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Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile

reason.com

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Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile

#11

>A woman one block away had called the cops to report a boy walking outside alone. That lady had actually asked Aiden where he lived, verified that it was just down the street, and proceeded to call nonetheless. The cops picked up Aiden on his own block. this is the real problem here. who in their right mind calls the cops on a kid walking around his own neighborhood?

There will always be people who overreact and call the police for inappropriate reasons. That isn't the problem. The problem is that the police, and then the DA, chose to make this a criminal matter. Either of them could and should have dismissed the issue after verifying that the child was not being put into a harmful environment.

Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile

#12

I'm not sure (correct me if I'm wrong) but doesn't the district attorney have the ability to drop the charges or not pursue the case? If CPS dropped the case, why didn't the DA?

Yes, but that is not in the DA's interest unless there was political pressure to drop the case.

Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile

#13

> Waco, Texas What? If this draconian policy is happening in Texas, the land of the free, can I assume it's even worse in the rest of North America? I hope Texans are up-in-arms about this government overreach.

It's frustrating because these kinds of overreactions are based on a perception that crime is much worse than it is. At the same time, the perception that these kinds of incidents are common is itself wrong. Both false perceptions are caused by the "man bites dog" effect, where the media reports what is interesting, and media consumers therefore overestimate the frequency with which these unusual events occur.

This kind of incident is NOT NORMAL. I have lived in various neighborhoods in Austin and a midsize city in Michigan, and kids walking or riding their bike around the neighborhood are common. The same is true of relatives' neighborhoods in Wisconsin, Arizona, and California.

Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile

#14
Vaguely relevant, from Peter Grey's book "Free to Learn":

> In our culture today, parents and other adults overprotect children from possible dangers in play. We seriously underestimate children’s ability to take care of themselves and make good judgments [...] Our underestimation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy—by depriving children of freedom, we deprive them of the opportunities they need to learn how to take control of their own behavior and emotions.

Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile

#15

> Waco, Texas What? If this draconian policy is happening in Texas, the land of the free, can I assume it's even worse in the rest of North America? I hope Texans are up-in-arms about this government overreach.

Apparently, except when you have to "think of the children", in which case they will go full Kim Jong Un on you...

Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile

#17
My house was 0.99 miles (seriously) from my kid's elementary school - the cutoff for bus service was 1 mile, so my kids were classified as "walkers" to elementary school. I went ahead and drove them myself anyway, but the school seemed perfectly fine with them walking 0.99 miles each way every day.

Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile

#18

>A woman one block away had called the cops to report a boy walking outside alone. That lady had actually asked Aiden where he lived, verified that it was just down the street, and proceeded to call nonetheless. The cops picked up Aiden on his own block. this is the real problem here. who in their right mind calls the cops on a kid walking around his own neighborhood?

Half the problem, no? The other half being the police.

I upvote this, because you probably mean in this specific case and in this specific country.

But my personal experience with the police here where I live is *very different* from the stories I hear from the US.

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