MAKING PARENTS RESPONSIBLE

The most dangerous animal on the planet is a juvenile human being and yet parents carry no responsibility for the control and behaviour of their juveniles. If my dog bites someone, I am liable for the damage. If my child trashes my neighbour’s car, I am not. This is a state of affairs that makes no sense. There is a simple solution to re-establishing parental responsibility and to inculcating respect for authority in children. It is to make parents civilly liable for the damage done by their children. When I mooted this idea to a group comprising police and social workers, their response was to point out how difficult enforcement would be. They entirely missed the point. Civilly liable does not mean criminally liable. If your child trashes my car, I sue you for the damage. I don’t present the criminal justice system with an extra burden of prosecuting a difficult matter. I go after the parent, in civil court, for the child’s behaviour.

There is much public angst about out-of-control children, anti-social behaviour and lack of respect for authority. One suspects that every generation of adults has thought the next generation to be that way. In the last three decades however, something has changed, and that is the child’s lack of fear of consequences. Many children under ten years old are fully aware that the law can’t touch them and many older children have no fear of the feeble public response to criminal behaviour. An ASBO has rapidly become a badge of honour.

Any experienced teacher will tell you that many children arrive at school already beyond control and the same teacher can spot the future problem children as early as five or six years old. This indicates that the damage has been done, and is being done in the home. Once upon a time, a policeman bringing a child to the parents’ door would be welcomed, thanked, and the child would be punished for bringing the police home. Now the response is, depressingly often, a vigorous defence of the child to the police, the parental attitude varies from ‘why are you picking on my kid?’ to ‘haven’t you got anything better to do?’

It would not take too long before parents, who realise that they will be hit heavily in their pockets, to start teaching their children to behave properly when out of the house. The children will know, soon enough, that home is no longer a haven from the consequences of their public behaviour. Parents will not long tolerate their children costing them time and money involved in being on the wrong end of an action for damages.

This means that respect for the law and behaving properly in public would be enforced, where it should be enforced, in the home, not in the criminal courts.

For this to work, one other thing must change in the law. Evidence gathered by the authorities, identification of children in a civil action, and the provision of past public records regarding a child’s behaviour, must be made available to the party bringing an action for damages caused by a child. Restrictions on publication of this information, outside the civil court, could be imposed if that is thought desirable. This information is essential to allow the Judge to assess the degree of parental negligence and to bring a properly constructed action.

This is a step that would, in a very few years, restore the education in, and enforcement of, acceptable standards of behaviour, in the home environment. This is the only place where such education and enforcement is effective.

There will be many who feel that this is draconian and that we might be treating children badly. They would be misguided in thinking that. The many failed attempts to deal with anti-social behaviour in the public arena, show the limitations of legislation in tackling the problem. The civil courts cost the tax payer very little, as they are funded by court fees, and are relatively swift in their action. It would take only a few years for sufficient precedent to be set, for most cases to be settled out of court. Enforcement would be as in any other civil judgement: failure to pay up will bring the Bailiff.

Simple isn’t it? With out a doubt it would be workable and it deals with the core problem of returning such basic child education and control back to where it truly belongs: In the home.