Parental responsibility should always be considered when trying a child for a criminal act they have committed. It is a largely debated issue with mixed responses; as much as 60 per cent of people in one survey believe parents should not be held responsible (http://www.debate.org 21st November 2014), with other studies as many as 89 per cent agreeing that parents should be held responsible. (http://heinonline.org 21st November 2014)In the following essay one will argue that in particular instances parents should be and should not be held responsible for the criminal acts of their children through use of case studies.
In 2002, Patricia Amos, mother of five was sentenced to sixty days in jail because she failed to stop two of her teenage daughters from skipping classes at school. It was reported that Amos had broken a court order in which she had agreed to get her children to attend school. The sentence was given out after two years of working with the local authority (Oxford) to rectify the children’s truancy. (http://news.bbc.co.uk 21st November 2014) In the United Kingdom the government specifies that parents are responsible for disciplining their children. (www.gov.uk 21st November 2014) The fact that she had been allowed two years and support from her local authority before being sentenced to jail time shows that she had the opportunity to discipline her children. Failure to abide by government policy is, in this instance what causes a mother to take responsibility for the acts of her children.
Sage argues that parents should be responsible for the crimes carried out by their childrenif the child is subject to blackmail or indoctrination in relation to that crime.(http://www.philosophy-of-education.org 21st November 2014)She uses the 2005 Veghel case as an example; a teenage boy shot his sisters ex-boyfriend. In court, responsibility was placed on the boy’s father. This was because although the boy carried out the shooting by himself, his father had strongly urged him to do so. It may be argued that as a parent, his father had a great deal of influence over his son. The child may have shot his sisters ex-partner to receive validation from his parent, disregarding his own understanding of right or wrong (if he has any any) to seek the approval of his father.
The last example highlighted the case that a parent’s influence can have a great deal of impact upon how a child chooses to act. This argument may also be used to absolve parental responsibility when you consider the criminal acts of teenagers. In Philadelphia in 2010 it was reported that groups of teenagers were meeting up and forming large flash mobs. Meetings were organised by other teenagers through social media, text messages and word of mouth. These flash mobs had no direction and often resulted in teenagers engaging in criminal activity such as assault and theft.(www.apa.org/monitor 21st November 2014) The crimes committed as a direct result of peer influence to engage in the mobs, therefore it may be suggested that the teenage organisers of the event may be responsible, not parents. This may also be substantiated if you consider the penal consequences for parents in Philadelphia who don’t discipline their children; they can receive fines and be sentenced to up to ninety days in prison for breaking curfew laws. Laws already in place did not prevent these children from committing crimes, perhaps because peers have more influence upon the behaviour of teenagers.
In conclusion, it is difficult to place responsibility upon children in every instance where their child has committed a crime. In the first example I argued that parents should be held responsible under government legislation if the child commits a crime. This however may be unfair when you consider the influence of their peers in adolescence. It is therefore appropriate to argue that parental responsibility should be considered on a case by case basis.
References
Branks, E. M. (2011) Why not blame the parents?http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/11/jn.aspx [Accessed: 21st November 2014]
Kenny, J.A, Kenny, J.V Shall we Punish the Parents? http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/abaj47&div=220&id=&page= [Accessed: 21st November 2014]
Sage L. L, Two views on criminal parental responsibility
http://www.philosophy-of-education.org/pdfs/Saturday/Le%20Sage.pdf [Accessed: 21st November 2014]
http://www.debate.org/opinions/should-parents-be-held-morally-and-legally-responsible-for-the-actions-of-their-children [Accessed: 21st November 2014]
Parental rights and responsibilitieshttps://www.gov.uk/parental-rights-responsibilities/what-is-parental-responsibility [Accessed: 21st November 2014]
Mother jailed for girls’ truancy http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1984502.stm
