Over the last few years and especially in the last few months, I have been reading a lot of stories about youth crime, with some of it petty and some of it serious and incredibly violent. I have also read many stories where because the children are under X-age (depending on location), they have all the charges dropped and just walk away. Because of this, children are even being hired to commit crimes for a few dollars.
Today I was reading one from Australia where a small group of "blurred out" youths went through a supermarket destroying property, pulling things of shelves on to the floor and harassing customers. On top of the experience of the people they harassed, they must have done a few thousand dollars of damage at least. But who pays?
Probably taxpayers through insurance premiums and higher prices.
What I wonder is, if a child isn't responsible for their actions no matter what they do, who is responsible for the child's actions? By my calculation, it should be the parents, which means that any damage or crime that a child does, the parent has to pay the price for the behaviour. If a child breaks items in a store intentionally, the parents have to cover the cost. If a child assaults someone, the parent is put up on charges. If the child kills, the parent goes to jail for murder.
Sound fair?
Not really, since there are some messed up children despite having parents that have tried their best. However, there are a lot of messed up children who are that way because their parents are messed up too. If a parent is criminally responsible for the behaviours of their child, will that create more attentive parents?
Maybe, maybe not.
But at the very least, someone is responsible for the behaviours, rather than it falling through the gaps so that victims have no legal closure. At some point, we have to take responsibility for our behavioural outcomes, and this includes our parenting behaviours also. An absent parent used to be one that abandoned their children, now many are abandoning their children by running away to a screen instead, or using a screen as a babysitter.
Of course, this doesn't explain all of the youth crime, which I think is in large part to a rapidly collapsing society that has encouraged mental health problems, financial problems, identity class problems, environmental problems, education problems, emotional management problems entitlement problems....
And a lot more problems.
We have built a society that encourages the worst behaviours in us, not our best. We have made the easy option, the worst option. And we have taught people that they are what they say they are, even if their behaviours do not align with their beliefs.
We are in the last throes of humanity, and unless we change course drastically and quickly, the collapse is going to speed up and we will come to a violent and painful end.
And the kids know it.
But they do not have the skills to change it for the better. So they have become nihilistic, uncaring, disillusioned and violent. There is no better future for them that they can see, just continuing and increasingly intense suffering.
Speak of the devil....
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Be part of the Hive discussion.
- Comment on the topics of the article, and add your perspectives and experiences.
- Read and discuss with others who comment and build your personal network
- Engage well with me and others and put in effort
And you may be rewarded.
Yes, it's a collective responsibility... Parents, educators, government, everyone.
It is a collective responsibility. But the problem is that a lot of parents have come to see their children as personal possessions. Possessions that others need to leave alone.
I remember as a kid that adults of any sort could correct you. You didn't talk back either. If you did and your parent(s) found out, you got it good when you made it home. Bad behavior was rewarded with punishment of some sort. And it could be dished out by any well meaning adult.
Nowadays, God forbid you correct another's child if they are behaving badly.
I know that's so screwed up. The entitlement is crazy. I'll never understand that kind of parenting. I remember my boy being told off by a teacher in front of me for drawing a stick figure in pencil on the desk which he then rubbed out with his finger. No big deal. I told him to apologise to her (this was in front of me) and afterwards said look I know it wasn't a big deal and I'm not mad, and it was kinda stupid for her to get upset but it's important to respect other people and if it was important to her it should be to you. You don't know what she's going through.
Anyway, what a bitch, let's move on 🤣🤣
Yeah, this is true, and I agree with it in many ways, since many parents are terrible parents and I don't want their views and behaviours applied to my daughter.
It takes a village - but all the villages have been destroyed.
Yes very true. Not everywhere though and there's also some beautiful kids around.
The title caught my attention, but the reality behind it is even more poignant. We sometimes say they’re ‘the devil’ because they have that unsettling ability to lay bare our own weaknesses, our lack of patience or the flaws in our reasoning –that’s just how children are. That mirror they hold up to us is what’s truly terrifying.
I see Small Steps in your stories and it’s clear that, as well as being charming, she’s a force of nature. That ‘devilish’ spark is exactly what will enable her to navigate this chaotic world on her own terms later on. Parenting is, in essence, a high-stakes negotiation where the other party doesn’t play by the rules of economics, but somehow, we’re still right there in the thick of it. Blessings!
I hope so. She is very sensitive also though, and I feel that it might overpower at times when she needs to roll the dice and take a shot.
Yesterday I finished watching Adolescence the series, and it is much more uncomfortable to see children using violence than when it is adults who do it
This was such an incredible show ..
Indeed
It was a decent show. I loved the way it was filmed in one take.
I loved the 3rd episode
I think this issue is raising up everywhere not in limited areas or countries, I have seen some videos on same topic where young fellows are given some illegal tasks for some money and they did that.
I was like how someone can do something illegal just for the sake of some money? But this is happening now :(
I have heard of kids shooting people they don't know for a few hundred dollars.
That is very hard to believe, but "FOR MONEY SOME UNMATURE PEOPLE CAN DO ANYTHING".
Thanks to the various digital platform, that the kids were exposed too they show and taught them various cruelty in a manner that they assume it to be the best things. Like action sequence in movies ...they are so exposed and relieving on social media that they are not inna position to judge good and bad and at the end they mess things up. And the law of many country are not made for kods below 18 years. ...but the societybis at risk and so does we.
I don't know if they copy, or are just so out of touch with reality that they are unable to understand what they are truly doing.
In anime Monster the main villain managed to manipulate a orphanage(kids and adults) into killing each other. He himself was just a kid back then. This villain was compared to hitller at some point and if I remember right even called the antichrist. of course that may be an exaggeration. Still it is interesting how much evil can a seemingly innocent child make.
I wonder how many of the dictators, grew up torturing animals.
Sad to see many children are caught in a cycle of violence and crime, often as a result of their environment.
I wonder if they would be better off as orphans.
I don't think that we are in the last throes of humanity, I think that is how it has always felt to us aging folk that things are coming to the end that is why all the prophesies of end of the world throughout time. I think we are just facing our own mortality and projecting it onto the world...
Not so sure about that. Humanity might "survive" but what is likely to come will be so extreme, survival won't be much of a win.
Yes, what you wrote is true. Violence against children is caused by several factors, such as environmental, economic,educational,mental and other factors. There is a cause there is an effect, in my opinion because parental education is not correct. Meaning that children's basic needs are not met, such as clothing, shelter,food, education. So children are looking for their own identity. They hang out with the wrong friends and finally they commit crimes and so on. If caught by the police because the perpetrator is a minor, the police release him. And his parents are asked to make a statement signed by their parents. The child Will not repeat the crime again because the child is still a minor. Different countries may have different ways of handling crimes against children. Thank you @tarazkp.
This is the problem - they will keep on repeating and repeating, creating a pattern of criminality.
Yes, that's right, it Will create a criminal patten. In Indonesia, children aged 12-14 can only be subject to santions in the form of counseling,medical/social rehabilitation, or job training and cannot be sentenced to prison.
Children aged 14-18 can be subject to criminal sanctions in prison in special child development institutions. That's probably what I know. Thanks.
PS fantastic photo. She is so little here.
Such a cutie (imo)
I have a feeling the parents that try their best would probably offer to take some of the brunt of the punishment. They tend to be the good ones anyway. Despite the hand that has been dealt them. We've been starting to see a lot more parents being tried for mass casualty events their kids have caused. I think its important to look at all the facts and not just look for more people to blame as some victims do.
Thanks