Parental responsibility is by no means an unbridled right. Rather it’s a legal responsibility to raise your children properly. The paternal duty of supervising your minor child reigns supreme when it comes to an act of crime done by any of your children. The court could sue the parents for not carrying the legal responsibility of raising their child properly if the minor is found guilty. So, it’s important to know what the parental responsibility law stands for in such cases.
Parental Responsibility Laws: An Overview
Parental Responsibility Laws indicate that parents are the legal guardian of their children and will invite charges for violating the paternal duty. As mentioned before, more than a sense of basic duty, every parent’s legal responsibility is to supervise their children correctly.
For example, if your minor children break into someone’s house with the intention of burglary, you can be sued as a parent. You can argue that you didn’t even know about the intention of your children beforehand and never had a clue about it. The court can charge you for neglecting your paternal duty.
According to the law, being a legal guardian of your child, the responsibility can be on your shoulders to control the movement of your minor child. This includes overseeing any criminal intention of the same. Multiple US states and California has proper laws regarding this to resist youth crimes, especially gang-related ones. The concept is simple. Parents would not receive punishment for committing their children’s crimes. Instead, the courts can charge them for the lack of supervision over the juvenile. The court also goes a step ahead to indicate that parents should ensure their children should be in the sphere of law, not outside of it.
Parental Responsibility on Status Crimes
There are cases where the US legal body has every right to hold you accountable if you are found responsible for encouraging your child to skip school or break the curfew laws. According to the US penal code, the act of skipping school or breaking a curfew qualifies as a status crime. A status crime is a prohibition that applies to a select class of people. Truancy is also one of such status crimes where parents can face penalization for not carrying the responsibility to send their children to school.
To ensure the children can get proper education is a fundamental duty of any parents. The only exception could be homeschooling that also needs to meet the standard defined by the state. The same applies to the curfew laws, as the motive of the minors might not be breaking the curfew. However, the parents must ensure that there shouldn’t be any curfew violation by their children.
Parental Responsibility on Contributing Crimes
Any adult can face charges contributing to a child’s delinquency. This applies irrespective of the adult’s status of being parent or guardian if the adult encourages or induces the youngster to commit a crime.
So, even if someone claims that they are not the child’s legal parents, they may still face prosecution in such cases. The act of negligent parenting has found another way to punish even if guardians(not parents) fail to carry out their fundamental duty of parenting their children.
Parents’ Reaction
Examples include the conviction of parents who claim that they were unaware of the action that led to the legal issue and penalization. However, courts tend to overrule these in most cases as the parental law states clearly that the parents need to be aware of what happens in their child’s life. This does not mean that the judge convicts every parent straight away when a minor is found guilty. But whenever someone enforces these laws, it also leaves a dubious effect.
Parental responsibility violation is a punishable offense that could lead you to prison. However, in most cases, a heavy monetary fine is all you face, besides a warning to avoid such slips in the future. Besides that, parents facing legal issues due to the crimes of their children need to attend education programs. These programs help them learn how to manage their children effectively. So, by no means can one ignore the basics of parenting, citing a mere duty of raising kids.