Milwaukee proposal targets the disease, not just the symptoms.

Asking parents to do their job

It has been said that since one must obtain a license to drive or to cut hair, it would make sense to require a license for a much larger responsibility — having children.
The ACLU's lawyers would be all over that, one may assume.
So perhaps the next best alternative is to hold mothers and fathers accountable for the misdeeds of their minor children. The city of Milwaukee is considering an alderman's proposal to do just that.
Alderman Robert Puente is tired of putting up with problems caused by wild kids. He has introduced a measure which would levy fines on the parents of kids who repeatedly cause trouble. The proposed ordinance was revised to meet legal niceties by the city attorney's office. It was recommended by a 5-0 vote in the Public Safety Committee, and now goes to the Milwaukee Common Council.
According to a story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the measure would provide for fining parents of children 17 and younger. A second offense within six months, or three within a year, would result in fines ranging from $200 to $400. The fines would not apply if the parents were the victim of a child's criminal incident, or had reported the trouble to the police themselves.

The idea is to force parents to be accountable for their kids.

It is not our intention to absolve rotten kids of responsibility for their own bad behavior. A key lesson which must be learned along the way to becoming a responsible adult is to accept the consequences of one's own actions.
But children are not born bad. Some have privileges others do not. Some have the natural gift of intellectual agility. But every kid has the innate ability to choose between right and wrong.
The big difference-maker is the home environment, where youngsters either receive good guidance and discipline, or they do not. Some kids not only are denied guidance, they are subjected to the bad behavior and bad decisions of adults in the home. When these kids go bad it is not the fault of the schools, or the police, or the Easter Bunny. The grown-ups at home have failed the kids.

Recognizing that failure through the law makes all sorts of sense. Maybe, just maybe, it would make some parents take the job more seriously.

6 June 2005

http://www.beloitdailynews.com/articles/2005/06/06/editorials/edit01.txt

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