Would you ever turn your own child in to the police if they'd committed a crime?

[Dave_Manchester]

So a story was doing the rounds earlier today of a father who turned his teenaged son in to the police because he'd vandalised a WW1 memorial with pro-Palestine graffiti. I'm not linking to it because I don't want this thread to stray into political territory or a discussion of the on-going student protests.

What I do want is to hear some opinions from parents and non-parents alike on whether there are any circumstances in which you can see yourselves shopping your own kid to the cops. I became a father a couple of years ago and my own instinctive reaction when reading the story was that there are no circumstances whatsoever that would lead me to turn my child in. But that was an emotional response, not a considered one.

I've tried to cover the 3 broad responses in the poll, and I want to be clear that the discussion is for everyone, not just parents. Those who don't have kids can imagine their hypothetical reaction to the question.

I don't currently have a firm answer for myself, beyond the instinctive "never" I just mentioned. My child is not yet 3 years old so the prospect of criminal behaviour is still far into the future. For the record I'm not someone who believes that children from good homes - as I like to think my child is - don't grow up to be criminals, because this is obviously not true. Let's assume for the sake of this discussion that anyone's kid could one day commit a crime, including the most serious crimes.

So what would you do? Some stuff to consider: would it depend in any way on the severity of the crime? And if you would turn them in, why? As a scare tactic (if the crime was minor)? Do you think handing them over to the police would have a net positive effect on their future behaviour (I currently live in Russia and my answer to that is "hell no, it would likely make them worse")? What if it was a very serious crime and your kid would face severe punishment (I'm thinking of the Brian Laundrie/Gabby Petito case from a few years ago where Laundries' parents seem to have covered up for his murdering his girlfriend)? Here's a tough scenario: you discover your teenaged kid has been harming animals and writing some disturbing stuff online. Family discussion, psychologist, or straight to cops? 

Sorry for the unfocused post but there's a bunch of stuff in my head right now concerning this issue and I wanted to get some opinions on it. 

[Jamesman42]

In addition to the crime itself, I think age is a factor here. A 15 year old who shoplifted is different from a 20 year who raped someone. And vice versa. Being a teen under someone's care versus being a legal adult who might still need to learn how to be a law-abiding adult. Some things can be resolved at a low-level consequence (shoplifting, for example - my sister actually did this as a teen and she had to go apologize to the store owner and a cop drove her home, it scared the shit out of her). Some things harm others or cause a loss of value and necessitate a need for law enforcement (theft, rape, assault, etc).

Going on your tough scenario with animal abuse, there would need to be steps in place. I will not claim to know the exact order or what needs to be done, but removing the threat to the animals is first, then I think I would ask friends for advice for the next step. Psychologist seems likely, but I would gather advice on involving law enforcement before making that decision. But overall, I think there are steps to this and it's not necessarily cut and dry to generalize for all crimes.