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Mom jailed for letting 10-year-old walk alone to town

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Re: Mom jailed for letting 10-year-old walk alone to town

#191

Post by tpoacher »

edanm wrote: post #186
ajdude wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a news story and a controversy because it's a weird thing that happened. This kind of thing has been going on for decades now, e.g. Florida mom arrested after allowing 7-year-old son to walk to park alone (2014): https://fox4kc.com/news/florida-mom-arrested-after-allowing-... Maryland family under investigation for letting their kids walk home alone (2015): https://www.fox43.com/article/news/local/contests/…

And the parent's statement is still true: >This is a news story and a controversy because it's a weird thing that happened. How often do you read a news story that says "sun rose in the morning"? The news doesn't report it if it's a normal, non-controversial thing. That's not to say that this proves anything one way or the other - just that the existence of n=5 cases where this happened over 10 years is not proof of…

It's proof that there's a legal framework that allows this abuse, let alone promotes it, and that it's leading to real-world harm.

How high should N be before we care to plug such legal holes?

That Assanges are rare doesn't mean there shouldn't be outcries about it.

Re: Mom jailed for letting 10-year-old walk alone to town

#192

Post by eesmith »

perrygeo wrote: post #174

A lot of folks talking about the "10-year-old" part but the more pervasive problem in America is the "walking" part. In many areas of America there is zero infrastructure for pedestrians. Anyone walking is viewed as suspicious because surely no sane person would subject themselves to the danger of walking on these streets. Heaven forbid you are young, brown skinned, or wearing unique clothing - then the act of walkin…

I walked once to a client's site in PA. It was about 1.5 miles from the center of the small town and the hotel were I stayed. The walk was quite nice, until I got to the block where the client's site was.

The intersection had "no ped-X-ing" signs on all four sides. The road widened so it was 6 lanes across. And there was no pedestrian entrance, so I needed to walk up to the guarded gate entrance for cars.

The guard was a bit confused, but I think what helped was he likely did not grow up in car-centric US, based on his Caribbean accent.

The building itself had bike rakes by the entrances. Completely unused.

Re: Mom jailed for letting 10-year-old walk alone to town

#193

Post by loughnane »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #16

There's something extremely sick about the modern attitudes to children in the US (and maybe elsewhere). These people are fucking crazy. They can't imagine a world where children actually exist out in the real world and live their life like every other country instead of only in supervised jail schools. Anything approaching affection or concern for other children is seen with suspicion as if its pedophilia. Everyone…

Don’t let the internet fool you. I’m a 39yo man and I see none of those problems in real life.

I coach kids sports, tons of kids in our neighborhood, take my kids to places, etc. It’s all good.

Re: Mom jailed for letting 10-year-old walk alone to town

#194

Post by Izkata »

tjansen wrote: post #189
jancsika wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, use the one for Mineral Bluffs: 1. Study the width of the oversize vehicle here[1]. 2. Study the lack of shoulder next to this guard rail[2]. No parent in their right mind is going to be comfortable letting a six year-old walk that, in any decade. And no municipality is going to let school buses drop kids at arbitrary parts of that highway, unless the driver is dumping them into a residential side-street. I'm gla…

That would definitely not been unusual in Germany in the 80s. Actually many rural German roads didn't even have that small shoulder, you really had to walk either on the street or on the grass. Kids learned how to handle this. There are even popular children's songs from that decade about how to do this, which is to walk on the left side of the road ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La129TFxCGE ).

Nor in the US in the 90s. I don't know where this kid was, but we'd walk in the grass on the other side of the ditch, not practically on the street.

Re: Mom jailed for letting 10-year-old walk alone to town

#195

Post by uberman »

dwaltrip wrote: post #137
MostlyStable wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If the state does prosecute, Patterson could face a reckless conduct charge, a $1,000 fine, and a year in jail. From the article, apparently it's "reckless conduct"

Would that actually hold up in court?

IANAL but I doubt it. There are school districts in GA that require kids to walk up to a mile and a half each way before bussing in mandated. Additionally, no jury of your rural peers would ever agree with those charges. I am stunned myself at the lunacy. I live in a rural area and given the size of their property I assume they do as well. My next door neighbor lives almost a mile from us. Granted I don't live in GA but I can't imagine any rural sheriff being re-elected on a platform that kids can't be trusted to walk to their neighbors house or to their little town.

Re: Mom jailed for letting 10-year-old walk alone to town

#197

Post by red-iron-pine »

aguaviva wrote: post #107
Aurornis wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t know what is up with the USA and its obsession that kids cannot have autonomy. This is a news story and a controversy because it's a weird thing that happened. The US is a big place. Societal norms and law enforcement practices vary widely from location to location. This appears to be one sheriff pushing a personal agenda.

This appears to be one sheriff pushing a personal agenda. Unfortunately it's not - there's a whole "child safety" department behind them, ready with a "safety plan" and even an app that they're going force the poor kid to install. This kind of stuff doesn't happen without the coordination of external bodies, and decades of societal shift in favor of this kind of control-oriented parenting (and blind faith in technica…

I don't know if that's true. the assistant DA refused to drop the charge, and the compromise that they offered was some CPS-based safety plan.

but the ADA who owns the case could drop the charge tomorrow and it all goes away.

and Sheriffs don't prosecute or dismiss charges, they simply take them to the DAs and supply evidence. someone called them and said there was a kid walking alone and they looked abused, and the sheriff took it to the courts and DAs.

Re: Mom jailed for letting 10-year-old walk alone to town

#199

Post by whitfieldsdad »

SunlitCat wrote: post #185
whitfieldsdad wrote: post #109

Thankfully, it sounds like the child's mother won't be required to go to prison for a year - as long as she agrees to always have someone physically watch her son, and additionally surveil her son 24/7 using an app installed on their phone. I wonder how many people these days think that they're going too light on her, and are thirsting for stricter penalties?

The damage for the kid is also considerable. I mean, he learns that he needs to be surveilled 24/7.

Yeah, the requirement for 24/7 surveillance to avoid being sent to a foster home - or something - kinda sucks

Re: Mom jailed for letting 10-year-old walk alone to town

#200

Post by averageRoyalty »

jancsika wrote: post #157
AmINotARobot wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please use Google street view in any small town around the world and notice the prevalence of foot traffic. Even on roads with no shoulder, bike lane, sidewalk or similar. I've walked to school since I was 6 on roads not too dissimilar.

No, use the one for Mineral Bluffs: 1. Study the width of the oversize vehicle here[1]. 2. Study the lack of shoulder next to this guard rail[2]. No parent in their right mind is going to be comfortable letting a six year-old walk that, in any decade. And no municipality is going to let school buses drop kids at arbitrary parts of that highway, unless the driver is dumping them into a residential side-street. I'm gla…

I had to recheck those to make sure my Maps app wasn't loading the wrong thing.

Those appear to be normal streets like those kids all over the world walk on the side of?

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