There's a societal cost/risk to this coddling of youngsters that is probably much higher than the risk reduction of this mentality.
Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
131–140 of 763 posts
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody wants to be the one parent out of a thousand who has their kid scooped up off the street because they were letting their kid explore and be free. Edit: Not sure why I'm being downvoted, this comment isn't a judgment on anyone or promoting any type of child-rearing philosophy. It's just an obvious truth. Nobody wants to be that parent, and that obviously influences behavior.
Your kid is 3x more likely to be struck by lightning than kidnapped. Literally.
I bet those odds are much lower for kids that can't leave the house.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#133Texas.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Remember the stories you hear are outliers the normal is different here, but if you don't watch the local norm can change
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#135>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?
IMO, too many people took the wrong lessons from being ignored as children themselves, and they swung too hard into "Watch over your children 24/7 or you're hurting your children."
I think it's mostly an artifact of 1980s and 1990s daytime TV hyping every single missing child and making a generation of parents think this was happening everywhere all the time.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing is that the US has much greater freedoms than Europe, after all, we did fight for them. It's every US citizens understanding that with greater freedoms come greater responsibilities to raise children to be future leaders. This can't happen if a child is mowed down in a driveby or if they accidentally trip over while walking.
> the US has much greater freedoms than Europe Does it? I can't see this happening in Europe. What freedoms stand out?
Merica: *more* freedoms
Europa: *better* freedomsRe: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't forget about the child safety services/social workers - they should have to be reasonable too.
I suspect child services / social workers are punished far more severely for false negatives than false positives. I think it is safe to say the outrage of failing to save a child would outweigh the embarrassment of a false positive such as this. I could easily see major news outlets and local politicians raising hell for failing to stop abuse but raising far less hell for something like this.
I have had multiple experiences with multiple CPS departments through multiple friends and family members. CPS hardly ever does anything and are largely useless. The only time they did anything was when the police opened up a second investigation because of the problems, and they told them "Don't talk to CPS talk to the cops and have them talk to CPS".
Assume the default for these kinds of agencies is false negatives.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#138In 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.
Every police interaction in the US bears the risk of death. Police will stop kids on the street with or without being called. Ergo, it is unsafe for children to walk to school in the US. Sure, that's all a bit circular, but good luck breaking the spiral with a "law and order" mentality.
That is everywhere. For that matter every interaction with someone with a little martial arts training (even what you can find on the internet, though you will also find bad training) can be potential deadly. Most people have the ability to kill another human, few attempt it.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#139This is (one of) the logical conclusions of suburban, car-enforced social alienation: if you don't know your neighbors and your neighbors don't know you, then everything that isn't immediately familiar to either party is treated with suspicion. And this holds for the entire "food chain": police who don't live in the areas they patrol, DAs and CPS employees who don't understand their communities, &c. It's civically and socially poisonous.
It would of course be ridiculous to claim that these things don't happen absent of car culture: it's a broader trend than that, and there are suburban areas that buck the trend. But the urban/suburban divide here is stark: I grew up walking to school and riding public transport alone, and it's normal to see kids running around my neighborhood without any supervision. That kind of freedom works because nobody is surprised to see a 6 year old running errands; they're seen doing the same thing every day.
Re: Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile
#140> 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.
...is happening in Texas, the land of the free...
Meh, you're quoting their own press release at that point. It's like someone telling you they are a genius. If it isn't obvious, such that someone feels a need to tell me, then I'm pretty skeptical about the truth of it.