591–600 of 763 posts
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When CPS is investigating abuse it seems completely reasonable for them to implement a safety plan to ensure ongoing abuse doesn't occur during the investigation. Far better than yanking the kids into protective custody.
but they had no suspicion that any abuse was occurring?
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> Child services had the family agree to a safety plan, which meant Wallace and her husband could not be alone with their kids for even a second. Their mothers—the children's grandmothers—had to visit and trade-off overnight stays in order to guarantee the parents were constantly supervised. After two weeks, child services closed Wallace's case, finding the complaint was unfounded. This is the fault of the nosey neig…
> This is the fault of the nosey neighbor Only in the most unproductive way. You're not going to fix the problem by exterminating all nosy neighbors. If your new roof leaks when it rains, it's not the rain's fault, blame it on the person who builds roofs ignoring the unavoidable fact that rain will eventually fall.
This story is, in a nutshell, why me and my family have a plan to leave the US permanently within 2 years. We have a 4 year old and a 6 year old, and the possible futures we can see for ourselves and our children as they grow up are all dystopian to us. We can have freedom for them to play outside, if we only live in a rural area where my wife and kids will be the only non-white people around, where we will be bound…
"We can have freedom for them to play outside if we only live in a rural area (...) where the politics of everyone nearby will be opposite our own." Have you ever considered the remote possibility of your politics being the reason behind the dystopian future you see arising around you?
As far as my personal politics, no, the things I believe in do not drive us towards this dystopia. I believe in urbanism (including public transit, cycling and other micromobility, higher density, and other related policies), less power in the hands of local police and district attorneys in favor of public safety being managed at a higher level like the state level (including things like putting traffic enforcement in the purview of an unarmed and mostly automated traffic enforcement service), better social safety nets in the form of public health care and better employment protection and welfare benefits, and a few other things.
Many of these problems derive from the structure of our political system. For instance, urbanism is largely impossible in much of the US due to the structure of who determines land use policies, which is largely individual municipalities, where voters are voting in their own self interest (which tends towards keeping their own property values high). Similarly for the public safety issues I mentioned, much of the abuse we see around the country is due to the people with the most power in this space being largely unaccountable to anyone. These things have nothing to do with party, and everything to do with structure.
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> Let's quickly drop the idea that this is the fault of nosey neighbors No, let's not. According to the article, the neighbor who called the cops asked the boy where he lived, "verified that it was just down the street, and proceeded to call nonetheless". Excuse me? What decent neighbor calls the cops on a neighbor's kid walking just down the street from his own house? I agree the law in question shouldn't even be on…
> What decent neighbor calls the cops on a neighbor's kid walking just down the street from his own house? Well, what decent neighbour isn't able to, at the very least, recognize his neighbors? Maybe this child's parents have kept him locked in the closet, never seen by anyone before, until this one time he emerged unto the world and the police were called not because he was on the street, but because he's never been…
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It isn't the neighbors job to be mentally functional. It is, however, the police's, DA, and CPS's job.
> It isn't the neighbors job to be mentally functional. I'm not sure I agree. One of the requirements for an adult citizen in a civil society is to be reasonable in your dealings with neighbors. > It is, however, the police's, DA, and CPS's job. "Mentally functional" does not necessarily mean "giving citizens a break". The criminal law that the mom was charged with is a law, it's on the books, and law enforcement is…
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Should someone get a ticket for going 66 mph in a 65 zone? I don't really think officer discretion is avoidable to a certain degree. Laws can never be written perfectly. There are always going to be ridiculous edge cases like this where a reasonable person would know the law shouldn't be applied. This is why so much legal precedent is based on what a reasonable person would do or what a reasonable person would assume…
> Should someone get a ticket for going 66 mph in a 65 zone? Speed limit laws should not even exist in the first place. They are a paradigmatic example of laws that are unreasonable and should not exist. The fact that it is impossible to enforce them as written, or even with light-years of as written, is one reason for that. > I don't really think officer discretion is avoidable to a certain degree. To a certain degr…
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We just moved to Sweden from Missouri; yesterday I picked up our 3yo from daycare and had this exchange: Kid: Teacher: Oh, by the way, he fell out of a small tree today, he was climbing and fell, so he may have a small bruise, just so you are aware Me: Oh ok. What tree? Teacher: Oh we took them to and grilled hot dogs today! Kid: I found a snail!
I have visited nurseries that don't let kids go out to the playground when it rains... in the UK! I suspect some of my child classmates were Gremlins.
But in my kid's preschool (for 5-6 year olds), when they were presenting a plan for this year and how they'll be crossing the street to another of their buildings for a few hours, one of the parents was worried they'll do that even if it rains or snows!
When asked how will they bring their kid to preschool not dressed for the elements, it was (not-surprisingly) "by car". I guess going outside is limited to sunny weather for their kids!
HB567, a larger child welfare reform bill, and clarifies that parents are allowed to let their kids engage in independent activities as long as they aren't putting them in serious, likely danger. [...] Unfortunately, HB567 amended only family law, not criminal law. This meant the cops were still free to punish Wallace.
The solution is to create a law like HB567, but that amends Texas’s criminal law so frivolous arrests like this one can not happen.
Another thing would be for more states to have well defined laws which give children a minimum age when they can be left unsupervised.
Related: https://reason.com/2017/03/30/mom-arrested-for-leaving-kid-a... — https://reason.com/2021/10/11/cop-family-lawsuit-midland-qua...
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Risk of death during interaction with the police is practically zero where I live. Whenever that happens, it’s on the media for months or years.
It is practically zero almost everywhere. Iran is the only exception I can think of, and even then it is only protesters. (I'm sure there are other corrupt countries that I'm not aware of)
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Switzerland ? One of the places that is somewhat normal...
My kids, ages 8 and 6 walk 2 km home from school on their own. New Zealand, largest city. It's definitely fairly normal here. It's hard to fathom that this could be considered illegal.