Do parental responsibility laws prevent delinquency? An international perspective.

Do parental responsibility laws prevent delinquency? An international perspective. Elizabeth Burney Hon.Senior Research Fellow Cambridge Institute of Criminology

Focus on parenting • Traditional importance of wise parenting • Modern demand for support and know-how • Government-sponsored training • Crime prevention is one aim

Poor parenting as a risk factor • Academic evidence that harsh, inconsistent or negligent parenting is a risk factor in delinquency • E.g. Farrington et al (Cambridge); Patterson et al (Oregon Social Learning Centre); Loeber, Pittsburgh study

typical quote: • ‘[Patterson’s] careful observation of parent-child interaction showed that the parents of anti-social children were deficient in their methods of child-rearing. These parents failed to tell their children how they were expected to behave, failed to monitor the behaviour to ensure that it was desirable, and failed to enforce rules promptly and unambiguously with appropriate rewards and penalties. The parents of anti-social children used more punishment (such as scolding, shouting or threatening) but failed to make it contingent on the child’s behaviour.’ (Farrington 2007}

Public opinion blames parents • 80% believe parents responsible for children’s anti-social and criminal behaviour • 53% thought that parents not bringing up their children appropriately caused anti-social behaviour • 55% thought that better parenting would do most to reduce crime • 80%agree that parents should be held responsible for the bad behaviour of their children and should be made to take help if need be. • (Government sponsored Mori opinion poll, Britain 2006)

Governments follow popular and academic opinion with PRLs • How far justified? • How far effective?

Two categories – civil and criminal • Civil liability demands parental restitution for harm or damage caused deliberately by children. Found in for example: • All or most states in America • 3 Canadian provinces • All or most Australian states • Enacted in Britain for parents of children too young to be prosecuted. Has been piloted. • Aim: better supervision.

PRLs in USA • Civil liability commonest. • Criminal responsibility at first limited to parents who had abetted child’s offence or been grossly negligent. Justification: child welfare. • Following California 1994 law directed at gang violence, in many states parents made answerable for not exercising sufficient supervision or control. Justification: public protection • Punishments range from small fines to imprisonment • Parental training sometimes part of sentence, sometimes alternative to.

PRLs in Britain(England and Wales: Scotland slightly different) • 1991: parents obliged to attend court with child; made responsible for children’s fines; sureties can be demanded parents can forfeit up to £1,000 if they fail to take care and control of delinquent children. Extended in 1994 to ensure child obeys order of court. • 1998 New Labour enacts Parenting Order (P.O.) A civil order which becomes criminal if breached. Parent of child convicted of crime or given ASBO or sex offender order; or parent prosecuted for not ensuring school attendance • gets up to 3 months counselling or training and may have other obligations for up to a year. Not automatic – court discretion.

Britain continued: • The new Parental Compensation order: • Parents not normally liable for harm/damage by children. This imposes liability on parents of children too young to prosecuted, but who have acted deliberately. • Aggrieved parties can apply to local council who will ask magistrates to make an order for payment up to £5,000 • Alternative methods of resolution, eg mediation, advised first, also means of parents considered.

Spreading the net • Growing emphasis on local agencies, not just youth justice teams, being qualified to applied for P.Os. Social landlords and schools. Teachers refuse to use POs for misbehaving children but schools do use voluntary agreements with parents, and fixed penalty notices for truancy. • Youth Offending Teams can now apply for POs if a child is believed to be anti-social or criminal but has not been brought to court.

Human rights? • 2003: a test case* declares although the PO is an infringement of private family life (Art. 8) it is justified as necessary. • It is not in breach of the right to a fair trial (Art. 6) as it is a matter of evaluation. *R(M) v Inner London Crown Court [2003] (EWHC 301 Admin

Other examples • Australia: Parental restitution laws in all states but research suggests little used or enforced • New South Wales and Western Australia have a version of the parenting order • Recent legislation puts parental responsibility in context of child protection • Netherlands Training can be enforced on delinquent families through welfare agencies, with sanction of reduced welfare cheque for refusal. • Belgium Controversial new law to be described by next speaker.

Justifications for PRLs. • Civil liability: probably OK if not a substitute for punishment. Means of parents and degree of negligence must be taken into account. • Criminal or quasi-criminal responsibility: • Demands greater justification • Least controversial where parent clearly connived at crime or was grossly negligent • More controversial where invoked as means of public protection with few defences available.

The Parenting Order and public protection • Not justified for following reason • The key flaw is that, although 10 years is the minimum age for criminal responsibility in England and Wales, it is also the maximum age for any soundly proven effect of parental training on the future criminality of a child. The test case which assumed otherwise was informed by government-sponsored research (Ghate and Ramella 2002) now admitted to be flawed. • Therefore there is no firm foundation for imposing P.Os for the purpose of public protection.

Early years parental training • In contrast there is a wealth of evidence from academic studies that parental support and training in earlier years (birth to eight) has benign effects later on, in educational achievement and criminal behaviour. • No comparable evidence for the parents of adolescents, except perhaps for a few very intensive studies, not widely replicable.

In favour of POs… • Evidence that parents forced to attend appreciate the training as much as those attending groups voluntarily. • Anecdotal evidence that parents feel less isolated, more empowered, and have better relationships with their teenagers • Relationships are important in promoting desistance. This effect needs testing. Nothing yet to prove it is the key to reducing crime.

Finally… • PRLs are a crude instrument for enforcing better care and supervision of children. Fall most heavily on poor single mothers. • Best when combined with support services and recognition of stresses which hamper good parenting.

And anyway…. • Despite all the rhetoric, PRLs are seldom firmly enforced or severely punished • relatively few imposed in Britain, and breaches are rarely prosecuted. Parents on POs greatly outnumbered by other parents of delinquents who attend voluntarily. • In US fines set low and often seen as not worth prosecution • Some evidence from Australia on non-enforcement on poor families.

Conclusion • PRLs are largely symbolic. • Public blames parents for delinquency and wants action. • But politically PRLs represent an upholding of values rather than a genuine tool of crime prevention.

Do parental responsibility laws prevent delinquency? An international perspective.