Upbringing Excuse for Criminal Behavior?

Nature vs. Nurture Much has been made as of late about whether and to what extent offenders should be held liable for their actions when they grow up around illegal or morally depraved activity. Such activity can include domestic assault, child abuse, child rape or molestation, emotional abuse and so forth. Quite often, child offenders below a certain age are not held liable or held as liable as they would be if they were adults or at least close to being eighteen years old.

Indeed, the old saying "the apple does not fall far from the tree" proves itself in many situations. However, while forgiving some transgressions due to poor upbringing may sound good on paper, it would open a Pandora's box of problems and would not work in practice. Analysis The idea that a child below a certain age, although that age tends to vary based on the offense and the age of the child, should not be held to the same standards as adults makes a lot of sense.

Indeed, if a nine-year-old kills someone, it begs the question if they truly could or would understand the gravity and wrongness of what they did. However, when one puts forth the idea that children and adults should be forgiven their crimes just because they grew up around bad circumstances, that is a bridge too far and for a couple of reasons.

First, defining what is a "bad childhood" and what crosses the line in terms of someone being held responsible or not being held responsible would be difficult to impossible to define and enforce. Second, it would be seen as a boon to defense attorneys and depraved degenerates everywhere to just kill, stab and rob and then blame it on their bad upbringing or the lack of one or more parents.

Third, even children with bad childhoods can mend their path and there should always be a point where people are assumed to be able to choose the right path or the wrong path. Irrespective of what they choose, they must be forced to deal with the consequences of their actions or inactions (Russell, 2014).

Disregarding liability and responsibility would be insidiously obtuse and would open the door for people to say that they do not owe child support or have to pay their bills because society, culture, parents or schools forsook them. Indeed, there are many scholars and pundits that believe crime is a byproduct and/or directly caused by society and not the inner workings and motivations of the minds that cook them up.

To put a fine point on why forgiving crimes after a bad upbringing, it tries to address a valid problem but it does so in the wrong way. There are a ton of people having children they cannot or will not raise from an economic or nurturing standpoint. The rate of children born out of wedlock and people engaging in unprotected sex is skyrocketing and all of these disjointed and fluid families are the real problem. Crime is still crime and immorality is still immorality.

Further, this can be said without invoking or involving religion. Engaging in crime does and should have consequences and this should not change. Life choices matter greatly and this is true from a criminology standpoint as well as a general cultural one.

People working at McDonald's, for example, should not have two children out of wedlock and then complain they cannot afford to live and/or demand thirty thousand dollars in salary for a menial entry-level job, not to mention that more than doubling the current pay structure would almost certainly cause price inflation.