so the new suggestion here is to maybe punish parents for crimes done by their underage children. Surprisingly a quick poll the news station ran on this showed that 70% was in favor of this.

My question is: do you think this is a good idea?

I think that they should be because you are responsible for them until they turn 18 years old. I know I see kids all the time 6 and up roaming the streets and know for a fact that there parents have no clue what they are up to. I have kids in my own yard playing that are six and seven and they don't have to check in for four hours. That amazes me.

I think a parent should be responsible for their kids crime. And they should be punished. Parents should be watching their kids and making sure that they know right from wrong.

oki but how do you go about this? Say a 15 year old boy are allowed to stay home alone on night when his parents goes out. He ends up having a huge party where he and his friends are vandalizing the neighborhood. Police are called and the boys also vandalize the police car.

So what punishment should be given for this? Should the boy and his friends be punished at all or just the parents?

In some states, parents can only be sued if the child meant to be of harm, such as vandalizing. If it was an accident, such as falling from a bike and denting a car, the parents aren't necessarily to blame.You would think parents would want to pay for such damages their child did. In some states, parents are liable if they aren't supervising their kids. This doesn't mean when they are at work, but, like a neighbor of ours did, she left her three teenagers home over the weekend while she was elsewhere. You can imagine the fiasco! Blasting music all night long, etc. I quickly learned the right thing for prompt attention from the police: "There are unsupervised teenagers next door.."The upshot of the whole thing was when the teens lit some fireworks in the house (drunk or stupid? It doesn't really matter). The cops arrived two minutes after I called, and within a week the poor woman was moving house.

Originally Posted by riskey58

I think a parent should be responsible for their kids crime. And they should be punished. Parents should be watching their kids and making sure that they know right from wrong.

I think so, too. I think that too many parents are oblivious and way too trusting when it comes to kids, especially teens. Like if I go out and leave a teen home alone, I'm going to have ways to check to make sure they're not getting into mischief... even if it's having a neighbor call me if something doesn't look right.

I agree if I let my 15 year old son home alone you can bet that I would have some way of checking up on exactly what he is doing. Now if for some reason he did do this then sadly I would say that I am responsible as his parent to pay for any damages. But he would also get what ever was coming to him from the law and me as his parent.

Originally Posted by tater03

I agree if I let my 15 year old son home alone you can bet that I would have some way of checking up on exactly what he is doing. Now if for some reason he did do this then sadly I would say that I am responsible as his parent to pay for any damages. But he would also get what ever was coming to him from the law and me as his parent.

Absolutely! And at that age, it wouldn't be such a bad idea to have the teen work somewhere to pay parents back for the damages and court costs they probably had to pay.

Yes, actually I agree with it. There is also a possibility that the children will avoid making these crimes once they know that it could be their parents who will fry once they commit these crimes and get caught, because usually kids don't get scared if it is themselves who they put on the line, but probably the thought of their parents getting punished instead of them will probably have more of an impact on their side.

In the UK parents can be put in prison if their children truant. I think this is a good thing because it forces the parents to put more effort into disciplining their child and making sure that they get them to school. I think that parents should be held responsible for their children unless they can come up with a good case as to why they cannot be.