I disagree with the letter "The courts are taking the place of parents," by Dan Garrett.
The courts are not taking the place of parents, and most parents are still disciplining children. Not all parents need courts to discipline their kids. They are doing good enough jobs themselves.
Youths of the community are not hard-boiled criminals and do not deserve to be punished harshly for the minor crimes they commit. To punish them harshly for a minor crime for a first-time offence is not justice; it is wrong.
Also, these are just some of the cases of youths, not all youths are criminals as Mr. Garrett puts them out to be. Punishing youths like older criminals is essentially making them seem like criminals to themselves and other members of society, and by doing this you are just pushing them towards a criminal lifestyle.
Also, some youths just make a bad decision and these light punishments just let them see that doing this is wrong. A harsh punishment will follow them throughout their lives and possibly may wreck their lives.
We all do not know how soft the courts are because the courts deal out punishments the most equal. Cases are not dealt with at the time because minor crimes are not more important than serious ones. This is why the cases are put over for later, so that more serious and dangerous actual crimes/criminals can be taken care of first rather than just dealing with minor crimes or less serious faults.
The justice system is set up in a way that serious crimes need to be dealt with first and they know their priorities, which comes first and which can be saved for later.
The courts know what they are doing and how to handle all cases that come through them they have been doing so for years.
Indervir Padda