If We Don’t Raise Our Children, the Justice System Will

Dear Editor,

Last week, I stood outside the police station and heard something that unsettled me deeply.

An altercation involving a young man escalated into violence. Someone was seriously injured, and several individuals were taken into custody. Families were shaken, and children were affected.

But what disturbed me most did not happen during the confrontation. It happened afterward.

Outside the station, the mother of the young man involved spoke calmly. She said that as long as her son did not kill anyone, she did not mind visiting him in prison and bringing him clothes.

That statement has stayed with me.

As long as they don’t kill.

Somewhere along the way, have we allowed the bar to fall so low that “not killing” is considered acceptable behavior? When prison becomes an inconvenience instead of a tragedy, when violence is excused as long as it does not cross an extreme line, we have to ask ourselves: what are we teaching our children?

Parenting is not about perfection. None of us get it right all the time. But there is a dangerous shift happening when correction is replaced with excuses, when fear replaces authority, and when loyalty blinds us to wrongdoing.

A child learns right from wrong at home first. Before school. Before church. Before the streets. The foundation of conscience is built in the living room, at the dinner table, and in the way we respond to disrespect, dishonesty, and aggression.

Schools cannot raise our children. Teachers are there to educate, not to instill basic discipline that should already be present. Police are there to enforce laws, not to compensate for a lack of boundaries at home. Hospitals are there to treat injuries, not to clean up the results of unchecked anger.

It takes a village to support a child, yes. But the village cannot replace the home.

When children are not corrected early, when aggression is brushed off as “just how he is,” when disrespect is tolerated, and when consequences are inconsistent or nonexistent, those small allowances grow. They do not disappear. They become bigger confrontations, bigger risks, and sometimes bigger tragedies.

And when that happens, the entire community pays.

We pay through overwhelmed emergency services. We pay through the social and emotional toll on families and children who witness conflict. We pay when young people lose their futures to prison sentences that might have been prevented with early intervention and accountability.

Discipline is not abuse. Boundaries are not cruelty. Correction is not hatred. Loving a child sometimes means saying “no,” setting limits, and refusing to excuse harmful behavior.

At the same time, we must acknowledge that some parents are overwhelmed. Some are exhausted. Some are afraid of their own children. Some simply do not know where to turn for help.

To those parents, I say this: it is not weakness to ask for help. It is not shameful to seek guidance, counseling, mentorship, or community support. What is far more damaging is pretending there is no problem until that problem becomes a police matter.

Responsibility does not fall only on biological parents. In a small island community like ours, children are watching all of us. They observe their aunts, uncles, neighbors, older cousins, coaches, and family friends. They absorb what we model.

We may not control every household, but we can set examples. We can mentor. We can support struggling families before situations escalate. We can stop normalizing violence and start normalizing accountability.

The statement I heard outside the police station was more than one mother’s opinion. It was a warning sign.

If we continue to lower our standards for our children’s behavior, the consequences will not stay within one family. They will spread.

If we do not raise our children with firm boundaries and moral courage, the justice system will do it for us.

And by then, it may already be too late.

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