COVINGTON, Ga. — Covington is considering an ordinance that would hold parents and legal guardians liable for their children’s criminal activity, with council members having their first vote on it Monday.
This comes after the city cancelled its Fourth of July fireworks celebration because of crowd size and safety concerns, saying the event had become a hot spot for large groups of teens causing trouble.
“The problem is, every year, we have youth take over that and come from all over the place,” said Dwayne Turner, a city council member who’s proposing the ordinance.
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It’s modeled after an ordinance in Savannah and lists parental responsibilities for parents, legal guardians or child custodians. The ordinance requires a parent to “exercise reasonable control” over the child to protect the child from injury and prevent the child from committing a criminal or delinquent act.
Under the ordinance, a parent could be cited for failing to prevent the child from “willfully or maliciously destroying property belonging to another person” and from committing disorderly contact. Turner said the city is still researching penalties to impose.
He told Channel 2’s Bryan Mims that he’s not out to put parents in jail.
“I would just say make the reasonable effort,” he said. “We understand that we can’t control the kids that go out there and fight people when they’re by themselves – we understand that. But the problem I have is when you encourage it.”
As a Rockdale County Sheriff’s Office deputy, he said he has encountered parents who encouraged criminal behavior.
“I arrested one person just for bringing their kid to a bus stop and fight other kids at the bus stop,” he said.
But council member Anthony Henderson said the ordinance fails to address the real issue – improving security at large events like the Fourth of July celebration.
“We have a special event issue, it’s not an everyday activity issue,” he said.
Henderson said the state already has the charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and he’s concerned about how the ordinance would be enforced.
“It will waste a lot of resources because you have to prove the parent actually knew or encouraged a certain activity or certain behavior,” he said.
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He also said the ordinance would unfairly target low-income families.
“For the parent working 24 hours, working multiple jobs, it’s kind of impossible to have supervision or see that kid and know what that child is doing 24 hours,” he said.
Sissy Skipper, now a grandparent who raised children in Covington, welcomes the idea.
“You had your children and you got to raise them right, make them do what they’re supposed to do,” she said. “And they’ve got to know right from wrong.”
But parent Alicia Sanders thinks it’s going too far.
“I don’t see a lot of horrible crime around here with children,” she said. “Parents being charged criminally? No. Sometimes kids are just going to do what they’re going to do regardless. And they’re just going to go out there and do it.”
City council has its first reading of the ordinance and a public comment period Monday. If approved, the ordinance would get a second and final vote at the next council meeting.
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