There has been mixed reaction to the effectiveness of compelling parents to pay for their children's crimes, writes Kitty Holland
If you have a child "that's running wild" they need "an awful lot of help," said one father during the week. Waiting outside the Children's Court, in Dublin's Smithfield with his son and former wife, he said it was difficult bringing up children in the part of Dublin they lived.
"You can't keep an eye on them 24 hours a day." His 15-year-old was facing a charge of driving a stolen car. "He's been a bit wild since he was about 10 - sort of had a mind of his own. We tried getting all sorts of help, going from place to place. He did get some counselling at the Mater and that helped, but then it stopped because they didn't have enough counsellors."
The father said he and his former wife had separated some time before his son began to "go wild" and that he himself had been a "very bad alcoholic". "It was very dysfunctional," he said.
Responding to reports that the courts were being called on to fine the parents of children who got into trouble with the Garda, he said it would be "pointless".
"Sure that would only bring more hardship on her," he said gesturing towards his former wife, "which would bring more hardship on him."
The provision empowering the courts "to order the parent or guardian of a child found guilty of committing an offence to pay compensation" has been in place since the Children's Act was signed into law in 2001. However, Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Willie O'Dea, has been promoting it this week.
There's a "great hunger" out there, he told The Irish Times, for holding the parents of child criminals accountable for the behaviour of their "young blackguards".
It has never been used but, says O'Dea: "I would like it being used in appropriate cases where there has been a failure by parents to control their children, and there are parents - I am dealing with every day in my constituency - who don't give a two-penny damn what their kids get up to."
The experience of those working with young offenders, however, is that in the main the parents care very much.
Sarah Molloy, a solicitor working at the Dublin Children's Court, says she has "yet to meet a parent who doesn't care". "The issue is that a lot don't have the capacity to stop their children going down the route that ends up here," she says, speaking in a small ante-room off one of the two court-rooms at the Children's Court.
"A good percentage are here just because of the area in which they live," she says. Speaking of "vast housing estates" she says the majority of children she deals with come from families contending with poverty and living in areas impoverished of services or any kind of recreational facilities.
"You almost never see a middle-class kid here, maybe one a month . . . Heads turn when one arrives," she says, "because they arrive with private solicitors and dressed in a suit."
Glenn Millar, manager of Tabor House, a residential centre in Dublin's north inner-city for adolescent boys with "problematic backgrounds", says those that get into persistent criminal behaviour come from "very stressed backgrounds, with a lot of poverty and deprivation".
"The enveloping culture, where criminal behaviour is acceptable among their peers, is a big factor." This, combined with poverty and "conditioned negativism learnt as young as four or five" gives rise to one of the most depressing factors he sees.
"The high level of fatalism is striking. They see older lads and see what they're involved in. That might be crime, substance misuse, a general disengagement from society. They see that and accept, expect that's all there is for them."
His staff get "huge co-operation" from the families, but he says that Tabor House deals with families who need far greater supports and services at ground level. Existing services are "over stretched" and "not working properly together". Waiting lists for social workers, psychiatric assessments and special needs assistants in classrooms all contribute to the "further damaging of an at-risk young person".
Molloy says she is "often amazed at just how good they are". She has had children who have suffered sexual and physical abuse as well as chronic neglect. She recalls a case where a family of young children were left to fend for themselves for several weeks by an alcoholic mother and a father in prison.
"They came to the attention of Garda because neighbours reported the children were feeding themselves out of bins. And these are the cases that end up in health board reports. God knows what we don't hear about behind closed doors."
The idea of fining the parents of their clients, say both Molloy and Millar, is "ridiculous".
"Something like that is only going to put their backs up," says Molloy. "It's more of the them-against-us, pitting the system against them when it should be trying to work with families. Fines would only enhance the sense of alienation."
Millar feels it would "just add to the despair and could end up damaging the parent-child relationship if the parent blames the child."
Others, however, including Insp Finbarr Murphy, deputy director of the Garda Juvenile Liaison Office (JLO), feel "there certainly is room" for asking parents, or even the young offenders themselves, to pay towards compensating their victims, "as long as it is done with common sense".
Insp Murphy says it is already common practice for offenders to make monetary or some other contribution as part of the "restorative justice" element of the JLO scheme. Young offenders were not predominantly from disadvantaged backgrounds, he added and were to be found "across the board".
When asked why young offenders from middle-class backgrounds did not then appear in greater numbers before the Children's Court, he went on to explain the JLO programme.
When a young person is caught committing an offence they are first referred to a Juvenile Liaison Officer who works with the parents, the school and, if necessary, social and welfare workers.
"The whole idea is early intervention to stop the young person re-offending. That is obviously going to be more effective where there is a solid family structure and support, and where there aren't other hurdles, like poor education and poverty."
Of the 16,487 referrals to the JLO in 2001, he said about 75 per cent did not end up in Court. And of those that remained in the JLO programme, 87 per cent did not reoffend within six months of the first offence.
Those that end up in the Children's Court have usually already been through the JLO programme. "They are the ones," said another JLO source, "the systems have failed."
"And it's probably going to be pointless asking the parents of those that do to pay compensation. Their situations are generally far more difficult."
To Molloy, the idea of fining parents is a populist gimmick. Policy makers, she says, appear unprepared to make unpopular choices that would involve investment "at base level".
"Fining these parents is like trying to move responsibility for poverty back onto the people who are impoverished instead of where it should be - with those who have implemented social policies that have so dreadfully divided society."