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Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/2014/07/02/jjie-series-life-in-the-box/)

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You Are Here: JJIE Home » News » JJIE Series: Life in the Box

JJIE Series: Life in the Box

By Staff | July 2, 2014

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The parents paying for their children’s crimes

In separate trials earlier this year, Jennifer and James Crumbley became the first parents in U.S. history to be convicted of involuntary manslaughter for a mass shooting committed by their child.

On Tuesday, they were each sentenced to 10–15 years in prison, the maximum penalty for the crime. Prosecutors argued the Crumbleys ignored urgent warning signs that their son Ethan was having violent thoughts, and that the parents provided access to the gun he used to kill four classmates and injure seven other people at his school in November 2021.

Legal observers have said that the facts of the case are unusual, yet many still wonder if it now sets a precedent for a “slippery slope,” where more parents could be criminally charged for what their children do. “I don’t have a lot of confidence in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion to pick and choose only cases like this,” Northern Illinois University law professor Evan Bernick told Al Jazeera this week. “Once you’ve got a hammer — and this is definitely a hammer — everything can look like a nail.”

Some worry that while the Crumbleys are White, an expansion of criminal charges against parents for the actions of their children would disproportionately affect Black parents or poor parents. That’s the concern in Tennessee, where some lawmakers recently introduced a bill that would fine parents up to $1,000 if a child commits more than one criminal offense.

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