Comment on Discussion Thread: Friday, 21 March 2025
RustyRaven@aussie.zone 2 weeks agoThere are always going to be some people who choose to do the wrong thing no matter what, but there are a far larger number that could go either way.
It’s also not just a matter of rich or poor - rich parents can be shit, poor parents can be great. And no matter what your own parents are like the wider society has a massive impact - that ignored kid of meth heads could have extended family that care for them and support from the wider community to make better choices themselves and that will make a huge difference. Or you might have a decent family, who have some sort of bad luck - maybe a disabilty or death in the family - and without social support that situation can snowball. Maybe the parent can’t work, so they lose housing, which leads to the kids being taken off them and put in foster care, with all the problems associated with that, broken schooling etc.
I used to work for Legal Aid in the Children’s Court section and there were almost no kids that had criminal issues without having child protection issues first.
dumblederp@aussie.zone 1 week ago
I’d argue that the rich kids don’t wind up at legal aid. My grandfather got my dad out of so many court cases when in fact my father should’ve faced some sort of punishment for multiple cases of theft, domestic abuse and dealing. As he always got away with it he never had to face any consequences which may have encouraged him to consider the type of person he was.
RustyRaven@aussie.zone 1 week ago
True, they probably don’t. But the reality is that over half the kids in custody have had child protection orders.
There have always been some people who do the wrong thing regardless of their circumstances and there always will be, but how we structure our society has a big impact on how many of the people that could choose differntly choose to break the law. And that’s not just poor people vs. rich. Allowing the rich to get away with doing the wrong thing without consequence is as much a part of the problem as how many poor people there are and the way they are treated. A dysfunctional society creates dysfunctional people, and any solution that only looks at the individuals and not the whole society won’t be very effective in creating change.