Gloucester Township, New Jersey, has taken a bold step that too many communities avoid for fear of backlash. In the wake of a chaotic night where more than 500 teenagers disrupted a public drone show and forced over 100 police officers to respond, the township passed the Minors and Parent Responsibility Act. Under this new ordinance, parents of repeat juvenile offenders can face fines of up to $2,000 and even 90 days in jail for failing to stop their children from breaking the law. The covered offenses range from violent crimes like assault and drug dealing to chronic truancy and public disturbances.
Critics immediately cried foul, saying older teens should bear full responsibility for their own actions. But that argument ignores a basic truth that Thomas Sowell has repeated for decades: the family is the first and most important institution in society, shaping values and behavior long before any government program or public policy can. When the family fails to provide discipline, accountability, and moral guidance, society pays the price. Gloucester’s law is less about punishing parents and more about restoring the natural order of responsibility that begins at home.
The ordinance does not target parents whose children make a single mistake. It focuses on households where the same problems repeat over and over, where lack of discipline has become a pattern rather than an exception. Without consequences for parents, the cycle of neglect continues unchecked. Those costs are borne not just by victims of juvenile crime, but by the entire community in the form of lost safety, overburdened police, and wasted public resources.
This type of law is needed in the Black community more than anywhere else. The statistics are sobering. National data shows that Black youth are incarcerated at a rate of 293 per 100,000 compared to just 52 per 100,000 for white youth. In 2023, Black teens aged 10 to 17 were arrested for felonies at more than four times the rate of Hispanic youth and nearly ten times the rate of white youth. In major cities like Chicago, New York, and Baltimore, young Black males make up a fraction of the population but the majority of juvenile violent crime arrests. These numbers are not the result of some mystery—they often reflect homes where consistent parental engagement and discipline are absent.
Yes, we can argue the racism issue. We can acknowledge that bias exists in policing, in sentencing, and in the broader justice system. But racism does not stop parents from teaching their children how to behave, not to commit crimes, and to respect others and their belongings. It does not prevent a mother or father from instilling boundaries, values, and respect for the law inside their own home. Excusing destructive behavior on the grounds of systemic racism does nothing to change that behavior, and it leaves communities stuck in the same cycle year after year.
As I argued in a recent article about a viral street fight in Mount Vernon, New York, where teenagers and even adults brawled in broad daylight, this breakdown of behavior is not about poverty alone. It is about permissiveness. It is about a subculture that glorifies violence, disrespects authority, mocks discipline, and rewards chaos — often with adults cheering from the sidelines. That incident, like so many others, exposed a deeper crisis: too many young people are growing up with sneakers on their feet, smartphones in their hands, and absolutely no moral compass to guide them. And when that becomes normalized, it’s not just misbehavior — it’s cultural decay.
Read: The Crisis We Won’t Name in Black America
Again, even in this incident, Black leaders were silent. Black pastors were silent. Nobody had the testicular fortitude to say it plain: parents must be held accountable for their children’s bad behavior or move to another city. If they said that, they’d be afraid of losing votes. It’s easier to co-sign chaos and out-of-control youth to keep your job than to tell the truth and make your community a safe place to live. That is the moral bankruptcy at the root of our leadership crisis.
History proves this is not just about race. During the 1950s and early 1960s — when racism was more open and vicious — the Black community had far lower out-of-wedlock birth rates, stronger two-parent households, and lower rates of violent crime among youth. Family structure, not government programs, held the line. When the structure collapsed, so did the standards.
The economic consequences of tolerating juvenile crime are enormous. Businesses leave. Property values drop. Jobs dry up. Neighborhoods become places people want to escape, not invest in. Every police response, court appearance, and detention bed costs taxpayers thousands of dollars — money that could have been spent on schools, parks, or job training.
If parents are struggling to control their children, they should not wait until the police or courts become involved — they should actively seek help. That means turning to counseling, mentorship programs, parenting workshops, and community support networks before a child’s behavior spirals out of control. But this is not solely the parents’ burden to bear. It is also the responsibility of leaders and elected officials to ensure those services actually exist and are accessible. Empty speeches and campaign promises mean nothing if families have nowhere to turn in times of crisis. A community that demands accountability from parents must also demand that its leadership provide the tools and resources necessary to make that accountability possible.
And yet, in too many neighborhoods, the so-called “leaders” protect dysfunction under the banner of “not snitching” or avoiding public criticism. That misplaced loyalty shields the worst behavior and punishes the law-abiding majority. A community that refuses to confront its own problems has already surrendered its future.
Other cities have proven that parental accountability works. In North Tonawanda, New York, a parental responsibility law coincided with a sharp drop in juvenile incidents. In California’s Fairfield-Suisun district, truancy laws that held parents responsible improved attendance and reduced school fights. Where the standard is enforced, behavior changes. Where it’s not, chaos reigns.
Accountability laws like Gloucester’s change the incentives. They make it clear that allowing a child to drift into trouble is not a private matter — it is a public problem that will have consequences for everyone involved. If parents know they will be held legally responsible, they are far more likely to intervene early, set boundaries, and monitor their children’s actions before they spiral out of control. That is not criminalizing parenting; it is reinforcing the fact that parenting is a job with real responsibilities.
Will such laws solve every problem in communities struggling with youth crime? Of course not. But they are a needed correction to a culture that has normalized excuse-making for bad behavior and shifted the blame to “the system” while ignoring the role of the home. As Sowell would remind us, intentions do not matter nearly as much as results. Gloucester Township’s ordinance, if enforced fairly and consistently, could produce the most important result of all: safer streets, stronger families, and fewer young people starting life on the wrong side of the law.
Accountability starts at home. Until that principle is restored, no amount of government spending, activist slogans, or after-school programs will reverse the damage. Gloucester Township has shown the courage to act on that truth. The Black community should not only pay attention — it should demand the same.
