Families should be held responsible for crimes committed by teenagers - Essay Example

It comes with no amazement to anyone who has had the opportunity to interact with adolescents that notwithstanding their wish to be treated like adults, they are intellectually immature in several vital ways. They are undeveloped and have not grown a coherent sense of self. Scientifically their mind is relative humble thus make their decisions to questionable. They may engage in risky behavior or act in reckless manner. This is due to poor decision making for they tend to process information less thoughtfully in the real world.

Do parents have several responsibilities? Parental responsibility is a heavy load to bear; this is because parental responsibility is both legal as well as instructive. This means the parent is not only charged with the duty to educate the child but also to see that he adheres to the codes of conduct of the law (Archard & Mcleod, 2002). States such as the USA have developed laws to hold parents criminally responsible for the mistakes of their children. This has provided the state with the mandate to jail parents or even offer them community service.

This article sought to answer the question posed if parents should be held responsible for crimes committed by their teenagers. . The only exception arises when an individual manipulates a teenage brain to commit a crime. Parents have such influence in their teens especially those above 16 years. With this knowledge parents can be qualified for criminal intent. There is a notion that parental behavior is usually related to the child’s behavior. This is has been a dilemma to many, to prove that it indeed there is some truth in the statement.

Hypothetically speaking had the parent acted differently would that have altered the child’s outcome or parents conduct led to the criminal behavior of the child. Blustein in his study reported that teenagers lack the autonomous, aptitude required to for acting on one’s own interest. Thus guardian is granted the mandate to act on their behalf. This will help the child in his growth to adult hood. It goes further to expound that teenagers lack the intellectual capacity to differentiate between what is right and wrong.

These moral obligations hold that they should be held responsible for the child’s action. With this knowledge parents are not held accountable on the fact that, the neglected their parenting role but for not inhibiting harm to the third party. They are assigned with this role for it is paramount that at a point in life the teenage will be likely to harm others, or there’s considerable risk they may do so. Should regulations be used to help fight crimes? St. Clares shores states that “parents should employ certain regulations to bar the child committing delinquent act”.

This implies that the house the child is residing should be free of illegal fire arms, drugs and also impose curfews on the child. The rationale behind this is that they lack