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Authorities Cracking Down on Parents who Provide Alcohol to Minors

By Hugh C. McBride

Almost every child development expert advises parents to take active roles in their children’s lives. Parents are encouraged to talk with their children on a regular basis; play games with them; participate in athletic, social, and educational activities with them; and even get online and text, SMS, and instant message them.

But don’t drink alcohol with them.
That final point is being driven home with extra emphasis by legislators and law enforcement personnel, who are responding to disturbing increases in the prevalence of teen binge drinking, as well as to a number of high-profile incidents in which parent-provided alcohol resulted in tragic consequences.
‘We’ve Got to Be Adults & Say No’
In one of the more recent cases to attract national attention, Kecia Evangela Whitfield, a 43-year-old mother who lives in Powder Springs, Georgia, is facing a year in jail and a steep fine for providing alcohol to a classmate of her high school-age son. The classmate, 16-year-old Garrett Reed, died later that evening on January 24, 2009 when the car he was driving crashed into an oncoming vehicle.
A Feb. 4 article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that Whitfield, who police say developed a reputation as “a person teenagers could go to for alcohol,” provided 1.75 liters of rum to Reed and three other minors.
Whitfield is far from the only parent to face charges related to providing alcohol to underage children.
  • On Sept. 11, 2007, 46-year-old Timothy Parent was charged in Hampshire (Mass.) Superior Court with one count of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of procuring alcohol for a minor in the aftermath of the death of a 15-year-old friend of his daughter. According to a Sept. 12, 2007 article on the MassLivewebsite, the minor girl’s death was attributed to “drowning due to submersion and acute alcohol poisoning.”
  •  On Jan. 26, 2009, parents John and Cheryl Kyle of Tuttle, Okla., were booked on charges of manslaughter after a high school student was killed in an auto accident after a party for which the Kyles had purchased $86 worth of liquor. According to an affidavit that was viewed by reporter Jacqueline Sit of Oklahoma City’s News 9, the Tuttles believe that “they were the cool parents and if [the minors] partied at their house they would be safe."
"What we have to realize is that our kids do think they are invincible," Patti Agatston, a neighbor of Kecia Whitfield, told CNN reporter Stephanie Chen for a Feb. 12 article on the news organization’s website.
“We can't be enablers,” Agatston told Chen. “We've got to be adults and say ‘no.’”
A Widespread Problem
Though Patti Agatston and throngs of others would like all parents to say “no” when it comes to children and alcohol, expert analyses of the state of underage drinking in the United States today indicate that many adults aren’t getting the message.
In 2005, the American Medical Association released a study in which teens reported on the ease with which they were able to acquire alcoholic beverages from parents:
  • About 33 percent of the teens said it was easy to obtain alcohol from their parents.
  • Forty percent of teens who responded to the AMA survey said it was easy to get alcohol from a friend’s parents.
  • Twenty-five percent of survey respondents said that they had been at a party where individuals under the legal drinking age were drinking in front of parents.
In addition to confirming the findings of the AMA study, a survey by the National Center of Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University established a stunning disconnect between parental perception and teen reality when it comes to the underage consumption of alcohol.
Lis Wiehl, who writes the “Lis on Law” blog on the Fox News website, has noted that 99 percent of parents who participated in the CASA survey said they were not willing to serve alcohol at parties for teens. However, 28 percent of the teens who were questioned said they’ve been to parties where teens were drinking in the presence of parents.
Eighty percent of parents told CASA researchers that they don’t believe that either alcohol or marijuana are easily available at teen parties – a statistic that would surely surprise the 50 percent of teen respondents who said that they’ve been at parties where both drugs were there for the taking.
.A Matter of Morality & Legality
In addition to the moral and ethical concerns related to underage drinking, parents who provide alcohol to minors or who allow them to drink alcohol that was purchased by others expose themselves to considerable legal liability.
Laws vary from state to state, but the Alcohol Policy Information System (APIS) reports that parents who provide alcohol to underage drinkers may face both criminal (state-imposed) and civil (private party) charges:
State-Imposed Liability
  • State-imposed liability involves a statutory prohibition that is enforced by the State, generally through criminal proceedings that can lead to sanctions such as fines or imprisonment.
  • For example, a host may allow a minor to drink alcohol, after which the minor causes a motor vehicle crash that injures an innocent third party. In this situation, the social host may be prosecuted by the State under a criminal statute and face a fine or imprisonment for the criminal violation.
Private Party Civil Liability
  • Private party civil liability involves an action by a private party seeking monetary damages for injuries that result from permitting underage drinking on the host's premises. 
  • In a State that provides for private party civil liability, the injured third party in the “state-imposed” example could also sue the host for monetary damages associated with the motor vehicle crash. 
Lawmakers Increasing Consequences
According to the APIS website, 31 states allow parents to provide alcohol to their own underage children, but no state allows a parent to provide alcohol to minors other than the parent’s own children (even if the alcohol is provided in a private home). Of course, parents who give alcohol to their own children can still face criminal and civil charges if the minor drives while intoxicated or causes harm to another person while inebriated.
Several states and local municipalities are working to strengthen laws and penalties related to parents who provide alcohol to underage individuals. In 2007, the U.S. Surgeon General established the following six goals for reducing the prevalence of underage drinking:
GOAL 1: Foster changes in American society that facilitate healthy adolescent development and that help prevent and reduce underage drinking.
 
GOAL 2: Engage parents, schools, communities, all levels of government, all social systems that interface with youth, and youth themselves, in a coordinated national effort to prevent and reduce drinking and its consequences.
 
GOAL 3: Promote an understanding of underage alcohol consumption in the context of human development and maturation that takes into account individual adolescent characteristics as well as environmental, ethnic, cultural, and gender differences.
 
GOAL 4: Conduct additional research on adolescent alcohol use and its relationship to development.
 
GOAL 5: Work to improve public health surveillance on underage drinking and on population-based risk factors for this behavior.
 
GOAL 6: Work to ensure that policies at all levels are consistent with the national goal of preventing and reducing underage alcohol consumption.
 
As researchers and law enforcement personnel continue to document the myriad dangers of underage drinking, the effort to curb the problem and reduce parental complicity has spread beyond the borders of the United States, and has become an international effort.
“We need a culture change about drinking, with everyone from parents, the alcohol industry and young people all taking more responsibility,” Ed Balls, England’s secretary of children and schools, said in June 4, 2008 interview with Sky News. "We need to fundamentally influence young people's behavior and attitudes towards alcohol."