PARENTING ON TRIAL - STATE WARDS AND GOVERNMENTS ACCOUNTABILITY IN AUSTRALIA

In the past few years, growing attention has been given by the state t o the role of parents and guardians in preventing juvenile crime. The emergence of legislation enabling courts to penalize parents for negle ct or default in respect of their children's offending behaviors contr asts with provisions that exempt the state from the same liability whe n children in care offend. This article maintains that, despite the ar guments mounted in defense of such exemptions and the presence of bodi es to adjudicate on such matters, the provisions demonstrate ''differe ntial justice'' in terms of the way the parental responsibilities are defined and apportioned by state agencies. Further, of the children in care, it is state wards who both commit disproportionate numbers of o ffenses and who experience the most personal trauma while under the su pervision of the state, making it ali the more important for the state to be accountable as civil parents. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd.