In Australia many children commit crimes and often the police and people do not know who to blame for their actions. These children commit crimes such as robbery, violence and stealing and they end up in juvenile. They live victims of their actions wondering whether to blame the children or their parents. This is a broad topic with many different views and arguments, I will only be focusing on three arguments that support and oppose whether parents should be held responsible for their children’s action or not. One of the biggest influences of children’s actions are parents due to the fact that their children look up to them that is why parents should be responsible for their crimes. In this essay I will be arguing that parents are responsible for the crimes of their children in particular behaviour, inadequate supervision and broken family structure.
Most parents do not teach their delinquent children discipline, appropriate manners and behaviour in the first place, without creating boundaries and rules for their children to follow at home and in public. They do not care about the types of risks their children face when committing crimes such as, graffiti etc. Victorian former police Commissioner Simon overland says, “Increased numbers of delinquents in juvenile justice systems is due to poor parenting skills” (Griffin, 2011). This could be a result of parents giving a lot of freedom to their children without consequences for their actions. When “Rarely disciplined …” children commit crimes against the law the first time and they get away with it, they “…learn to push the boundaries” (Griffin, 2011), because they start to realise, that what they are doing is acceptable and they do not face consequences for bad behaviour from ...
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...y who neither parents have criminal records have a very high chance of 76% for sons and more that 80% for daughters of not having a criminal record. More over a child born into a family whom both their parents have a criminal record is less likely to escape a criminal record, but more likely to have a criminal record for serious offence at 66.9% for sons and 43.8% for daughter” (Australian Institute of Criminology, 2011, para. 8.). Parents are responsible for the crimes of their children because when both parents are not paying attention and neglecting the child they end up committing crimes. The absence of a parent due to increase in divorce rates also contributes to children committing crime, because they may feel the support of both parents. This suggests that children will have difficulty adapting to the different rules and boundaries made by their parents.
Parents should be more involved with their children’s lives, and try to discipline and set rules at an early age. It is better for a juvenile to be confined rather than him/her influencing average teenagers to follow in his footsteps. It is a sad day when a teenager has to spend his/her days in a juvenile facility rather than outside enjoying his freedom and childhood. Children, who attend these programs and cannot cope with the challenges, can be easily abused. The risk in enrolling these teenagers into such disciplinary programs may either break them or make them improve their behaviors and quality of life. Teenagers who come out of these camps are stronger, disciplined, educated and even become role models to other teens can someday help other delinquents. In order to change someone’s life, one must first change his/her actions and
Hillian and Reitsma argues if one starts with the conceptual approaches to youth justice, parents are usually missing. When parents are added, there are different ideas about what can be expected of them, where they can fit, and what support there should be. However, in crime control approaches, there are high expectation of parents and punishments if they do not parent well and their children break laws.
...risberg, B. A. & Temin, C. E. (2001). The plight of children whose parents are in prison. National Council on Crime Delinquency. Available: F:USERSEveryoneWEBSITE ARTICLESChildren of Incarcerated Parents Newsletter.wpd
Almost half of all children in the US by the age of 15 will have lived with a single parent (Anderson cited in Barajas 13). In fact, father absent homes have a greater effect on boys than on girls (Mandara, Murry; Sigle-Rushton &McLanahan, cited in Barajas 13). Those teenage boys that are raised in single mother households in low income areas are more likely to participate in criminal activity because they receive less supervision, are surrounded by crime in their neighborhoods, and receive low education levels.
2006. “Disentangling the Risks: Parent Criminal Justice Involvement and Children’s Exposure to Family Risks.” Criminology and Public Policy 5(4).
The United States has been affected by a number of crimes committed by juveniles. The juvenile crime rate has been increasing in recent years. Everyday more juveniles commit crimes for various reasons. They act as adults when they are not officially adults. There is a discussion about how juveniles should be punished if they commit heinous crimes. While many argue that juveniles who commit serious crimes, such as murder, should be treated as adults, the fact is, juveniles under the age of eighteen, are not adults, and should not be treated as such.
In all Australian legal jurisdictions, children under the age of ten are considered to be too young to have criminal intent. That means, that children under this age cannot be held legally responsible for their actions. Australia is the only region in the world to have uniform legal guidelines on the lower age limit of criminal responsibility. (Weijers, Grisso 2009 p.45). Having the presumption that children under the age of ten are unable to know the law completely, therefore not being able to have mens rea, is in my opinion, necessary in our criminal courts. This essay will look at the reasons for the necessary use of the minimum age of criminal responsibility, such as the Beijing rules, the convention
Most humans tend to live by example and studies prove that our behavior is learned, but how do we explained the bad behavior of those that have good parents that are excellent role models. Some people would said that the parents are too flexible and the kids take advantage of them in the other hand when parents neglect the kids and are bad role models for their kids we easily find the answer to the problem. As a society we contradict ourselves for example; sometimes we tell parents to not be too flexible with our kids but at the same time we do not want parents to discipline their children too harsh. The question of why juveniles commit crime does not have an exact answer. Some juveniles commit crime because of peer pressure, anger against life, and others might be just do it for fun. Even though the question does not have a conquer answer to why juveniles commit crime we know that different factors contribute to the issue. In the book True Notebooks Mark the author did not only explain his personal experience as a volunteer teacher at the juvenile hall, but also what he learned from his students and how his perspective change regarding the juveniles as he spend more time with them. Mark also discover that even though he was not aware of it he was making a positive change on some of them and the fact that he was willing to teach them a writing class meant so much for some of the students, and most important Mark present on the book the different reasons juveniles commit crime.
Studies indicate that positive parenting, including normative development, monitoring, and discipline, clearly affects whether children will become delinquent. Adequate supervision of free-time activities, whereabouts, and peers are critical to assure that children do not drift into antisocial and delinquent patterns of behavior. Surprisingly, little is known about normative and moral development with the family as they relate to delinquency. Single-parent families, and in particular mother-only families, produce more delinquent children than two-parent families. Research indicates that parenting practices account for most, but not all, of the ...
Juvenile delinquency is one of the major social issues in the United States today. Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is when “a violation of the law committed by a juvenile and not punishable by death or life imprisonment” (Merriam-webster.com). Although we have one justice system in America, the juvenile system differs from the adult juvenile system. Most juvenile delinquents range from as low as the age of seven to the age of seventeen. Once the delinquent or anyone turns the age of eighteen, they are considered an adult. Therefore, they are tried as an adult, in the justice system. There are many different reasons why a child would commit crime, such as mental and physical factors, home conditions, neighborhood environment and school conditions. In addition, there are a variety of effects that juvenile justice systems can either bad effects or good effects. Finally there are many different solutions that can reduce juvenile delinquency. As a result, juvenile delinquency is a major issue and the likeliness of it can be reduced. In order to reduce juvenile delinquency there has to be an understanding of the causes and the effects.
A finding that emerges very strongly and consistently is that delinquents have very poor relationships with their parents” (Gove 303-304). The teens who commit crimes often lack a parental figure in their lives. These teens are not strictly overseen by their parents, and their parents rarely know what they are up to or what they are doing (Gove 303). “Poor parent-child relationships, lack of parental control, and erratic behavior of parents could be a product of juvenile misbehavior and the juvenile’s hostility towards his or her parents” (Gove 304). Teens that do not have a close relationship with their parents often resort to delinquency as a form of resentment. “The family as an institution plays a critical role in the socialization of children; as a consequence, parents presumably play a critical role in whether their children misbehave” (Gove 315). Parents play the biggest role in a child’s life because the parents have been with the child since birth. Parents shape, mold, and provide the foundation that a teen needs to make hard decisions and to live by a good m...
...ng up in a single-parent home (usually female-headed) is seven times as likely to be a delinquent. The rate of violent crime and burglary is related to the number of single parent households with children aged twelve to twenty. (1)In a new study of 72 adolescent murders and 35 adolescent thieves, researches for Michigan State University demonstrated that the overwhelming majority of teenage criminals live with only one parent. Fully 75 percent of those charged with homicide had parents who were either divorced or had never been married at all.( 5)
Loeber, R and Farrington, D (2000). Young children who commit crime: Epidemiology, developmental origins, risk factors, early interventions, and policy implications. Development and Psychopathology, , pp 737-762.
With more parents working today, one perception is that children are being forced to grow up too quickly, which could be why crime among the youth is growing each day. In the past it was thought that, “If parents raise their children properly, they will be law abiding citizens. In contrast, if a child does not behave appropriately, it must be the parents’ fault” (Nakaya 49), however this may not be the case. While there is not one single cause for juvenile delinquency, Graham believes that bad parenting falls somewhere on the list (1719). So the question arises, is it the child’s fault for the crime he or she committed or should the blame lay upon the parent, who if was present in the child’s life and instilling proper discipline, might prevent the crimes from happening at all. This is a somewhat complex question because in order to place blame or punishment on either the child or the parent several factors must be determined first, such as: what type of home life does the child have? Are the parents reliable role models for their child? Do the parents take every necessary action to ensure that their child knows right from wrong and is aware of consequences that may follow bad behavior? How much time does the child spend unattended and during those times are there options for the child to keep them away from unwanted situations? Does the child have any underlying mental or learning disabilities? What types of relationships does the child have at school? After all these initial factors are investigated and if the parent is shown to be doing everything possible to keep their child from doing wrong but the child still does so, would the blame lie with the child offender or with the parent?
Researchers show that a good percentage of adult criminals committed their first offence in their childhood, long before their first conviction. They could manage to escape notice by committing the first offence, which encouraged them to commit further offences till they were apprehended, tried and convicted. However not until we know the causes of delinquency, can measures for its prevention be suggested.