Holding Parents Responsible—An Unfair Punishment
The rise in teen crime suggests that some parents are failing at their parental tasks. To correct the problem, lawmakers in some states require parents to serve jail time. They hope that this punishment will motivate parents to take their responsibilities seriously.
Despite public support for parental responsibility laws, many people think that the laws are unfair. They suggest that parents should not be punished for the criminal acts of their children, unless it can be shown there is a related fault on the parents' part. For example, if young teenagers are arrested for drinking alcohol supplied by parents, then parents should be held responsible because they helped the teenagers break the law. People who oppose parental responsibility laws also believe that punishing parents is unlikely to create a change in the kids' behavior. These people argue that parents may not be at fault. The children of good parents can fall in with the wrong kids and get into trouble, they say. Worse yet, if mom is in jail, there may be no one at all to control her kid. That lack of control may then lead to more crime.
The unfortunate fact is that jailing a mom or dad punishes the rest of the family. The jailed parent cannot work to help feed the family or pay the rent. A parent who is sent to jail for the crimes of a teenager may also be fired from a job for missing too much work. Furthermore, little evidence exists to support the idea that the threat of punishment improves a parents' ability to control a teenager. The problem is that some teens cannot be controlled by their parents, even if the parents try hard to control them. These struggling parents are not ignoring their parental responsibilities. Opponents of parental responsibility laws say that parents who are in this situation need help, not a jail sentence.
