Responsibility and Rights: Children and Their Parents in the Youth Justice System

Abstract

Responsibility is one of the key themes to emerge from the reforms to the youth justice system that have taken place since 1998. Now, the child and his parents are responsible for the offending behaviour of the child. This article explores the nature of child and parental responsibility in the youth justice system. In particular it analyses the type of responsibility demanded of both child and parent, drawing on the work of Hart and Cane to provide a conceptual analysis of responsibility in youth justice. It goes on to consider the impact on the rights of the child and his parent of the mechanisms used to require responsibility from parents for their child's offending (such as parenting orders, bind-overs, and the payment of fines and compensation). It suggests that there has been a lack of conceptual clarity in government policy and that if the current scheme for demanding parental responsibility continues then better attention needs to be paid to the rights of both parent and child.