Punishing Bad Parents
March 19, 2007
Social Democratic Party (SPD) politicians in Berlin want parents to get the message that raising a child is a serious responsibility. Parents deserve punishment when their children skip school or break the law, they suggested.
Michael Müller, the SPD head in Berlin, has proposed handing out fines to overly-permissive parents as a way to get their attention.
His proposal received support from other members of his party as well as from some opposition leaders and youth advocates. It's still unclear whether the idea is completely legal.
SPD legal expert Fritz Felgentreu said he didn't foresee any legal problems and that only the details of the proposed plan needed to be worked out.
School violence a concern
The issue of how to curtail juvenile delinquency and violence remains a critical one in Germany's capital city. Last spring, police took over the Rütli School in the Berlin suburb of Neukölln. Teachers complained that violence in the school had gotten out of control. The school is in a low-rent district with high unemployment.
The school brought in social workers and school psychologists while police checked that no one brought weapons onto school property. At the time, politicians agreed that the problems had a variety of sources, including a lack of economic opportunities.
Many of the students at the school are children of immigrants and don't speak German at home.
Parents could face stiff fines
Yet apathetic, uncooperative parents are also part of the problem, Wolfgang Schimmang (SPD), Neukölln's education counselor, said in an article in Berlin's Der Tagesspiegel Saturday.
"What should we do to reach uncooperative parents?" Schimmang asked.
He believes fines of 50 to 100 euros ($67 - $133) could help. It would motivate parents to make sure their children attend school and behave, Schimmang said.
Long-time juvenile court judge Kirsten Heisig told Der Tagesspiegel she thought it was a good idea. To prevent children from forming criminal habits that will follow them into adulthood, parents must intervene early, Heisig and colleagues have been saying for months. Many young criminals have already become frequent truants in grade school.
Pressure is needed to get this message through to parents, Heisig said.
Politicians from other parties said the proposal would punish parents who already have financial problems. Parenting classes were seen as a better option by a spokesman for the Free Democratic Party, a free-market liberal party.
A spokesperson for the Green party called the idea "political nonsense," the newspaper reported.