Authority, responsibility, and accountability. As I see it, these constitute the foundation of a sensible behavior structure. Whether it be running a company or a family. The parenting figure(s)must exert all three premises of behavior to their children as an ongoing, developing foundation on which the child eventually realizes his sense of right from wrong as he grows up into adulthood. Any failure to infuse mature praise as the child develops could result in the child to seek on their own behavior which may, on the surface, cause the child to believe he is doing good, but instead, may be doing bad. Suppose a child sees an adult type behavior which he sees as being acceptable to many, perhaps his own peers, and proceeds to imitate as a measure to seek praise or acceptance, not realizing that the act is unlawful,i.e. littering, trespassing, or driving without an operator’s license. Any one of the proceeding offenses my seem OK to do from the child’s perspective. A letdown in the display of proper protocols from parent to child could manifest unwanted habits to form in children and if further displays of bad conduct continue to be shown to the child, a potentially criminalized foundation could be laid.
Speaking from my childhood experiences growing up in an urban setting, I’ve seen good parents, that is they did the best they could have to raise their children up right only to have some of them wind up on the wrong side of the law. Yes, they were good providers of shelter, food, and clothing, but they fell short on displaying acceptable habits to their children when it came dealing fairly with others: cheating on their taxes;recieving too much change at the market for their purchase and not telling the storeclerk, just pocket the difference and walk out of the store; tossing litter out of the car as they drove down the street; and dozens of other bad habits that over time probably showed the children that this was OK.
The ownership of parenting has to carry over to the deeds of the children on their watch. Yes, including deeds that cross the line of civility to others.How much liability the parents should bear has to be dependant upon the severity of the malfeasance and, where applicable, any precedents or case law per statute.
As crime statistics pile up, more and children are perpretrating crimes once held as strictly adult offenses. In many jurisdictions, the sentencing procedures have not kept up with recent trends leaving many cases to be either reduced because local communities can’t or won’t sentence children to adult jails.To children whose dispositions follow a criminal bent, they often “work” the system, knowing they’ll do little or no time because of society’s unwillingness to properly sentence them. However, to children whose disposition is not of a criminal bent, they look to adult members of society to correct the system, but don’t see effective change.Seemingly good children can, often do, “turn bad” because of this, I feel. By not adapting proper punishment to juveniles who commit capitol offenses, and not having their parents “face the music,” we are letting down future examples of potentially good, solid citizens.