The purpose is not to punish parents, Mr. Law said, but to motivate them to make sure their children go to school.

The American Civil Liberties Union says that the parental-responsibility laws may be unconstitutional because they effectively punish parents for their children's actions, and because they are often vague.

But in the rush to punish parents, some child welfare experts say, society is oversimplifying the complex reasons a child misbehaves and the difficulties some parents have finding ways to curb that behavior.

Homework is the most random part of teaching and from a parent's perspective seems designed to punish parents rather to consolidate or move forward students learning.

Law-enforcement officials and civil rights advocates agreed that they knew of no other community that used a curfew law to punish parents of errant youths.

Some school administrators question the moves in Detroit and elsewhere to punish parents, saying that families of chronic truants may already be dysfunctional.

As of 2012 Federal law makes FGM illegal, but does not punish parents or relatives who take young girls out of the country to undergo it.

This is a question of equality more than anything else, and we cannot punish single parents and women who have children and who wish to work in Parliament.

The form of social control is more humane, aiming to reintegrate children and families into society rather than to rescue children and punish parents.

To the Editor: I agree with an Aug. 21 letter writer that taking children from battered mothers punishes both parents and children twice.