The Unit­ed Na­tions Chil­dren’s Fund, UNICEF, has es­ti­mat­ed that more than one mil­lion chil­dren are be­hind bars around the world. Many are held in de­crepit, abu­sive and de­mean­ing con­di­tions, de­prived of ed­u­ca­tion, ac­cess to mean­ing­ful ac­tiv­i­ties, and reg­u­lar con­tact with the out­side world.

Many of these chil­dren—and adults who were con­vict­ed of crimes com­mit­ted when they were chil­dren—have re­ceived ex­ces­sive or dis­pro­por­tion­ate sen­tences that vi­o­late in­ter­na­tion­al law, which re­quires that im­pris­on­ment of chil­dren be in "con­for­mi­ty with the law and shall be used on­ly as a mea­sure of last re­sort and for the short­est ap­pro­pri­ate pe­ri­od of time".

—www.hrw.org

Pub­lic opin­ion

The Sun­day Guardian en­gaged the pub­lic via a so­cial me­dia poll, in which we asked if leg­is­la­tion should be con­sid­ered to al­so charge par­ents of mi­nors who com­mit crim­i­nal of­fences. While some agreed, oth­ers be­lieved it would be an un­fair ap­proach to take as all par­ents may not be de­serv­ing of such a dra­con­ian mea­sure.

•Jean Claude Lemieux wrote, "Yes, here in Cana­da par­ents are re­spon­si­ble of mi­nors."

•Chris­t­ian Pal­lai-Her­nan­dez thinks it is eas­i­er said than done. "Every sit­u­a­tion is dif­fer­ent, in some cas­es par­ents of these chil­dren were mi­nors when they had them and haven’t yet reached on sol­id foot­ing or ma­tu­ri­ty to rais­ing chil­dren. In oth­er in­stances a 16-year-old com­mit­ting armed rob­bery or join­ing a gang is at an age where I am of the opin­ion is good enough to make de­ci­sions on their own and as such par­ents don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly have that con­trol. To hold par­ents ac­count­able by puni­tive mea­sures, in my opin­ion, would just be mak­ing a bad sit­u­a­tion worse. My so­lu­tion to the prob­lem in these sit­u­a­tions is get­ting the so­cial ser­vices work­ing prop­er­ly again, backed by the TTPS and vary­ing NGOs. It is easy to cri­tique peo­ple when you are at a dis­tant and don’t know their sit­u­a­tion and say we should pass leg­is­la­tion. For me, new wine in old bot­tles nev­er fix­es any­thing."

•Mary Lee Quai is of the view that par­ents do not utilise enough of the re­sources avail­able to deal with their trou­bled chil­dren. "Par­ents should get help from all avail­able sources and they are nec­es­sary if they have prob­lem­at­ic chil­dren. They need to do what­ev­er nec­es­sary to straight­en the crooked tree be­fore it sets."

•Au­thor and ac­tivist Deb­bie Ja­cob, who work with in­mates, was ve­he­ment­ly against this the­o­ry. "Im­pos­si­ble! There are many par­ents who do try but can’t con­trol their chil­dren. And what a mes­sage to send to chil­dren..."

•Vernie Bish­op is al­so not tak­ing the "fall" for any "un­ruly" child. She re­ferred to the old adage, "you make the child but you don’t make their mind".

"I not tak­ing any jail if God for­bid my child re­jects the train­ing I’m try­ing to in­stil. Let them sit in jail and face the re­al­i­ties of a life of delin­quen­cy."

•Ken­neth Philips ar­gues, "The term mi­nors sug­gests that they are un­der the care and pro­tec­tion of some re­spon­si­ble adult. You are touch­ing the nerve of one of the ma­jor so­cial ills fac­ing the coun­try—delin­quent par­ent­ing. Laws are long over­due as is ac­count­abil­i­ty by child pro­tec­tion agen­cies, and the fail­ing court sys­tem."

The con­ver­sa­tion

Over a month ago 14-year-old Luke Williams was shot dead by a liquor store own­er, who claimed to have act­ed in self-de­fence af­ter it was al­leged Luke along with an old­er friend at­tempt­ed to rob the St James-based es­tab­lish­ment and al­so threat­ened to kill the own­er.

Williams' age and re­ports of him usu­al­ly lead­ing a "nightlife" as a dee­jay stunned many who were cu­ri­ous to know how the St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege stu­dent was al­lowed such "lee­way" with a par­ent present in the home—let alone a par­ent who is said to be a fe­male mem­ber of the TTPS.

The dis­cus­sion of ab­sent fa­thers and sin­gle moth­ers al­so arose, af­ter Williams’ school foot­ball coach, Regi­nald Chritchlow told Guardian Me­dia that he of­ten of­fered pos­i­tive guid­ance to the de­ceased and tried to be like a "fa­ther fig­ure" to him.

He said the teen had so­cial and do­mes­tic chal­lenges but with the right en­vi­ron­ment, he could have be­come one of this coun­try’s ace foot­ballers. And he even knocked so­ci­ety say­ing it should take the blame for hav­ing failed young peo­ple as rais­ing a child goes be­yond just "mum­my and dad­dy".

"It is the so­ci­ety that led to this. Now that is not to say a sin­gle par­ent can’t bring up a sin­gle child or more, but it’s not easy and can’t be done all the time," he ar­gued.

The ex­pert

On the ques­tion of whether par­ents should face the courts for their delin­quent chil­dren, so­cial work­er Al­soona Boswell-Jack­son said while on the sur­face many may re­spond with a re­sound­ing "yes", this sen­ti­ment should nev­er be gen­er­alised as each house­hold and sit­u­a­tion dif­fer from cir­cum­stance to cir­cum­stance.

She ex­plained that many par­ents to­day were deal­ing with a lot of is­sues. Start­ing with the nu­clear fam­i­ly, she point­ed out that while chil­dren who en­joy the pres­ence of both par­ents in the home are deemed 'blessed' and 'lucky' in to­day’s so­ci­ety, what’s wide­ly ig­nored is that these very par­ents are still grap­pling with adult is­sues such as eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty, emo­tion­al dis­so­nance, and age­ing in a tech­no­log­i­cal world.

She said par­ents of teenagers were strug­gling to keep abreast and up to date with the fast rate with which their teens and pre-teens are grow­ing while be­ing ex­posed to the in­evitable "beast" called so­cial me­dia.

"I have come across cas­es where chil­dren from nu­clear fam­i­lies, who were so­cialised in the strictest of ways with ab­solute im­pec­ca­ble morals and val­ues, were in trou­ble with the law and in­car­cer­at­ed. I have dealt with par­ents shed­ding foun­tains of tears while lament­ing that they both did their very best with the child to­geth­er and were ap­palled by the things he/ she did which they did not learn from home," Boswell-Jack­son said.

At the same time, how­ev­er, she did ac­knowl­edge in homes where dual par­ent­ing is ac­tive, that chil­dren may fare a bit bet­ter than those raised in a sin­gle-par­ent set­ting, par­tial­ly be­cause the tasks of rais­ing the child/chil­dren are shared, both ed­u­ca­tion­al­ly and emo­tion­al­ly.

"Sin­gle par­ents have it a lit­tle more chal­leng­ing in rais­ing chil­dren es­pe­cial­ly when they are the sole bread­win­ner and co-par­ent­ing is a dif­fi­cult feat to ac­com­plish. They too face the adult is­sues; grap­pling with try­ing to make ends meet, lit­tle or no fa­mil­ial sup­port, deal­ing with tod­dlers, pre-teens and teenagers, and all the psy­cho-so­cial changes that go with that. Not to men­tion, their own self-es­teem is­sues, de­pres­sion, des­per­a­tion, and ex­as­per­a­tion," Boswell-Jack­son added.

She em­pha­sised that sin­gle par­ents must be com­mend­ed for the man­tle they car­ry as they were do­ing 90 per cent alone that’s au­then­ti­cal­ly de­signed for two. She is al­so of the view that each par­ent pro­vides a unique role in the home and fam­i­ly and it must be un­der­stood that moth­ers can­not par­ent like fa­thers and fa­thers can­not par­ent like moth­ers.

"Hence, the rea­son you find that young men like Luke grav­i­tate to "fa­ther fig­ures" like his coach or even com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers who fill that aching void left by one ab­sent par­ent and the oth­er busy one. Then there are the is­sues of pover­ty and peer in­flu­ence," Boswell-Jack­son said.

She said even if "coach­man" was mak­ing the­o­ret­i­cal sense, the prac­ti­cal­i­ty of life sit­u­a­tions dic­tates that sur­vival means fore­go­ing what you know is moral­ly right for the sat­is­fac­tion of Maslow’s hi­er­ar­chy of needs, (a the­o­ry in psy­chol­o­gy pro­posed by Abra­ham Maslow in his 1943 pa­per—A The­o­ry of Hu­man Mo­ti­va­tion Psy­cho­log­i­cal Re­view).

Boswell-Jack­son said she was a firm be­liev­er of telling both adults and chil­dren alike that they are free to choose, but they are not free from the con­se­quences of their choic­es.

Boswell-Jack­son said there was no one way to mea­sure whether a child is plain stub­born or in­flu­enced the wrong way. But ul­ti­mate­ly, it will be un­fair for her to 'side with the mass­es that cry a re­sound­ing 'yes', that par­ents should be held ac­count­able for the crimes their chil­dren com­mit.

"We as a so­ci­ety need to bring back the vil­lage rais­ing the child" men­tal­i­ty, and the vil­lage does not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean a com­mu­ni­ty of res­i­dence, but al­so a church, women’s groups, vil­lage coun­cils, youth groups, PTAs etc."

Priest: Let go of the 'ego dra­ma'

Fa­ther Robert Chris­to, head of com­mu­ni­ca­tions at Arch­bish­op’s house be­lieves it is the con­tin­ued prac­tice of "self­ish­ness" that has caused such a break­down in fam­i­ly life. He ad­vised it was time for so­ci­ety to let go if its "ego dra­ma" and em­brace "theo-dra­ma" (the act of self­less­ness), in or­der to heal the fam­i­ly, our chil­dren and the na­tion.

"Chris­t­ian val­ues need to be re­in­stat­ed in homes be­cause at most all the child needs, is right­eous liv­ing and good ex­am­ples in a God-cen­tered home.

"What we must love is the will of God and love of hu­man­i­ty…love what God loves, love for fam­i­ly in which case the fam­i­ly be­comes the first church."

He said to re­claim that sense of fam­i­ly and love for mankind we must move away from our "ego dra­ma” to our "theo-dra­ma".

He called on par­ents to work with and stay with their chil­dren, re­gard­less of how chal­leng­ing it might be.

He not­ed that peo­ple must un­der­stand that it is God who is the au­thor and fin­ish­er of their faith and it was not them who were the writ­ers, pro­duc­ers, and ac­tors of their lives, as their life be­longs to God and not them.

Asked if we were far from re­claim­ing "fam­i­ly life", Chris­to said that with our very na­ture which breathes the ter­ri­ble "Ps"— pride, plea­sure, prof­it, pos­ses­sion, pow­er and pres­tige—it would take time, and not just time but sub­ject­ing our will to God’s will.