City officials want parents to step up to the plate in controlling kids

Mayor Nutter and city officials are expected to announce plans today for addressing the recent "flash mobs." At a news conference yesterday, officials were asked about the violence. Here are excerpts of what they said:

Police Commissioner

Charles Ramsey

* "Parents need to know where their kids are. Kids need to take responsibility for their own behavior."

* "I am not in the social- work business here; we're police officers. We are going to lock them up."

* "The parents need to step up to the plate and stop blaming somebody else. 'Oh, it's the schools. We don't have enough to do in the rec center. We don't have this, that and the other.' Well, find something for them to do. Why don't you try sitting down with them and spending some time with them instead of throwing them in front of the TV or out on the streets to find something to do? I mean, you had 'em, you raise 'em, you take care of 'em."

District Attorney Seth Williams

* "As a result of texting, Facebook and MySpace and the social networking, kids are able to do things now that I wasn't able to do when I had a full head of hair."

* "So when young folks congregate and damage property and injure others, we will charge them accordingly after police have made the arrest."

* "We need parents to be accountable for their kids. You need reasonable teenagers who, when they find out this information, share the information with us."

State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams

* Williams has introduced a bill that would make parents criminally liable for their children's actions.

"The bill is crafted around a very narrow band of parents [whose] children are being adjudicated and have very violent activities."

* "The level of violence by young people is tenfold the level of what it was when you and I were children. The first place of intervention is with a parent."

* Every bad parent who does things that we all would say . . . that's criminal, then guess what? It's criminal. You have to have a standard for civility."