Push to make being a bad parent a crime

So, if being the parent of a juvenile offender is a crime, does that mean it's no longer a crime once the kid turns 18? Then parenting is off the hook? How does that work?

I mean, if a person is responsble for raising a 15-year-old killer, then aren't they equally responsible for raising an 18-year-old killer? Or 21? Or 30? How is a parent supposed to know ahead of time that their child could commit murder? Not every murderer starts out by drowning kittens. Many of them give no warning whatsoever beyond the antisocial tendencies of the average teenager. And what are they supposed to do, lock them up? That's going to get CPS on you for sure.

I feel sorry for this man. Losing a child to a senseless crime is a tragedy beyond measure, but criminilizing parenting is not the answer.

This guy needs grief counselling not a lawyer

So long as their case is that no one can be born abnormal, it does not have a leg to stand on. Both in theory and in practice, while rare, people can in fact essentially be born callous sociopaths inclined towards violence. In which case their parents can do everything reasonable to provide a good environment and still fail.

Jack Asher said:

So who decides which parenting practices are illegal and which are legal?

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And this really is what it comes down to.

What makes a 'bad' parent. Most of us could be accused of it by someone else who doesn't do things the same way we do.

I know that my ex thinks I'm a bad parent because I let my 7 year old daughter handle knives (with supervision of course, I'm not an idiot. but I figured it was better for her to learn how to use a knife rather than risk an accident through ignorance. and the extra help in the kitchen is awesome). Does that mean that she's going to go out an butcher a load of other people? And if she DID can me showing her how not to cut herself when slicing chicken really be responsible for whatever is wrong in her mind that she would do that?

I just think it'sa very slippery slope - after all, parenting isn't a tick box exercise. Sometimes there is no right and wrong, and a million shades of grey in between.

Celia Cyanide said:

It's just difficult, though, because how do you see "warning signs" that your fifteen year old son is going to kill someone? We do know that some kids that age are capable of killing, but it's not something we ever expect, even from kids with severe behavioral problems.

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Worse than that is that there's nothing you can do about it unless this law is going to advocate putting a pillow over the kid's face while he's sleeping. I know a family who has, for years now, been concerned that their son might kill someone. There's absolutely nothing they can do about it.

He's been committed three times when he was psychotic, but when he calms down and gets back on his meds, they have to let him out. (He's a grown man now.) We don't live in 'Minority Report'. You can't punish people for crimes they haven't committed yet. But hey, I have an idea. Why don't know we simplify the tax code and employ all the excess accountants and lawyers as round-the-clock babysitters for the dangerously disturbed?