Exercise in futility

We wonder, though, if this is really the kind of exercise that helps reduce the country’s crime rate. In the first place, why wasn’t the pub owner charged for serving minors? In the second place, why is it that nightclubs in the west have never been charged for the same offence, since it is well-known that these places let in youngsters below the legal age?

Additionally, it is more than passing curious that all the young persons arrested in the Sangre Grande exercise should be female, when boys are far more likely to be drinking and smoking in pubs and, indeed, in public. It is also quite odd that, of the five parents charged, four were women. Perhaps they were all single mothers, but that in itself points to certain sexist bias in the law. This is why zero tolerance policies do not really bring down crime — because the policy always selectively tolerates certain people who infringe the law, whether because of wealth, connections, or both.

In this particular case, moreover, the application of the law appears to be fundamentally senseless. "Wilful neglect" is usually applied to parents who abuse their children by failing to feed, bathe, or clothe them properly. To extend the charge to the parents of girls caught in a pub smoking and drinking seems something of a stretch. After all, how are parents supposed to control their children at all times, unless they keep them at home, or follow them around constantly, or attach tracking devices to them? So what is the responsibility of the school or, if we extend the logic, the Ministry of Education in all this, since the youngsters were all students?

In practice, carrying out this kind of exercise has more bad than good effects. It targets working-class parents — not because the children of middle-class parents don’t do the same things, but because such youths are less likely to be arrested, even if caught by the police. Such exercises also arouse resentment among young people, thus exacerbating the rebellious instincts towards authority that is part and parcel of teenage nature. And, finally, these exercises take up police manpower which, in these dangerous times, could surely be better employed elsewhere.

If such exercises are to be carried out, however, it is the adults who help teenagers to break the law who should be penalised. There are laws which prevent the selling of alcohol and cigarettes to minors. There are also laws which state that nobody under 16 years of age is to be allowed within a certain distance of such establishments. It may be that the penalties under these laws need to be strengthened, and a few pub and club owners made an example of. But penalising children and their parents is a counter-productive and ineffectual approach which yields no real benefits to the society.