Should Parents Be Criminally Charged For Their Child’s Violent Crimes?

Highlights

Are we ready to start criminally charging parents who contribute to their child’s violent acts?

If so, we are about to undertake an unprecedented step with significant implications. 

Author

Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.

Retired federal senior spokesperson. Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention for the Department of Justice’s clearinghouse. Former Director of Information Services, National Crime Prevention Council. Former Adjunct Associate Professor of Criminology and Public Affairs-University of Maryland, University College. Former police officer.

Former advisor to presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. Former advisor to the “McGruff-Take a Bite Out of Crime” national media campaign. Produced successful state anti-crime media campaigns.

Thirty-five years of directing award-winning (50+) public relations for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed thousands of times by every national news outlet, often with a focus on crime statistics and research. Created the first state and federal podcasting series. Produced a unique and emulated style of government proactive public relations. 

Certificate of Advanced Study-The Johns Hopkins University. 

Author of ”Success With The Media: Everything You Need To Survive Reporters and Your Organization” available at Amazon and additional booksellers.

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Quotes

All quotes are edited for brevity.

Overview Of Crime Data

There is a comprehensive overview of crime data from this site, see Violent and Property Crime Rates In The U.S. 

Article

Per The Marshall Project, “In separate trials earlier this year, Jennifer and James Crumbley became the first parents in U.S. history to be convicted of involuntary manslaughter for a mass shooting committed by their child.”

“… they were each sentenced to 10–15 years in prison, the maximum penalty for the crime. Prosecutors argued the Crumbleys ignored urgent warning signs that their son Ethan was having violent thoughts, and that the parents provided access to the gun he used to kill four classmates and injure seven other people at his school in November 2021.”

Should Parents Be Held Responsible For Violent Acts Committed By Their Children?

There are endless references in criminological literature to the root causes of crime, principally driven by poverty or discrimination, inadequate schools, or the lack of economic opportunity. The “school-to-prison pipeline” has endless citations.

Others believe that the principal root cause of violent crime is family and community dysfunction. The belief is that child abuse and neglect powers crime and community influences exacerbate criminality which embodies the quote “It’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken men” by Frederick Douglass.

Those working with the offender population consistently refer to the difficulty of assisting or supervising people on their caseloads. They often refer to difficult offenders as “unreachable.” Successful former offenders refer to those devoted to crime as having “demons that can’t control.”

I did a series of podcasts with women offenders who all stated that they were sexually and emotionally abused as children. All insisted that the lack of loving parents and being sexually assaulted led to a life of substance abuse and personal crisis.

The Marshall Project 

“Legal observers have said that the facts of the case are unusual, (Jennifer and James Crumbley) yet many still wonder if it now sets a precedent for a “slippery slope,” where more parents could be criminally charged for what their children do.”

“Some worry that while the Crumbleys are White, an expansion of criminal charges against parents for the actions of their children would disproportionately affect Black parents or poor parents. That’s the concern in Tennessee, where some lawmakers recently introduced a bill that would fine parents up to $1,000 if a child commits more than one criminal offense.”

“At least one other recent school shooting case has also led to the novel application of criminal charges against adults. This week in Newport News, Virginia, prosecutors charged a former assistant principal with felony child neglect. The charges came after a grand jury report concluded that school administrators ignored four warnings from students and staff that a 6-year-old boy had a gun at school. The boy shot his teacher the same day. Like in the Crumbley case, the charge against a school administrator is believed to be the first of its kind, and prosecutors said Thursday that there could be more charges to come.”

“Deja Taylor, the mother of the child, was sentenced to two years for child neglect in December. The state sentence was in addition to a separate 21 months for federal crimes related to her purchase of the gun used.”

“In an announcement highlighting the arrest of 20 young people accused of crimes earlier this month, Baltimore City State’s Attorney Ivan Bates made a point to mention “parental accountability,” warning: “From here on out, if you are found to be contributing to the delinquency of a minor child, my office will look to charge you and hold you accountable.”

The Connection Between The Family And Crime

“The connection between family dysfunction and crime is not a new idea. Harvard sociologist Robert Sampson — whose work on the link between institutions like the family and crime spans decades — observed that “Family structure is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, predictors of … violence across cities in the United States.”

 “We find that cities with above-median levels of single parenthood have violent crime and homicide rates that are 118% and 255% higher, respectively, than cities with below-median levels of single parenthood,” Dallas News, Russell Sage Foundation

Lifetime of Violence In A Sample of Released Prisoners-The Boston Reentry Study

The Boston Reentry Study was an immersive, groundbreaking series of repeated interviews with inmates released from prison to the city of Boston.

“While respondents spoke about their own violent offending, they were frequently witnesses and victims of violence too.”  “Serious violence flowed through intimate networks as friends and family—for 24 out of 40—died violently through an accident, suicide, or murder.”

“…the main sites of violence—in the home, the school, the neighborhood, and the prison—reveal the influence of poverty. Home life was unstable, with adult males unrelated to the respondent often living in the house. We heard many reports of drug or alcohol dependence among the adults in the childhood home. Even in the most stable settings, mothers worked long hours leaving children unsupervised after school and in the evenings.”

82 Percent Suffered Serious Physical Or Sexual Abuse As Children

Per the Correctional Association of New York, “Estimates are that three-quarters have histories of severe physical abuse by an intimate partner during adulthood, and 82% suffered serious physical or sexual abuse as children.”

USDOJ

Researchers have documented differences in family histories of dysfunction, substance use, co-occurring disorders, and victimization, all of which are associated with criminal justice involvement. Histories of sexual abuse and trauma are especially overrepresented in the female incarcerated population.

Young Offenders Witnessed And Experienced High Levels Of Violence

“The survey confirms that most of our society’s children are exposed to violence in their daily lives. More than 60 percent of the children surveyed were exposed to violence within the past year, either directly or indirectly (i.e., as a witness to a violent act; by learning of a violent act against a family member, neighbor, or close friend; or from a threat against their home or school).”

“Violent offending was nearly three times as high for those who experienced childhood maltreatment (emphasis added) compared to those with no history of childhood maltreatment, and these differences continued from adolescence into adulthood.”

54 Percent Have A Serious Brain Injury

“…researchers have screened 4,100 people in jail, on probation or assigned to drug courts in Denver and five other counties to find out how many have traumatic brain injury — an impairment that could impact the likelihood of their return to the criminal justice system.”

“The results were stark: 54 percent had a history of serious brain injury, compared with 8 percent of the general population,” Denver Post.

Most Offenders Have Mental Health Issues

We’ve known since a 2006 self-report study that more than half of all prison and jail inmates have mental health problems. These estimates represented 56% of state prisoners, 45% of federal prisoners, and 64% of jail inmates, Crime in America.

DOJ Report on Substance Abuse

More than half (58%) of state prisoners and two-thirds (63%) of sentenced jail inmates met the criteria for drug dependence or abuse, according to data collected through the National Inmate Surveys (NIS). In comparison, approximately 5% of the total general population age 18 or older met the criteria for drug dependence or abuse, Bureau of Justice Statistics.

PTSD

There are articles about people who live in high-crime communities having PTSD because of their exposure to violence in their families and communities.  High crime area violence seems to be corrupting; it may influence people who can see violence as a necessary component of life, Crime in America.

Conclusion-Opinion

To many, there’s no doubt that parental dysfunction, neglect, and abuse contribute to children being involved in violent crimes. The question becomes, should parents be criminally charged for their child’s violent acts?

“Hurt people hurt people” is widely known by justice system professionals. As one parole and probation agent said, “They have chips on their shoulders the size of Montana.” 

At what point is the parent held responsible for a child’s violent acts? The literature is filled with female offenders having histories of sexual violence, often at the hands of someone they or their parents knew.

Are we going to hold parents responsible? Read any official record of someone in prison or parole and probation and you may see references to severe childhood dysfunction. I’ve read hundreds of “jackets” of offenders and it’s common to see multiple signs of childhood trauma.

Holding parents responsible for a child committing a violent act at 2:00 a.m. or possessing a gun or not going to school will challenge an overwhelmed justice system. We cannot do it without a significant infusion of funds.

Some programs sent social workers and nurses into the homes of troubled youth; most from “broken” homes. They were successful because they reinforced what it takes to love, support, and respect children in challenged households. Childhood trauma can “rewire” the brain, warns new research.