Should Abusive Parents Be Put in Jail? (Family violence)

Tramosljanin Jadranka

English

10/05/2009

Should Abusive Parents Be Put in Jail?

Violence in family is a familiar thing to most of the people on the earth. Family violence is present in all periods of time. Also it is familiar in modern society and communities that were living in the past. For a long time, family violence was not considered as a problem. Many people did not know that can be a problem. The reason for something like that was the standing opinion that all happenings in family are private things. That opinion made family violence not dangerous for society. Family is bio-psycho social community that is made of parents and their children. In families between each member, should rule a relationship that is balanced and harmonic. Reality is different – disagreement and violence are elemental characteristics of some families. In last decade it became characteristic of many families. Violence in family is an act that trespasses human law. Human law is the primary rule that should be available to every human being. Every trespassing of women’s, men’s or children’s rights, from the people that are in their family, is considered as breaking the law. Interaction between some members in the family is bad and that brings a lot of problems and disagreements, which infect other members of the family. Violence is every act against the wish of one person that threatens personal integrity. It can be mental, physical, sexual, or economic violence. Family violence is a reality. Abuse of the person that is part of our family, lives in our house, or is family related is a fact. The process of violence is very complex. It lasts for years and it happens suddenly. The chance of the person, that was the victim of violence in family to be a violator, is three times bigger than if that person was raised in a normal environment. The most often cause of family violence is jealousy, problem of dependency, wish for control and also bad economic status. Although in society the most present shape of violence is family violence, in society they do not talk too much about it. Family violence is a taboo topic that is covered with silence and shame. Violence in family can have different ways of abusing. According to the article “Nasilje u porodici, (Family violence),” published in 2009, by Blic online, it can be:

“Physical abuse is often the most easily spotted form of abuse. It may be any kind of hitting, shaking, burning, biting, beating, and other actions that cause physical injury or produce significant physical pain.

Sexual abuse is any type of sexual contact between an adult and anyone younger than 18; between a significantly older child and a younger child.

Emotional abuse, it can be difficult to pin down because there may not be physical signs. Emotional abuse happens when yelling and anger go too far or when parents constantly criticize, threaten, or dismiss kids or teens until their self-esteem and feelings of self-worth are damaged.

Neglect is probably the hardest type of abuse to define. Neglect occurs when a child or teen doesn't have adequate food, housing, clothes, medical care, or supervision. Emotional neglect happens when a parent doesn't provide enough emotional support or deliberately and consistently pays very little or no attention to a child. “

Family violence can affect anyone. It can happen in any kind of family. Sometimes parents abuse each other, which can be hard for a child to witness. “

All parents that are going over the line by abusing children should be put in jail. To be abusive to your own child or another child is a big crime. Children are small and they are not grown people. They are not aware of what they are doing. If they had a bad grade or fight with someone else, that is not excuse to be violent to your or another child. Also, if parent is drunk, drugged, stressed, or in any other bad condition, that is not excuse for violence. Children that are small are learning from their parents, and all bad things that happened to them they will not forget. Also that will make them even worse than their parents. When children grow up in an abusive family, there is a big opportunity for them to be more aggressive or to have the same aggressive nature as their parents. “Children have been involved in nearly 40 per cent of the 8400 family violence cases investigated by Tasmania Police. Since 2005, when the State Government introduced the Safe at Home program, 12,400 domestic violence incidents have been recorded,” according to Mark Worley.

Every day we can read in newspapers or hear from our neighbors that someone’s parents were abusive to their family. That fact became our everyday life and we need to fight against that, so that we can continue our life peacefully and normally. We do not need to tolerate someone’s violence like nothing happened. We do not need to accept that fact and pretend like everything is normal. Some day, some part of our family can be killed, or dangerously injured. All that can end with someone in hospital. The United States Constitution and European Union wrote rights for people’s freedom. Everyone who does not respect and breaks that law should be in prison. Family is place where you suppose to feel free, safe and happy and not scared and unhappy.

In newspapers every day you can find articles like this: Anger is born in family. Every fourth woman bears violence in family. Person that and that went to prison because of violence in family and tried to burn house. Especially in Serbia, where economy is on the lowest level ever, family violence is very present. People do not have money for normal life and that makes a lot of problems. All the time they do not have money to pay bills. That problem makes them very depressed and hopeless. The man of the house, especially, is giving himself to alcohol and drugs. After days and days of drinking and coming home drunk, they start to be abusive. They do not see the way out from crises and problems, so that makes them violent to their family. To find the way out from the problems and to be happy is only thing that they want to accomplish. Years of trying that and finding problems make them very frustrated and angry. Kids, wives, and the other members of the family that they live with, are paying a lot for this bad life. Late at night when a parent comes home drunk, some kid or other part of family like grandparents, are victims of their cruelty. Parents find any little thing to start a fight. Also, they think if they beat their family, that all problems would be gone. But they will not. They will still be there waiting to be solved in other ways. According to Aleksandar Ilic’s article "Oca posle svadje izbo nozem sest puta, (After fight, he killed his father with six stabs).” Published in 2009, “Predrag Ivanovic (32) on Monday evening, after verbal fight killed his father Vladeta Ivanovic (58).” That is only one example of hundreds that you can read about in a period of three months.

There are some people that will not agree with putting abusive parents in jail. Their opinion is that abusive parents should not be in jail. They think when people scream, do not want to buy something, or hit them but not hard, that it is not something that they should be punished for. That is true, but family violence is much more aggressive and brutal. They, most of the times, beat they children and other parts of family to the death. Most of the time brutal cruelty ends in death. Everybody can read every day in newspaper stories about murders. They find every day that the father or mother killed some member of their family.

Abusive parents should be put in jail. They are not abusive only one time, they are abusive all the time or from time to time. If one parent is violent once, he will be violent again. That is dangerous because that violence can end up in death. No one can be so guilty that you can kill him because of a thing that he or she has done. Every misunderstanding should be solved in conversation. If we have problems we should talk with the person that we think that is guilty for our problems. If abusive parents and violent people are not put in jail they will be able to kill or hurt someone. If some person is violent once and he or she does it again, he or she should have a very serious punishment for that. People should live free, safe and happy no matter what happens. They should not be worried about whether someone will hurt them if that person comes back home drunk.




Works cited

Blic , Online. "Nasilje u porodici." Blic (2009): n. pag. Web. 13 Oct 2009
http://www.blic.rs/svet.php?id=114103.

Mark, Worley. "Kids in home violence shock." Mercury/Sunday Tasmanian
(Australia) (2008): n. pag. 13 Oct http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?doc
LinkInd=true&risb=21_T7584149812&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&star
tDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T7584149815&cisb=22_T7584149814&treeMa
x=true&treeWidth=0&csi=244810&docNo=23>.

Ilic, Aleksandar. "Oca posle svadje izbo nozem sest puta." Blic (2009): n. pag. Web.
13 Oct 2009. http://www.blic.rs/hronika.php?id=86036.