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Should parents be held responsible for their minor children’s criminal behavior

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In this paper, Learning Team C will be discussing “Should parents be held responsible for their minor children’s criminal behavior? ” Parents should not be held any more accountable for the crimes of their children than children should be held responsible for the crimes of their parents. It does not make any sense to discipline one for the misconducts of the other. Nurturing is not a strict skill. Youngsters are not made of obots. Therefore, there is no particular method or outline for raising one’s children, who will promise that the child will develop up to be an accomplished resident that is a benefit to the public.

For one artless purpose people who also include children have a free will. Children are less likely to participate in criminal crimes. If they have a productive parent at home taking care of him or her. What children need at home is love, affection, comfort, and positive reenactment. Parents can do any and everything correctly but if the child is rebellion it is nothing the parents can do. Parents can seek outside help to help for their rebellious child. Most children act out because of the way they were raise up, or the people they associate with.

Most children who associate him or her with rebellious children tend to act out as his or her surroundings do. Children not held accountable for their actions will never learn the consequences for their actions and as long as they go around blaming someone else he or she will not stop those actions, either. If children are not accountable for what they do, they will continue to do so. Children only do what parents let them get way with. No matter how small or big it is any delinquency act should be handles accountably.

Everyone needs to be detain responsible for his or her own engagements; whether it is a parent who ensures that it happen discipline or society laws. A parent has the responsibility to know where their children are and to regulate his or her actions, but children also make his or her own choices, and a parent cannot always control that. Most states have passed laws stating parents are responsible for their children criminal behavior. With those laws puts more responsibility on the parents. The laws help parents maintain and become more supportive and in the child’s life.

If parents will be held accountable for their children actions they will be more careful and supervise them better. If children think that they could lose their parents, they would straighten up. The child could also be rebellious and in truth does not care what happens to his or her parents. To some parent’s responsibility is just welfare and making sure a roof is provided. To other parents responsibilities are nurturing, caring, loving, and providing needed necessities. What should happen to arents when they children commit serious crimes?

That is a growing question in the society we live in today. There is not right or wrong answer on this subject. Everyone has his or her own opinion on the subject. Each case it almost different and needs to be handled different, there does not seem to be any chance of a precedent set for this subject. When concerning to neglect and delinquents there could be some possible light shed on the subject. Looking at neglect first, this is a part of many children’s lives that most people are not willing to discuss.

If one looks up the word eglect in the dictionary it means; “1 : To give little attention or respect to: disregard 2: to leave undone or unattended to especially through carelessness”. (Merriam- Webster) Think about the meaning of that word for a few seconds; next think about the type of person who purposely neglects a child or young adult. Research shows that when a child is neglected they are most likely to travel down the path of a criminal before he or she are a legal adult.

Being abused or neglected as a child increases the likelihood of arrest as a Juvenile by 59 percent, as an adult by 28 ercent, and for a violent crime by 30 percent according to one study that looked at more than 1,500 cases over time (the researchers matched 900 cases of substantiated child abuse with more than 650 cases of children who had not been abused)”. National Institute of Justice, 2011) This stat alone shows the importance that children are cared for properly. Not only should children be cared for properly but also the supervision they are receiving needs to be examined as well.

When a child has a history of committing crimes, no matter how serious, it is time to start ooking deeper into why the minor is continuing to commit crimes. Most delinquent children do not Just develop these habits overnight. Their habits are formed over years of neglect and abuse. The abuse can come from a number of places such as home, school; peers Just to name a few. Delinquent children likely pick up these habits from their surroundings. “The Rochester study followed a sample of 1,000 urban youth over time.

Researchers found that childhood maltreatment was a risk factor for officially recognized delinquency, violent self-reported delinquency and moderate self-reported delinquency. Overall, child maltreatment appeared to be a risk factor for more serious delinquency, such as assaults, but not lesser forms of delinquency, such as underage drinking”. National Institute of Justice, 2011) This study only followed 1000 urban youth that is not a substantial number of children to follow, but it shows that there are underlying problems with delinquencies.

Just one study cannot be the precedent for change and more harsh penalties for Juvenile delinquents but it does show that more needs to be done to attempt to prevent such a high number of neglected children from ending up with a life of crime. Neglect and child delinquencies are becoming more of a problem than they ever have been. Many people ask why this is; perhaps it is because as our society becomes more advanced there are more stats and more people watching such activities.

Regardless, the truth is children are neglected and mistreated every day around the World. Solutions are everywhere; every other person has a different idea on how to fix the epidemic. The fact is nothing serious will get done to fix to problem until more punishment is given to both the delinquent and his or her parents or guardians. Even this solution may not be enough to entirely correct the wrong that has already been done. It is even harder with the violent movies and television shows programmed daily.

It is hard enough for a parent to police their children while they are not under their supervision, but it is equally as hard when they are with each other. All a child or young adult has to do is turn on the television to see abuse. Children are a sponge, whatever they are and hear they like to mimic. Children are the future of our World, what lasting impression will you leave on our future? In this aper we discussed if parents should be held responsible for their minor children’s criminal behavior, and we came to the conclusion that the answer to this question is no.

However, if a child commits a crime there is no doubt that they should pay the time, and unless their parents were involved than they should not be held responsible. Although, a parent does have the responsibility to be as involved in their child’s life as much as possible, this is very important and needed in order to try and have the most control over these types of situations. We cannot expect a parent to ake full responsibility of their child’s criminal actions, but we can expect a parent to teach their child right from wrong and continue these teachings as their children grow older.

Most people assume that when a child commits a crime that they automatically come from dysfunctional families, but there have been many incidents where children that commit crimes have come from stellar families, families that people would never imagine this could happen to. It is agreed that all children need attention, love and affection but most important a child needs their parent or uardian to guide them and be involved in their everyday lives.

When a parent does not make the time to do this, than it makes the risk of their child looking for attention in all the wrong places and possibly even doing things Just to get their attention even if it is negative. There are many circumstances that parents are faced with that may hinder the amount of time they can spend with their children; a few examples include single parent situations where there is only one parent involved in the upbringing of the children. Another example includes instances where the children are exposed to domestic violence situations.

The list can go on and on, and unfortunately there are many situations that parents are faced with that make it hard to find an effective solution. According to “The Heritage Foundation” (2013), “The heart of the explosion of crime in America is the loss of the capacity of fathers and mothers to be responsible in caring for the children they bring into the world. This loss of love and guidance at the intimate levels of marriage and family has broad social consequences for children and for the wider community.

The empirical evidence shows that too many young men and women from broken families tend to ave a much weaker sense of connection with their neighborhood and are prone to exploit its members to satisfy their unmet needs or desires. This contributes to a loss of a sense of community and to the disintegration of neighborhoods into social chaos and violent crime” (The Real Root Causes of Violent Crime: The Breakdown of Marriage, Family, and Community).

So even though parents should not be held responsible for their children’s criminal behavior, a parent should consider that their child’s actions can have a lot to do with what they learn from them. In conclusion, here really is no easy solution to this ongoing problem because it would be really hard to control how each parent raises their child. It is, however, important for every parent or guardian to keep in mind that their actions could have a strong effect on how their children behave as they grow up, and parent involvement can help a great deal in the effort to decrease criminal behavior in children.

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