Truancy and the Prosecution of Parents: An Unfair Burden on Mothers?
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2011.00844.x |
| Author | Jane Donoghue |
| Date | 01 March 2011 |
| Published date | 01 March 2011 |
Truancy and the Prosecution of Parents:
An Unfair Burden on Mothers?
Jane Donoghue
n
This article considers the development and use of the law regulating the prosecution of parents
under section444 of the EducationAct 1996, in the broader context of legislationand policy initia-
tives concerned with the governance of parental responsibility. It explores the ways in which the
power to prosecute parents has been used by local educational authorities (LEAs) and interpreted
by thecourts.The article critically analysesthe manner in whichthe powers emphasisepunishment
and retribution in the context of the socialmoralisationof ‘£awed’parents; payinsu⁄cient regard to
the e¡ectsof parentalresponsibilitylaws on low-income, single parent families;representan attempt
to impose asimple solution on to a complex socio-economic problem; and amplify the scope for
mothersto be made the subject of criminaljustice interventions.It is argued that theprosecution of
parentsimposes an unfairburden on mothersand, in particular, single parentmothers.
INTRODUCTION
Over the last decade,tr uancyhas become an area of particular policy interest result-
ing in theproliferationof new legaland regulatory initiatives.Rising truancylevels
in England and Wales coupled with evidence of a link between truancy and crime
resulted in reforms to address unauthorised school absenteeism featuring promi-
nently in the Labour Government’s evolving social policy agenda.
1
Contemporary
youth justice policy delineates the notion that ‘the family’ and ‘parenting’ are the
principal sites for socialisation where the behaviourof children is seen as capable of
being regulated through mechanisms of social control.
2
Inculcating the concept of
parents and ‘the family’ as the primary arbiter of children’s problematic behaviour,
the new laws, technologies and strategies brought into bei ng by recent legisl ation
are concerned, above all else, with the governance of parental responsibility.
The comprehensive body of newpowers includes, interalia, parenting contracts
(PCs), parenting orders (POs), school attendance orders (SAOs), education
supervision orders (ESOs), penalty notices, ‘truancy sweeps’, as well as o¡ences
under section 444(1) and 444(1A) of the Education Act 1996. Despite the
frenetic creation and extension of legal tools and legal powers, and a pro-
gramme of reforms costing in excess of d1bn, aimed speci¢cally at improving
school attendance,
3
truancy rates for 2010 in England reached their highest
level since 1997 with a total of 68,000 pupils absent from school every
n
Lecturer in Criminology, Centre for Criminology, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford. Sincere
thanks are due to RosemaryAuchmuty,Therese Callus, Sandy Ghandhi and Michael King for their
insightful comments on an earlier draft of this article. I am also grateful to the two anonymous
reviewers forthe ir valuablecomments and suggestions.
1MORI, MORIYouth Survey2004 (London: Youth Justice Board,20 04).
2B.G oldson,YouthJustice:Contemporary Policyand Practice (Aldershot: Ashgate,1999).
3New PhilanthropyCapital (NPC), School’sOut (London: NPC, 2005) (NPC).
r2011The Author.The Modern Law Review r2011The Modern Law Review Limited.
Published by BlackwellPublishing, 9600 Garsington Road,Oxford OX4 2DQ,UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
(2011) 74(2) 216^244
day.
4
The momentum of reform has spawned a rampant generation of new tech-
nologies and prohibitions, designed to enforce parents’statutoryduties and (non-
statutory) responsibilities; yet there is very little evidence to demonstrate that the
reformagenda has reduced truancylevels or had any substantive positive impacts
on truanting children.
5
Only a very limited amount of research has been under-
taken since the introduction ofthe reforms and the results suggest a need for cen-
tral Government to work more closely with local councils and schools to cut
pupil absence rates, for negative parental attitudes towards education to be chal-
lenged,
6
and for socio-economic factors a¡ecting family life to be given greater
consideration by policy-makersand practitioners.
7
Recent research also highlights
the trend towards a more punitive approach to addressing the problem of school
absenteeism with a greater willingness on the part of local education authorities
(LEAs) to issue penalty notices to parents of absentee children.
8
The generalelection in May 2010 andthe subsequent formation of a new Con-
servative-Liberal Democrat coalition Government pro¡ered an opportunity for
the incoming administration to reconsider the existing policy approach to tru-
ancy and to conduct a review of its direction, impact and social implications.
Instead, in an interview following the publication of the Department for Educa-
tion’s school absence ¢gures for Spring term 2010, the new Conservative schools
minister Nick Gibb announced that the Government was to introduce a further
series of measures to ‘get tougher on parents and pupil s who do not abide by the
rules’.
9
Although details of these new measures have yet to be made public, it is
apparent that the previous Labour Government’s approach to truancy involving
punitive forms of governance and behavioural regulation is also likely to under-
pin the new coalition Government’s approach to school absenteeism.The coali-
tion Government’s introduction of additional, ‘tougher’ measures designed to
punish the parents of truanting children forms part ofa policy continuum which
identi¢es penal sanctions as the preferred means to enforce parental responsibility
for children’s school absenteeism.
In this article, it not my intention to review the full range of new powersgov-
erning parental responsibility but instead to concentrate on one particularly con-
troversial, but infrequently discussed, legal development, namely the power to
imprison the parents of truanting children for a period of up to three months
(introduced by section 72 of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000),
4Department for Education, Pupil Absence in Schools in England ^ SpringTerm (London: DfE, 25
August 2010). Statistics for the spring term in 2010 showed unauthorised absences had risen to
1.12% of half days in state schools.The ¢gure for spring 2010 is also the highest in the four years
since the government began to collect termly data.The rise is a result of unauthorised primary
school absences which have increased by nearly a third from 0.57%of half days in the 2007 spring
term to 0.74% in spring 2010.
5S. Kendall,R.White, K. Kinder, K. Halsey, and N. Bedford,School Attendanceand the Prosecutionof
Parents: E¡ectsand E¡ectiveness. FinalReport (LGAResearch Report 2/04) (Slough: NFER, 2004).
6NPC, n 3 above.
7Kendall et al, n 5 above.
8M. Zhang,‘School Absenteeism and the Implementation of Truancy-Related Penalty Notices’
(2007) 4 PastoralCare in Education 25.
9BBC News interview on 25 August 2010, available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-
11082269 (last visited 21September 2010).
Jane Donoghue
217
r2011The Author.The Modern Law Review r2011The Modern Law Review Limited.
(2 011) 74(2 ) 216 ^24 4
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