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Japan has entered the chat... In Japan, children are encouraged from early age to be independent. They even take the subway and bus by themselves, albeit it's significantly safer there than in other parts of the world. Still though, I think people in America have gone off the deep end.
> 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.
I don't think Texas or any other conservative state that touts "small government" in practice really practice this in any substantial way, especially as you start looking more locally.
>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?
He called because there was "an animal in distress."
We pulled into the driveway just as an RCMP officer was arriving "on the scene."
She entered the house with us, petted the dog, and rolled her eyes. And "closed the file."
The dog was doing its job.
Asshole neighbours (even in Canada) are a real problem.
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[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31742595
Penises are shrinking because of pollution (2021) (euronews.com) 5 points by jonahbenton 5 months ago | past | 1 comment
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.
We paid, and pay, the wages of everyone involved in locking that woman up - the police, the prosecutors, the jail staff.
It shouldn't take forming a political action group to fix things like this. That DA is unfit for purpose, his interest be damned.
> 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.
In dark blue WA for example this isn't really a problem nor are there any laws on the books prohibiting it.
In my twice-the-size European city, kids walk twice that distance to school and back home again, alone. Every. Single. Day. If this place isn't safe enough for kids to walk by themselves, maybe the question should be raised whether the police and municipal government really is doing their job the way they're supposed to.
> As they stood on her porch, the officers told Wallace that her son could have been kidnapped and sex trafficked. "'You don't see much sex trafficking where you are, but where I patrol in downtown Waco, we do,'" said one of the cops, according to Wallace > "I still didn't know it was illegal and I said, 'I don't know,'" says Wallace. "That's when the cop replied, 'Okay, I'm going to have to arrest you.'" Let's quick…
This is the fault of the nosey neighbor AND the fault of the police AND the fault of the district attorney AND the fault of the CPS case worker. All four bear blame for this travesty.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Don't forget about the child safety services/social workers - they should have to be reasonable too.
The desire for more power, and thus funding, and thus better career aspirations is as relevant to CPS as it is the local PD.
Of all the spilled ink on the topic of how this stuff happens, there seems to be a culture of, "We lock up the bad guys and throw away the key". It doesn't take much to put you into the "Bad Guy" territory, and once you're there, you're not a person, a mother, a son or spouse with a life all your own. You're a threat to the societal order (no longer a human being), and deserve the full weight of punishment regardless of its implications.
The police departments which manage to actually take high crime areas, and turn them around into lower crime areas despite widespread poverty have undertaken a paradigm shift from, "Putting away bad guys" to "Building a community". Getting to know the community, its problems, its major players and learning what their struggles are and trying to find a way to integrate into solving those problems, using law enforcement as a tool and not its own pursuit.