs to the parent or is under their control.
Moreover, parents may be prosecuted for contributing crimes in which case a parent or guardian makes some contribution towards a minor’s criminal acts. For instance, a parent who gives alcohol to a minor will be prosecuted for contributing in a child’s delinquent behavior. Actually, parents are punished for contributory crimes because they endorsed or made it possible for juveniles to engage in illegal activities. There are other crimes known as status crimes, which would not be taken to be illegal if an adult conducted them. For example, skipping school or going against curfew laws are some of the “status crimes” that warrant parental obligation. It is assumed that a parent has an affirmative duty to ensure that children go to school; thus they are held responsible for failing to see to it that their children attend school (Hil & Tait, 2004). In the case of curfew violations, parents are obligated by law to ensure that children adhere to these laws protect their welfare.
Parents can take responsibility for their children’s criminal actions in several ways. To begin with, parents can pay heavy fines in order to free their children from detention. Secondly, parents will be required to get more involved in the juvenile proceedings and pay the court fees. Thirdly, parents are sometimes required to get involved in community service together with their children. Finally, parents can serve a jail term and even meet the costs of supervision and treatment while their children are in detention.
The situation in Philadelphia during the summer of 2011 explains why it is necessary to blame parents for their children’s criminal acts. The teenage mobs in Philadelphia engaged in illegal activities like assaulting people and looting goods from stores. Surprisingly, the mayor blamed the parents of the teenagers for their rowdy behavior rather than hold the teenagers responsible. He argued that parents were not merely “sperm donors” or “human ATMs” as they had the responsibility to nurture their children well before the law caught up with them. Moreover, parents were heavily punished when children did not observe the city’s curfew (Wormer, 2013). In fact, parents paid a fine of $150 for the first violation, $300 for the second violation and $500 for any violations that will be committed thereafter as well as a jail term of about 90 days for the parents.
In the US, the level of responsibility a parent holds for their children’s crimes depends on which state they come from. For instance, California has made it a criminal offense for the failure of parents to reasonably supervise, care, control, and protect their children. Other states like Missouri, Colorado, Texas, and Florida punish parents by making them become involved in counseling programs, paying court fees, and even incarcerating the parents. Parents in West Virginia can be forced to pay up to $5,000 when their children damage public property. On the other hand, $1000 is charged to parents when children fail to adhere to the curfew laws.
The idea of holding only the parents responsible for the crimes committed by juveniles does not appear to be fair. Besides the parents, educational institutions, culture, media, and society have a part to play in the delinquent behavior of children. Therefore, parents taking liability for their children’s mistakes is a significant problem because they bear the burden and influence caused by other institutions like the media. For instance, when children watch action movies away from home, they are attempting to imitate whatever they have watched because they find it thrilling. Consequently, they engage in gun shootings probably as child play, but it ends up hurting so many people. As a matter of fact, there are times when there is a dilemma on who is the right person to blame for the crimes done by children. For example, in 1993, Mary Bell was reported to be the most notorious child murderer and a juvenile offender. She was found guilty of murdering two boys by way of strangling them. The boys were aged four and three, yet she was only eleven years old. This situation made it difficult to determine who exactly should be blamed for her crime, yet in most cases, courts tend to hold parents accountable for such serious crimes committed by their children (Burfeind & Bartusch, 2011).
Although the law seeks to minimize incidences of juvenile crime by holding parents liable, the theory of rational choice provides that the responsibility for minors’ acts of delinquency should remain with the individual who has committed the crime. Therefore, this theory tries to argue that there are instances when offenders commit a crime with the hope of benefitting from their criminal actions. In some cases, they can conduct a cost benefit analysis before they commit a crime. The minimum age where children can individually take responsibility for their actions lies somewhere between 13 and 17 years of age depending on the state. Additionally, holding parents accountable can be regarded as a problem, especially where in the case of the rational choice theory which assumes that children are active decision makers in whatever they do. The liabilities meted on parents are harsh because in most cases, they are only responsible for the crimes committed by their children to a remote extent (Winterdyk, 2002).
Educational institutions are also responsible for educating children and keeping them safe, yet they are never held accountable when children commit crimes. Bad behavior like violence and bullying perpetrated in schools in some way contributes to the delinquent behavior in children. On the other hand, the society as well as a culture can influence the behavior of children. For instance, the producers of computer games and video games can target children when selling their products, which promote violent content. The movies shown by the media that have several violent scenes bring about the misconception that violent behavior is acceptable in the society. So many factors can cause delinquent behavior in children. Among them are things like substance abuse, troubled childhood, and unstable mental conditions (Grigorenko, 2012). Therefore, in cases where children have mental problems imposing liabilities on parents will not solve the problem.
Ways in which the Juvenile justice system has addressed or failed to address a problem
The system of juvenile justice has been effective in substantially reducing cases of juvenile crimes. This system has compelled parents to take their role in parenting seriously, and officials in schools confirmed that parents had become more involved in the lives of their children. This is especially so for parents who seemed to have little involvement in the lives of their children. Initially, such parents would never visit at all when their children were in the correctional facilities. Furthermore, they did not even bother to attend the hearings in court and they did not show concern when their children were delving deeper into the juvenile system of justice. Fortunately, the advent of holding parents liable has made even the parents who had no interest in the lives of their children become increasingly involved because they will be held accountable at the end of the day (Junger-Tas & Dünkel, 2009).
Unfortunately, several parents and other stakeholders feel that the juvenile justice system is just a quick fix to deal with the issue of juvenile crime. As such, they do not consider it effective or even morally right to punish parents except in situations where the crime committed by a child is because of neglect or abuse (Winterdyk, 2002). The opponents of this view would further argue that the juvenile justice system does not serve to curb juvenile crimes. Contrarily, children are encouraged to engage in criminal activities because they know that their parents will also share in the punishment. In fact, it is an infringement of the rights of parents given that even the children who come up from good homes and have the best upbringing still get in criminal acts.
The laws meant to hold parents liable for the offenses of their children do not take into account the fact that things like poor health care, inadequate housing, and substandard educational opportunities may cause the delinquent behavior exhibited by children. As such, holding parents liable by imprisonment may amount to breaking up the family unit; thus, making it even more unstable. Furthermore, imposing hefty fines on parents would mean depriving the family of the money that would have otherwise been used to sustain the child and take care of the family in general. Therefore, this juvenile system of justice is likely to cause more harm to the child instead of assisting in preventing juvenile crimes. This is because children will resort to crimes like stealing because of poverty and suffering of the families (Hil & Tait, 2004). The juvenile system of justice has failed to address the issue of delinquent behavior as it has not imposed any obligation on some of the stakeholders like schools, media organizations, and the society in general. Consequently, members of society do not make it their responsibility to ensure that children do not engage in delinquent practices. For example, the society can promote a culture that encourages violence, thus negatively affecting children and yet at the end of the day parents will be held accountable.
Solutions and Implications of proposed solutions
The Juvenile justice system that holds parents responsible has failed to entirely deal with the problem of delinquent behavior in minors. This is mainly because the system has failed to hold other stakeholders responsible for the problem of juvenile delinquency. In order to solve this problem the justice system can come up with laws that can regulate the content displayed by the media. For instance, laws can be enacted to limit the amount of violent content that can be watched by children. Putting limitations as to the amount of violent content that can be watched by children will limit their exposure to violent activities (Burfeind & Bartusch, 2011). Consequently, children will become less likely to engage in criminal activities because they will have little knowledge about violent activities.
The juvenile system should change their policies when it comes to imposing fines on poor families and even imprisonment of the parents of delinquent children (Wormer, 2013). They should apply their laws discriminately because different policies are likely to have different effects on parents and children. For instance, imposing fines on parents who are well off will have a positive effect unlike in the case of poor parents because their children will end up being destroyed. Alternatively, the juvenile system should mainly advocate for parents to go through counseling sessions together with their delinquent children. This move will be more effective for parents who are poor because they will get insight on how best to control their children without having a negative impact on them (Junger-Tas & Dünkel, 2009). The solution for the situation where some of the stakeholders do not take responsibility for the negative influences they have on children is to enact laws that will compel them to control children’s activities. The impact of this initiative is that cultures that are detrimental to children and especially those that encourage violence will be abolished. Additionally, the media will restrict content that is violent so that they can avoid being fined for delinquent actions by juveniles.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that imposing liability on parents for the criminal acts of their children have made parents more responsible. Actually, this policy has made them more mindful about what is happening in the lives of their children and even their whereabouts. Most parents have changed their carefree attitude towards their children to avoiding liabilities like fines and convictions that they are likely to suffer for their children’s mistakes. However, the juvenile justice system has failed to incorporate other stakeholders in its policies for it to be effective. In order to solve the problems which have not been addressed by holding parents liable, solutions likely applying their policies discriminately and enacting policies that will affect all the stakeholders who deal with juveniles. Consequently, the issue of delinquent behavior will become a thing of the past as parents, the media and the society in general will make it their responsibility to prevent delinquent behavior.
References
Junger-Tas, J., & Dünkel, F. (2009). Reforming juvenile justice. Dordrecht [The Netherlands: Springer.
Grigorenko, E. L. (2012). Handbook of juvenile forensic psychology and psychiatry. New York: Springer.
Winterdyk, J. (2002). Juvenile justice systems: International perspectives. Toronto, Ont: Canadian Scholars' Press.
Burfeind, J. W., & Bartusch, D. J. (2011). Juvenile delinquency: An integrated approach. Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
Wormer, K. (2013). Working with female offenders: A gender sensitive approach. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley.
Hil, R., & Tait, G. (2004). Hard lessons: Reflections on governance and crime control in late modernity. Aldershot: Ashgate.
