When Should Police Get Involved in Juvenile Crime?

**amykhar** · #1 10-09-2007, 06:06 PM

I just read a story about 5 kids attacking an autistic boy. The school suspended the kids, and now the police are involved.

Police investigate alleged assault, taunting of autistic boy - Boston.com

Now, I'm not concentrating on this incident, but thinking more broadly. Kids do stupid stuff all the time. Kids fight and pick on one another. And I'm certainly not defending any antisocial behavior or saying that kids will be kids.

But, kids do trespass. Kids do fight. Kids do damage personal property. And, when I was growing up, the school and parents dealt with it. We were suspended, grounded, made to pay restitution, forced to apologize and take responsibility for our actions. No police. No charges of assault or trespass. Unless we shoplifted or burned things down or caused significant damage, no police.

Furthermore, it seems that getting the police and courts involved puts the parents in the odd position of having to defend their kids to prevent a too severe punishment. Instead of the parents sending a clear message that the behavior is not all acceptable, the kid sees the parents making justifications for what happened and why.

Now, I can understand schools getting cops involved if the kid has parents who are obviously neglectful or unconcerned when a kid gets out of control. For example, some of the kindergarten kids who ended up in handcuffs after mom told the school to deal with the kid kicking, biting and hitting and to leave her alone. But, in normal families and school systems with responsible adults, when should police be involved and when should it be left to the old fashioned family and school discipline?

**amykhar** · #2 10-09-2007, 06:10 PM

Another case where the police are involved:

The Ledger Independent - Maysville, Kentucky

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #3 10-09-2007, 06:22 PM

In my experience, the police can be called to take control of a situation, but what happens to the kids involved in the situation can change based on things such as their age, their maturity (ability to determine right from wrong, understanding of consequences of their actions, etc.), prior records, and the like. States can set age limits below which a child cannot be charged in the adult system, or determining what punishments are allowed. In New York State, the Office of Children and Family Services and the local districts can release children to their parents' responsibility, refer children to county probation programs, place children in non-secure detention facilities, place children in foster care facilities (non-secure detention with treatment component), place youth in secure detention facilities, or adjudicate them as adults. Much of what happens depends on the child's age, the crime committed, how the prosecutor wants to apply the law, and what the judge (criminal or family court) wants to do with the youth.

**amykhar** · #4 10-09-2007, 06:30 PM

But, is it really necessary to get the courts and police involved in school yard fights and other similar incidents at all if the parents and school are already imposing reasonable discipline?

**hadassahchana**[$] · #5 10-09-2007, 06:38 PM

I read a couple of odd things in newspapers in the UK recently which sort of go along with the ones you posted. One involved a child being arrested for throwign a sausage at a very elderly neighbour. All of the papers were making fun of the arrest and the judge threw it out with a few snarky comments to the old man. However, according to his daughter the sausage was the last straw, the kid had thrown garbage all over his lawn, had stolen his milk frequently (from the front porch) and had banged on his windwo after the man would go to bed. So, although my first reaction was that it was just a sausage, after I read all that I felt really sorry for the man.

The boyu's parents said they punished him after each thing he did to the old man, but it obviously wasn't working, so at that point, I think that maybe a trip to court with some sort of social services involvement would be justified.

With the autistic kid, they threw him on the ground and five of them were kicking him. If they'd been three or four years older they could easily have killed him, so IMO the police ought to be called and the kids permanently suspended from that school district. That isn't just kids being kids (I hope!) but a level of criminal behaviour that I don't want tolerated.

**amykhar** · #6 10-09-2007, 10:35 PM

So, you vote for police involvement for repeat or extreme offenses? That's reasonable.

Here's one. A kid lights a rubber band on fire and throws it down. It lands near another kid who picks it up and flicks it away from him. It hits another kid's shirt and burns a small hole in the shirt. The kid whose shirt was burned calls the cops and the cops threaten the kid who flicked it into the other kid's shirt with assault. Justified police involvement?

**jgibson2**[$] · #7 10-09-2007, 10:45 PM

The real issue, IMHO, is that this DID NOT HAPPEN AT SCHOOL. The kid was on his way home. The school suspended the kids - and I'm not sorry they did - but I'm not sure they have jurisdiction unless the incident started on the schoolbus and continued after they got off.

**amykhar** · #8 10-09-2007, 10:57 PM

OK, but again, police or parents? If this had happened 30 years ago, I am not certain it would have gone to the police first. The first step would have been with the mom of the injured child calling the parents of the offenders and those parents punishing the heck out of the kids. Police would have been involved if that didn't stop the problem or if the parents did not demonstrate sufficiently to the parent of the injured child that things were handled.

If your child came home with a bloody nose, who would your first call be to? The police or the parents?

I also think some of the reaction to the first posted story is because the victim has Aspergers. From the media reports, it comes across as if the kids attacked a visibly handicapped child. But, we all know Aspergeers has a range of severity. To the other kids, this boy may have been nothing more than nerdy. We don't know.

I'm just seeing a trend of police involvement where there wouldn't have been any in the past. In some cases, that's probably a good thing. Victims standing up for themselves and all. But, in general, do you think police are called too often for things that should be handled outside the system?

Cindy has said she thinks police are appropriate for extreme cases or repeat offenses. And, I tend to agree on that point. But, I do think police are called too often for things that don't require it - the second link for example.

**Prepoia**[$] · #9 10-09-2007, 11:02 PM

The school has responsibility for the kids who walk to and from school while they are coming and going to school.

Parents sue schools ALL THE TIME for the least little thing.
Schools therefore must cover their butts and a police involment does that.

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #10 10-09-2007, 11:05 PM

Back in the day, there were parents and other adults at home during the day in the neighborhood, looking out the windows and intervening if they saw a bunch of kids picking on another kid. Now kids target another child, beat the child into next week, and film the whole attack on their cell phones to post on YouTube. Parents don't know their kids' classmate's parents any more to pick up the phone and call. Societal changes = police involvement, but I'm willing to bet that in minor instances, the police would much rather just give a kid a ride home and hand the kid over to his folks.

**hadassahchana**[$] · #11 10-09-2007, 11:10 PM

Quote:

amykhar said

So, you vote for police involvement for repeat or extreme offenses? That's reasonable.

Here's one. A kid lights a rubber band on fire and throws it down. It lands near another kid who picks it up and flicks it away from him. It hits another kid's shirt and burns a small hole in the shirt. The kid whose shirt was burned calls the cops and the cops threaten the kid who flicked it into the other kid's shirt with assault. Justified police involvement?

The kid who threw it away from himself was threatened with assault?

IMO, if that isn't standard behaviour for the two boys, then parental involvement would be enough, I think. The only quesiton I have is, where did this happen? If the answer is 'school', then sorry but I believe there needs to be soemthing more than that. I think that there wasn';t enough supervision in a case like that, and I would be furious if that happened to my child. Uh, I meant, I'd be angry at the kid who did it (the hole in the shirt isn't the issue, the fact that it was dangerous and could have ended badly is) but I'd be absolutely hopping if it happened to one of my kids while at school.

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #12 10-09-2007, 11:15 PM

Quote:

Prepoia said

The school has responsibility for the kids who walk to and from school while they are coming and going to school.

Parents sue schools ALL THE TIME for the least little thing.
Schools therefore must cover their butts and a police involment does that.

A couple years ago a sixth-grade girl text-messaged a sixth-grade boy one weekend. Her message was obscene and referred to a sexual service that she said she wanted to provide to him. The boy's mother got the message instead, and came to the school demanding that school staff do something about it because somehow it was the school's responsiblity what this girl did with her cell phone on a Saturday morning.

**hadassahchana**[$] · #13 10-09-2007, 11:41 PM

Ok, that's way over the top to me. I don't get hopw that had anything at all to do with the school. What happened after she demanded the school get involved?

**Prepoia**[$] · #14 10-10-2007, 12:32 AM

Probably the school called the police to be present when they next spoke to the irate mother because they didn't want to get sued.

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #15 10-10-2007, 01:05 AM

No, Hubby and the Principal explained that if her son chose to give this girl his cell phone number, it was between the kids and their parents, and that the school never condoned or encouraged kids to text each other messages about what appendanges they would like to do what to

The mother wasn't happy, but she didn't sue.