Amid Melbourne youth crime wave, should parents of offenders be punished, asks Wendy Tuohy
THE idea that parents of serious, repeat-offender youths should be punished for their children’s crimes has some support, but is it really the easy fix it may appear, asks Wendy Tuohy.
Wendy Tuohy
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SHOULD parents of serious, repeat-offender youths be punished for their children’s crimes?
As community patience runs out with the estimated 500 serious young offenders active in Melbourne, talkback callers are suggesting parents be “jailed” for their teens’ crimes.
One man on the ABC called for parents of “young thugs” responsible for home invasions, car jackings and trashing the Parkville Youth Justice Centre — and who had therefore “failed society” — to pay.
If consequences no longer matter to their kids, impose them on the parents, he suggested.
This is not the way the justice system works, but reflects the depth of fury with its failure to bring this year’s youth crime wave to heel.
Support for keeping about 15 young people segregated in the Barwon Prison while the Parkville facility is repaired is loud on Melbourne talkback, despite a call today by the State’s Christian Church leaders today to remove them from the adult facility.
Catholic Archbishop Dennis Hart and Anglican Archbishop Dr Philip Freier have written to Premier Daniel Andrews condemning the move to put “vulnerable and impressionable” youths in the adult system, saying this could harm their welfare and chances of rehabilitation.
The same could be said for the suggestion their parents should be punished for having failed to raise functional kids.
As the religious leaders offering more pastoral support for these damaged — and damaging — youths have highlighted, it is more support for rehabilitation, not harsher penalties that will determine if they grow into worse criminals or better people.
Parents are absolutely responsible for instilling positive values in children, but for those traumatised themselves this poses much greater challenges than for the rest of us.
As the Herald Sun has revealed, some parents of African teens have taken the extreme step of sending boys back to the countries they fled, where there are male role models in extended family who may be able to manage them.
We know many families fleeing violence so extreme that most Australians cannot even imagine it have arrived in Australia without fathers, due to war.
Some mothers have told the Herald Sun how much and how hard they have struggled to bring aberrant young men under control without a male relative present to enforce rules.
Are we seriously suggesting jailing those mothers is fair, or of any use at all as a strategy to reduce youth crime?
Quite frankly, how bloody ridiculous.
Of course we all want an easy fix and fast answers, people are legitimately afraid for their safety in their own homes or cars and this is totally unacceptable.
But putting more supports around families dealing with the outcome of mental and physical harms is going to produce far greater benefits to the wider community than further marginalising already battling parents.
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