laws which it has little will to enforce. In Bermuda laws are too often like reports, they are seen as the solution with no further attention to the problems that created them being necessary. The unenforced speeding laws come to mind as do the cycle noise laws, all but ignored these days. Then, of course, there are the planning laws and the sign laws. There are also laws covering delinquent parents who continue to travel while refusing to support their children. What happened to the laws covering confiscation of property in drug importation cases? We should not forget the Ann Cartwright DeCouto noise law which just about everyone ignores.

However we were very interested in a Front Page story in a recent edition of The New York Times concerning the parents of juveniles who break the law. The New York Times must have been interested too or it would not have used the story on the front page.

According to New York Times writer Timothy Egan, no relation we think to The Royal Gazette's star reporter Paul Egan, the small town of Silverton, Oregon, began a trend when it decided to take parents to civil court if their under 18-year-old children criminally offend. The town has a Parental Responsibility Law and can sentence mothers and fathers to fines or parenting classes.

The New York Times picked up on the story because the State of Oregon has decided to model its laws after the Silverton ordinance and will require parents to keep their children from lawbreaking or else face fines or sentences to classes in parenting or alcohol or drug abuse.

The Times says that variations of the Silverton ordinance are under consideration by several hundred cities around the United States.

"Juvenile crime has dropped in the first four months that the Silverton ordinance has been in force, the Police say. What is more, the measure appears to have had the effect of forcing parents to keep a closer eye on the children of Silverton...'' The New York Times says: "The measure passed by the Oregon Legislature and the Silverton ordinance make poor parenting a civil offence, not a crime, yet both stigmatise parents with their assumption that a child's misbehaviour results from a failure of parental supervision.

"In part, these measures go back to turn-of-the-century juvenile justice when there was a hue-and-cry about young people running wild in the streets.'' At that time there were many laws affecting parents, some of them still on the books but unused, like contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

There is a long-standing precedent for holding parents accountable for a child's civil damages but that only amounts to financial compensation. Now there is an attempt to make parents take care with parenting or face the consequences. In Silverton it has ranged from juvenile theft to smoking cigarettes.

Will it work? If you assume that part of the problem with today's young people is a lack of parental control, then it might. We could start with under-age drinking.