NCJ Number
155441
Date Published
1995
Length
4 pages
Annotation
The British government's policies emphasizing fines against parents and binding over of juvenile offenders to the care of their parents is likely to produce injustice, to place struggling families under even greater stress, and to increase rather than reduce the problems that promote juvenile delinquency.
Abstract
The Children and Young Persons Act 1933 was the first to enable courts to require parents to pay fines imposed on juvenile offenders. The Criminal Justice Act 1982 went further and required courts to pay the fines for youths under age 16 unless this would be unreasonable in the circumstances or the parent or guardian could not be found. The Criminal Justice Act 1991 introduced a new requirement: the court must bind over the parent or guardian to take proper care of the juvenile offender. The parent forfeits up to 1,000 pounds if the child reoffends. Although the parents consent is required, parents actually have little choice in the matter. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 extends the bind-over provisions by empowering courts to require that parents or guardians ensure that the youth complies with the requirements of a community sentence. However, the most successful approaches to reducing juvenile delinquency in recent years have been intensive intermediate treatment, which involves juvenile offenders in constructive programs of supervised activity. Many involve parents as well.