I thought that it "takes a village"

We've heard this crap for years. While I will admit that many times while I was a child, neighbors/teachers/friends of my parents/etc... disciplined me when I did something studid. The main difference between then and now, is that if you take someone's child home and tell their parents how that kid screwed up, they now threaten to sue you for even daring to suggest how to discipline their child, but when I was younger, I was disciplined AGAIN! Well, those who have been reading recently know I have a friend who is currently incarcerated for a VERY MINOR offense. I can say that as I am studying law, and I have been employed in the law enforcement/detention field. Now the problem is that he is now being told that he is "using his family/friends as a crutch" now, yet we are still being told it "takes a village", so I'm just wondering why the double standard? He has admitted he made a STUPID DECISION and that he deserves to be punished for it, but for those in charge to verbally berate him over this is JUST PLAIN WRONG! Cross posted at Smoke Signals Blog