If a five-year old commits a crime, should his/her parents take the responsibility and how should the parents be punished? What should be the age of a child when parents no longer take the responsibility for his or her behavior?
I almost didn't believe it when I was told one wouldn't be prosecuted if he/she broke the law because ht/she was only ten years old. Frankly speaking, I was a little exhilarated because I had just had a fight with a classmate and would very much like to do him some damage. But I finally decided against this because it was morally wrong and my parents would be punished on my behalf. It is a universal practice that the parents take the blow when their underage children commit crimes.
As guardians of their children, the parents should be responsible for their children's behavior. Children below a certain age often rely on their parents to distinguish between the right and wrong. They are significantly influenced by their parents and often imitate them. Apart from educating their children, the parents are also responsible for keeping the kids from bad company, for counseling and helping their children at the first sign of trouble to prevent any rash actions taken by their kids. The parents' failure to prevent kids from breaking the law constitutes negligence in itself and should therefore incur punishment. If parents were not responsible for their children's wrongdoing, some criminally inclined parents may exploit this and force their kids to commit crimes on their behalf, availing themselves of kids' immunity from prosecution.
It is hard to determine the proper punishment for the parents. They are not the ones who are actually breaking the law. They are only partially responsible for what happened. Classmates, teachers, friends, and the society at large all contribute something to the going astray of those juvenile delinquents. The parents have jobs to do and cannot watch the kids 24 hours a day. Kids may turn criminals despite all the teaching they get from their parents; the reasons are many-fold. Parents should not be singled out to assume full responsibility. Hence, each case should be carefully examined before proper punishment can be decided upon.
It is actually hard to decide when a person can be seen as entirely independent. The age may be different for each individual. The commonly accepted age 18 probably applies to most people. It is an age when we are fully developed intellectually, mentally and hopefully, psychologically. We are supposed to be sensible enough to consider the consequences of our own behavior. But as I said, individuality should be taken into account when making this kind of judgement.
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