Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Law
Holding Parents Responsible: Is Vicarious Responsibility The Public’S Answer To Juvenile Crime?, Eve M. Brank, Edie Greene, Katherine Hochevar
Holding Parents Responsible: Is Vicarious Responsibility The Public’S Answer To Juvenile Crime?, Eve M. Brank, Edie Greene, Katherine Hochevar
Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications
Parental responsibility laws hold parents accountable for the delinquent behaviors of their children even when parents’ actions are not the direct cause of an offense. Despite the prevalence of these laws, we know little about their perceived fairness. Is it reasonable to make parents vicariously responsible for outcomes they could not have foreseen and, if so, under what circumstances? Our series of three studies addressed those questions by systematically examining the impact of various situational and dispositional factors on public opinions regarding parental responsibility. Respondents attributed most of the responsibility for a crime to the child, and attributions of responsibility …