A bill holding parents accountable for their children's behaviour may simply be a "symbolic stance" rather than a tool against Bermuda's rising crime, Minister Michael Scott said yesterday.

Launching debate on the Parental Responsibility Act – which was passed by the House – Mr. Scott said laws like it have served to represent the upholding of traditional values when they've been implemented in other countries.

The legislation, aimed at stopping a disturbing trend of crime among children, would see badly behaved youngsters placed under the supervision of Child and Family Services, and their parents brought before the courts.

According to Mr. Scott, Cambridge Institute of Criminology researcher Elizabeth Burney has questioned whether such measures are effective.

"She concludes in part that they tend to represent an upholding of values rather than a genuine tool of crime prevention," he told the House of Assembly as he presented the bill on behalf of Attorney General Kim Wilson.

"I am willing to concede the point while I remain cautiously optimistic about Bermuda's resolve to tackle this problem.

"At the end of the day it may simply amount to a symbolic stance, but it is one that we are compelled to take in earnest."

Opposition members said they hoped the bill was not just symbolic and questioned whether the Department of Child and Family Services, which is tasked with much of the counselling of youths and parents, had enough resources to handle the new law.

Critics have claimed the bill is a knee-jerk reaction to Bermuda's spiralling gun trouble, but Mr. Scott said: "The bill is one of this Government's ways of saying that more than ever before we have to hold parents individually accountable for holding standards conducive of raising children effectively.

"We are essentially forced to literally lay down the law to say that, at a minimum, every parent in Bermuda is mandated to society and their children to uphold a kind of behaviour."

The Minister noted Bermuda is in uncharted waters, adding that between 2005 and 2008 there was a sixfold increase in juvenile probations. During that same period about 270 children under 18 were part of Child and Family Services, 35 percent of them classified as "out of parental control".

Moreover, in 2008 nearly a quarter of Bermuda's 93 juvenile offenders were repeat offenders. After consulting with a wide variety of Government and non-profit organisation the one thing in common was the need to deal with irresponsible parenting, the Minister said.

Mr. Scott noted the legislation was similar to one tabled by the United Bermuda Party in 1998, shortly before it became the Opposition. But he added that the new bill focuses more heavily on counselling and punishments for those who fail in their role as parents.

"By this bill we here in Bermuda are saying that parents have a duty to exercise care, supervision, protection and control over their children so as to prevent them from dysfunctional behaviour," he said.

"It is being demanded that a certain level of social conduct should be inculcated within children and should that level be breached, those who breach them as well as those responsible will be held to account."

The bill also introduces British-style anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) for children, which could see troublemaking young people banned from associating with certain friends or hanging around in certain areas.

It would force parents of nuisance children to attend counselling sessions for up to three months, and make them pay up to $10,000 for the wilful damage they cause. It will also give the Justice Minister the power to impose 90-day curfews.