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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

#541

Post by soco »

LaLaLand122 wrote: post #488
jakewins wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wednesday is forest trip day, weather schmeather. Once after a stormy Wednesday the kindergarten stayed closed for the rest of the week as most of the involved - kids and educators - got a cold. Still Switzerland yes.

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

#542

Post by gspencley »

fluidcruft wrote: post #327
gspencley wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investigate, absolutely. The cops need to do that as well. However, as someone else pointed out "Child services had the family agree to a safety plan" is not investigating. That's taking action and making a threat: "if you don't agree to this we'll take you to court and let a judge sort it out at your expense."

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.

I would agree if these types of pro-active measures required a judge to sign an order given a minimum threshold of evidence.

I have heard that it is shockingly easy to get a judge to issue a search warrant at 2 in the morning on a Saturday. I am not a lawyer, but from what I understand even then there is a minimum bar that needs to be met as far as evidence supporting the petition goes: what is the suspected crime? What evidence is there that supports the suspicion? Why do we believe that a search warrant will produce concrete evidence that the crime occurred and what is the scope of the required search (what property, specifically, are we asking to be able to examine and potentially confiscate?).

Similar, much higher, thresholds need to be met with respects to holding suspects in custody pending a trial.

Under no circumstances should any other government agencies be able to compel anything from anyone "just because." That's what the courts exist for. People have a right to due process and "agree to a safety plan" under threat is an act of force that was not authorized by a court order but by an independent government agency acting alone; outside of the one single entity that we trust to be in charge of doing that both fairly and under extremely tight scrutiny and limitations.

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

#543

Post by a1369209993 »

fluidcruft wrote: post #354
dragonwriter wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That was only while they investigated (which I'm fine with). I’m not; there should be some reasonable basis for this level of intrusion, which there was not (note that the facts of the report were true and confirmed and still did not violate family law that CPS enforces; this isn't a case where someone reported something which would have warranted CPS intervention if confirmed.)

How could CPS possibly know that before they investigate?

The people arguing with you are assuming that the police accurately reported the situation, so that CPS was told "this parent let their child walk half a mile unattended". If that is the only complaint, there's clearly no need to investigate because there's nothing to investigate.

Whereas if - as you seem to be assuming - CPS only heard "this parent commited neglect and possibly abuse of their child", investigation would indeed be needed to figure out they were being lied to. But other people are assuming CPS got accurate information in the first place.

Edit: apparently dragonwriter already explained this (better) here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33629395.

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

#544

Post by jasmer »

I can understand that one person here and there will have a misappropriated sense of justice - we all have our weaknesses and odd perspectives.

What I don't get is how this could be systemic, or, that other reasonable minds within the system would have such awful judgment.

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

#545

Post by BirAdam »

rootusrootus wrote: post #387
rlkf wrote: post #25

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.

In my experience it is fairly normal in the US, too, which is why stories like this are newsworthy. Also, Reason is a libertarian political rag and they have ideological motivations for sharing this particular story.

Not disagreeing, but I want to point out that every news source is typically biased and has ideological reasons for every story that they push.

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

#546

Post by felixfurtak »

ddalex wrote: post #511
zhdc1 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My son is expected to walk to and from school without parental support once he starts kindergarten. We don't live in the states.

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.

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

#548

Post by cypress66 »

Zvez wrote: post #523
ddalex wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland ? One of the places that is somewhat normal...

actually this is more than normal in all 3rd world countries. Starting from 6-7 years most kids walk to/from school on their own.

> in all 3rd world countries

Not true.

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

#550

Post by pdonis »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #520
nearbuy wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck finding a libertarian that believes parents shouldn't have to feed their children. I think you've made a straw man argument.

It's a direct quote from Murray Rothbard. So that's one at least.

While Rothbard is of course one of the major figures in libertarianism, he is also notorious for overstating things, and making claims about what "libertarianism" requires that are not endorsed by other prominent libertarians. The claim under discussion here is a case in point.
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