Should parents be punished for the crimes of their children?

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Today with David McCullagh 13 min 3 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 4 months ago

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What are the proposed punishments for parents of delinquent children in the UK?

David McCullagh 0:00

Parents in the UK could face jail time if they fail to stop their children repeatedly breaking the law under proposals published by the government there. David Lammy, the UK's Justice Secretary, said judges will be given the power to hand down tougher punishments to parents and guardians of children who repeatedly commit crime. It raises questions about what level of responsibility, if any, parents should take when their children commit crimes. In a moment, I'll speak to criminologist Trina O'Connor But first to London-based journalist Vincent McAvinny. Morning, Vincent. Good morning. What's the current system and how is David Lammy planning to change it?

How does David Lammy plan to change the youth justice system?

Vincent McAvinny 0:37

Well, David Lammy, who is the Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, has introduced this Youth Justice White Paper. And you've mentioned there the sort of headline-grabbing announcement that there could be fines of up to £1,000 and new powers to jail parents in the most extreme cases under these parenting orders. to try to tackle essentially sort of criminal behaviour where a child is under 16, has been convicted of an offence, and in some cases even 16, sort of 17-year-olds as well, if they think it can prevent future offences. So what they are trying to do, they say, is that they're trying to boost the number of these orders being used. They say they have fall dramatically from more than 1,000 in 2009 to just 33 in 2023.

Vincent McAvinny 1:22

And they're also bringing in a sort of other range of measures that they want to look at. Much of it is about piloting these things called youth intervention courts, which brings together justices, youth services, specialist support and parents as well. So there is a kind of 360 approach to tackling what's going wrong early in people's lives.

What is the rationale behind holding parents accountable for their children's crimes?

David McCullagh 1:43

Now, I read an interview with David Lammy and he was talking about being a black kid growing up in Tottenham in London and being really conscious and fearful of the danger of being put in prison as a child. And I think part of the rationale for these reforms is to try to keep children out of custody. Is that it?

Vincent McAvinny 2:01

Yeah, that's right. They are trying to do that. The UK prison population as a whole is really a huge number. It's basically beyond the capacity of the prison's estate. So most sentences that you receive, you'll only serve about half of them in the UK now, some down to doing a third, depending on what they are. But part of what they want to do is reduce the amount of custodial sentences. They want to have community sentences instead. They say for some violent offenders, it is unavoidable there will be custodial sentences, but they want to end unnecessary remand in custody for children where they're put in prison, for instance, while awaiting trial or sentencing.

What evidence supports the effectiveness of early intervention in youth crime?

Vincent McAvinny 2:44

So they're hoping that they could reduce the youth prison population by about 20%, they say, if they scale back on how they're using it. And they're talking about using new tools, for instance, like electronic monitoring.

David McCullagh 2:56

OK, and I think the British government is highlighting figures showing eight out of ten prolific offenders in England and Wales committed their first crime as a child and two thirds of those released from custody re-offend within a year. So clearly what is in place at the moment is not working.

Vincent McAvinny 3:15

Yeah, that's right. And what they're saying is that they want earlier intervention, that spending this money now in trying to tackle this will prevent potentially decades or a whole lifetime of people having to sort of re-engage with the criminal justice system. And a sort of big part of what they're saying as well that's worth noting is that they're looking at sort of striking out youth offences from people's long-term criminal records. If you were having a difficult time at 14, you went off the rails and you did something, by the time you roll around to 24 and that's on your record, it can be preventing you from getting a job, even though you might have had a decade of being back on the straight and narrow.

David McCullagh 3:56

This issue of parental responsibility, Vincent, I think it was mentioned in the Southport tragedy where listeners will remember three young girls were stabbed to death.