THE PRESS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1986. Penalties for parents

Press, 15 February 1986, Page 18

THE PRESS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1986. Penalties for parents

The Opposition spokesman on justice, Mr Paul East, has proposed that parents should be held responsible for the criminal actions of their children. The idea is certain to get a sympathetic hearing from a community that suffers increasingly at the hands of young criminals. The proposition is not new; parents can be and are held responsible in the courts for the criminal actions of their children. Merely Increasing the penalties on parents, or imposing the costs of restitution for their children’s actions more frequently than is done at present, will not necessarily reduce the rate of juvenile crime. The danger is that Mr East’s proposal will be seized on as some sort remedy when it is nothing of the sort.

There can be no doubt that juvenile crime is a grave problem. In 1983, the last year for which full statistics are available, Children and Young Persons Courts dealt with 11,293 people under the age of 17 on more than 23,000 charges. Burglary and theft still account for about 60 per cent of juvenile crime, although the number of violent offences is on the increase. Some measure of the extent of the problem can be had from the figures for 1983. In that year, the courts dealt with 6038 charges of burglary against young people under the age of 17; in the same period, the courts dealt with 7892 charges of burglary against adults. Teenagers do not lag far behind their elders in crime. The scale of some of the teenage burglaries — but by no means all — might seem minor by comparison with the warehouse raids of the more experienced criminal; but that is hardly the point: the apprenticeship is being served. There can be little doubt, either, that Mr East is correct when he says that young children roaming the streets at night, out of parental control, account for a substantial amount of criminal offending, particularly burglaries. The sheer size of the problem might encourage a bewildered community to resort to more punitive measures to counter kiddy crime and negligent parents are an easy target The question must be asked, however: will hitting this target do much good? The answer is: probably not; for at least two main reasons. One is that the courts already have the power to order parents to make good the criminal damage and losses caused by their children. The provision is used when appropriate; but the courts recognise that, if a child’s offending has its roots in parental neglect or ill treatment, penalising the parent does nothing to improve family ties. Taken to the only logical conclusion, Mr East’s proposal could aggravate the very causes of child offending in at least some instances. Supportive parents rarely need a court injunction to at least offer a remedy for their child’s misdeeds. In many cases, the proposal could put the courts in a quandary. There would be no shortage of examples where investigation of a young offender’s background would reveal a lack of parental supervision stemming from, or worsened by, a parent’s being in custody or undergoing periodic detention. The courts could hardly penalise a parent for failing to exercise proper control over a child at, say, a

week-end, when at the relevant time the parent was in the charge of the Department of Justice answering the requirements of a sentence ordered by the court. The second main objection to the proposal is that it does not seek to relieve the causes of juvenile offending. It certainly recognises a contributory factor — lack of parental control — but does nothing to correct this. The courts hear almost 2000 cases a year in which children lack parental control or are found to be suffering parental neglect or ill treatment. The courts have the power to remove children to a better environment; but this extreme step is taken, quite properly, only as a last resort. It is quite easy to blame those parents who, because they are inadequate, indifferent, despairing, or for some other reason, are unwilling or unable to share and supervise their children’s lives. Assigning blame, however, is not the answer. The Crimes Act, for instance, reinforces the concept of parental responsibility to children by making it possible to punish parents, with up to seven years imprisonment, if they fail to provide the necessaries for their children up to the age of 16 years. Enforcing this provision inevitably breaks up the family and defeats the prime intention of the law. An imprisoned parent cannot adequately provide for children, who must become an additional charge on the State. In the same way, penalising uncaring or inadequate parents for their inability or unwillingness to control their children may do nothing to improve parental care or control of the young offender. The law on offences by children, and on the proper care of children, has an overriding proviso: that in the application of the law the interests of the child shall be paramount. All forms of punishment, redress, additional care, or supervision must be directed to this end. In one way, this attitude of the law seems to neglect the interests of other people against whom offences are committed — perhaps other children. No other law on dealing with crime lays such emphasis on remedy for the offender and on steering a person away from crime or away from harm or neglect.

This at least is the principle; enacting it is not so easy. One thing, however, seems certain: in a family damaged by hostilities, indifference, or estrangement, a youngster who can see a way to have a parent punished is not going to be steered away from crime. The effect of Mr East’s proposal might in many instances be the opposite of his intentions.

Parents do not escape the consequences of letting their children run riot. The courts have wide powers to deal with such cases already; yet these powers have not prevented the rise in juvenile crime. Many people are not fitted to be parents but still they have children. That is society’s misfortune as well as their own. Imposing fines or other sentences on them will simply create a new class of criminal without remedying the problem of child crime. There may be perfectly debatable argument about punishing parents for the crimes of their children, but it would not necessarily make good law.