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Dear Indyvidual,

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In my opinion, parents should be held legally responsible for juvenile offenders’ acts and omissions in relation to crimes and misdemeanours committed by their minor children, irrespective of whether the parents are aware of the acts and demeanours or not.

A case that comes to mind is that of the parents of a teenager who killed four classmates at a Michigan high school in the US in 2021 and who were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter because of their child’s crimes.

The judge declared that "Parents are not expected to be psychic, but these convictions are not about poor parenting. These convictions confirm repeated acts, or lack of acts, that could have halted an oncoming runaway train -- about repeatedly ignoring things that would make a reasonable person feel the hair on the back of their neck."

The son was found guilty of the four murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. The parents were found guilty, in separate trials, of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 10 to 15 years’ imprisonment.

Here is an article on the case :

http://abcnews.go.com/US/jennifer-james-crumbley-parents-michigan-school-shooter-sentenced/story?id=108900929

The judgement of parents of juvenile offenders, even for minor offences and transgressions, should send a fairly strong message to parents in Australia and provoke a greater awareness of their risks and potential responsibilities.

Not surprisingly, studies conducted specifically with parents and juvenile offenders suggest modest endorsements of parental accountability. In a study conducted by White, Augoustinos, and Taplin in 2007 in Australia, parents considered that responsibility for the crime lay primarily within the children, and not the parents, even when the child was in his or her pre-teenage years (10 years of age).

A Brank and Lane study in 2008, with juveniles in post-adjudication residential facilities revealed that juveniles generally did not consider their parents to be responsible for their delinquent behaviour.

All that, evidently, goes without saying, but I don’t see any of it as a valid deterrent to tackling the problem as suggested.

It's time for a wake-up call !

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In an ideal world parents should get involved in the
lives of their children. Of course that's not always
possible. Single parents find it especially difficult
having to work and provide shelter, food, and clothing.

Both my husband and I had to work. However, we made sure
that we were involved in the lives of our kids. We saw to it
that our kids were involved in sport, scouts, and our
community. We kept them too busy to get bored. We made sure
we knew who their friends were and with whom they
associated. We were involved in their lives and we were
always there for them.

It wasn't easy. But they have grown up to be decent human
beings. They are now very involved in the lives of their
own children. So we must have done something right.

Indyvidual

This is a difficult and painful subject and emotion too often gets in the way. At one end of the spectrum are “do gooders” who think we should be kind, gentle and forgiving to wayward kids; and at the other are angry, vengeful Laura Norda fans who would be happy to lock ‘em up and throw away the key, preferably after a good flogging.

I’d rather an approach based on evidence – why are so may kids doing this stuff; what can we do to prevent them getting there; and, when they do become problems, what can we do to turn them around so they don’t repeat offend or go on to be adult criminals. And, how can we do this relatively cheaply.

From all I’ve read the most effective ways of dealing with youth crime are things like early intervention, deflection to divert them from custody into other programs and options, and measures to keep them in school or find them work. These are also a lot cheaper for the taxpayer than incarceration

an approach based on evidence
Rhian,
The evidence clearly demonstrates that whatever is in place presently fails us all. Some kids only need a slap whereas others will only stop offending when locked away. The worst part is that the perpetual re-offenders are KNOWN to the community AND the authorities. The Police can't do a damn thing because of the do-gooders yet the do-gooder never offer to compensate the victims. My losses due to theft & break0ins have changed my life yet the same do-gooders are still employed by the Taxpayers & get to enjoy their generous Superannuations etc.
Whenever a do-gooder baulks at a sentence they should be required to disclose up front that they're willing to compensate victims or refrain from interfering with real Justice !
Like that mutt from the Civil Libertarians once said to me "Sorry mate, can't help you, we're batting for the other team (indigenous delinquents) !

Move into a white gated community, where all residents are armed including 24 hour armed security: Welcome to White Minority South Africa: A taste of things to come for a fast diminishing White majority population of Multicultural Australia.

So things are bad but they will be worse!

Don’t vote; its you desperados that vote, that create permanent left wing Autocracies for the rest of us!

Indyvidual

For once we can agree on something – our present approach isn’t working.

Many, many international studies have shown that high incarceration rates for young people lead to bad outcomes for society as a whole. People who have been imprisoned as juveniles are much more likely than those who go through alternative programs to re-offend, and to go on to be imprisoned again as adults. Putting kids in prison is also extremely expensive. It is far cheaper, and more effective, to put in early intervention programs that make it less likely that they will offend in the first place.

This US study is an example:
http://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/why-youth-incarceration-fails-an-updated-review-of-the-evidence/

Two aspects of Australia’s criminal juvenile justice approach need urgent attention. The first is that we have a very low age of criminal responsibility in Australia – just 10 years old in most states. This is low by world standards, especially compared to other prosperous democracies. Worldwide, the most common age of criminal responsibility is 14.

The second is the massively disproportionate number of indigenous kids in detention. The numbers fluctuate a fair bit, but according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare the ratio of First Nations to non-Indigenous young people ranged from 16 in September 2020 to a high of 29 in the March and June quarters of 2023.
http://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/youth-justice/youth-detention-population-in-australia-2023/contents/first-nations-young-people