The law and children

[Pixelpeep]

As i'm still restricted to post in the Speed, plod and the law section i thought i would plop this here - mods feel free to move (or upgrade me lol)

After reading this story in the countries leading intelligent news paper > http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4411429/... it lead me to wonder why we can't use the 'seatbelt' law for children caught breaking the law.

For example, someone 14 or under commits a crime, their legal gardian (parents/whatever) get tried for the crime. I think it might give all this idiot parents who believe teaching right and wrong to their children is optional a kick up the backside as there will be a genuine consequence TO THEM if their child breaks the law.

I get that it would need some fine tuning and probably couldn't be used as black & white as i have described but what do you think as a starting point?

[Watchman]

Couldn't agree more.

[Pixelpeep]

well i thought it was a good idea as well lol!

[Bill]

Because plenty of kids would work the system against their parents.

[toon10]

This seems like a good idea to capture the idiots who breed and don't nurture. Unfortunately, there are far too many cases where it would be totally unfair to parents.

I commited a crime when I was 12 which I am not proud of in the slightest. My parents brought me up absolutely brilliantly. Lots of love and support, helped me through university. Helped me furnish my first house. They are good honest hardworking decent people. It would have been a total travisty if they recieved any pubnishemnt for my crime. A lot of good kids from good backgrounds do silly things from time to time.

If you brought a child up well and they did something out of character that you had no knowledge of then you wouldn't deserve to get punished.

[UF]

Bill said:

Because plenty of kids would work the system against their parents.

Better that than the system working against the rest of us.

[Bill]

UF said:

Better that than the system working against the rest of us.

See also Toon's post above.

Unfortunately by the time kids are old enough to do significant crime it's far too late for the parents to rein them in as all respect is long gone.

[Derek Smith]

toon10 said:

This seems like a good idea to capture the idiots who breed and don't nurture. Unfortunately, there are far too many cases where it would be totally unfair to parents.

I commited a crime when I was 12 which I am not proud of in the slightest. My parents brought me up absolutely brilliantly. Lots of love and support, helped me through university. Helped me furnish my first house. They are good honest hardworking decent people. It would have been a total travisty if they recieved any pubnishemnt for my crime. A lot of good kids from good backgrounds do silly things from time to time.

If you brought a child up well and they did something out of character that you had no knowledge of then you wouldn't deserve to get punished.

Don't knock yourself out. It is quite common. Kids, regardless of their upbringing, don't really develop a sense of what is and what is not acceptable until they get in their teens. You would not not believe the number of times I have returned kids to really nice houses to confused parents. Often the kid is confused as well.

I've done one or two things in my youth that I would not recommend. I can't understand why I did them. I've burnt down three blocks of tenaments, somehow managed to derail a railway truck and sunk a small boat, albeit on that wasn't destined for floating for much longer. I've fired a rocket at a bus. It went up the stairs and exploded on the top deck. Then it was fun. Now I am aghast at my behaviour.

Nowadays, if I'm given too much in change I'll return to the shop/whatever and give it back. Of course I would. And it has been some weeks since I've fired pyrotechnics at buses.

I hope kids will always be kids. It is a fallacy to suggested that only kids from deprived backgrounds do bad things.

I think that the current criminal system makes too much fuss of kids misbehaviour. Our local bobby came round to our cubs scout meeting, called me out, thumped me in the head, then walked out. He knew who had fired the rocket.

[UF]

Derek Smith said:

I think that the current criminal system makes too much fuss of kids misbehaviour. Our local bobby came round to our cubs scout meeting, called me out, thumped me in the head, then walked out. He knew who had fired the rocket.

Do that today and it's good bye Mr Pension.

The problem is that power taken from parents, police & other figures has now ended up in the hands of the kids.