Juvenile Crime: A Problem Of Delinquent Children Or Delinquent Parents?

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Juvenile Crime: A problem of delinquent children or delinquent parents?
Dealing with juvenile’s who commit crimes is a major issue in our society today. In most states a minor is considered to be someone who is under 18 years of age. Persons who are minors do not have legally binding signatures, they cannot legally hold a job with out a parent’s permission, nor can they rent an apartment, buy a car, or have a credit card. They cannot vote, and no medical procedure can be performed on them with out parental permission either. Yet somehow, when minors commit crime they are punished as individuals whether it is in adult or juvenile court. Most states employ methods such as putting juveniles on house arrest, sending them to boot camp, or putting them on probation. As Rita Kramer puts it in her essay ‘Juvenile Justice is Delinquent’: “[The juvenile Justice system] was designed to function as a kind of wise parent providing rehabilitation” (Kramer 656). What about the juvenile offenders actual parents? If a minor cannot work or be operated on with out a parent’s permission why should they be punished with out parental involvement? Many minors do have “…families who undertake to be responsible for them” (Kramer 658) during house arrest or probation procedures rather than surrendering them to a state facility. Doesn’t’ it seem odd and even a little ironic that the parents “elect” to be responsible for their child while they serve their punishment for a crime? Weren’t they responsible for them before they committed the crime and during?
Recently, incidents of mass murder involving minors have been a major problem and tragedy. In places like Colorado, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Arkansas minors walked into a classroom and began randomly spraying bullets at their classmates. A tragedy like this is inevitably going to cause people to want to throw blame but doesn’t it seem odd that no one noticed any signs th...