Kate O’Beirne

By about 1960 most states had enacted some form of parental responsibility laws that typically require parents to pay penalties for minor property damage or personal injuries perpetrated by their children. In the following viewpoint, Kate O’Beirne claims that the current standard of parental liability is insufficient for many of today’s violent juvenile crimes and should be strengthened accordingly. She believes that parents who fail to adequately monitor their children’s behavior ought to be held legally responsible when those children commit crimes. O’Beirne is the Washington editor of the National Review, a conservative weekly magazine, as well as a contributing editor of IntellectualCapital.com, a weekly electronic public policy magazine.

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