Federal Law Now Says Kids Can Walk To School Alone (fastcoexist.com)

An anonymous reader writes: There's some good news for "free-range" parents and fans of children being allowed to walk places on their own. A recently approved federal education law will allow students to take alternative forms of transportation to and from school with parental permission. Fastcoexist reports: "Relax, parents. Now you can allow your kids to walk, ride a bike, or take a bus to school, without you or your children getting arrested. The recently-signed Every Student Succeeds Act contains a section (858) that protects the rights of kids to walk or go out alone. The act was sponsored by Utah senator Mike Lee, who is a supporter of the Free Range Kids movement, and provides some hope for parents who feel that their kids should be allowed some autonomy to get by own their own." One can only hope that children will be allowed to go to the park on their own soon as well.

Comments

This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Land of the free my ass. It's a nation of lunatics ruled by fear.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[RogueyWon]

I was going to say...

I'd estimate that at the school I went to between the ages of 11 and 18, in a major UK city (and not all that far from some pretty rough areas), around 75% of the pupils made their own way there, usually via normal commuter buses (and then walking the last half mile or so). Even now (a couple of decades and a good few abduction panics later), I think the norm in the UK remains for most children aged 11+ to make their own way to school, based on what I see on the streets, train stations and bus-stops of London every morning.

Hopefully somebody is going to tell me that this Federal Law was just designed to stop one or two particular states/counties from implementing nutty policies.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[shabble]

No, if that were the case they would instead repeal the old law.

Which they're not doing. A recent case: http://www.freerangekids.com/m...

On Nov. 18, Maria Hasankolli of Wallingford, CT, came home in the early hours of the morning after visiting a relative at the hospital. She overslept while her 8-year-old stepson got himself ready for school — and missed his bus. The boy, Lucan, decided to walk to school on his own, two miles away, and was about halfway there when a business owner spotted him and called the cops. The cops drove Lucan to school, then went to his home, woke Hasankolli and clapped her into handcuffs.

She was driven to the police precinct, had her mug shot taken, and was given a $2500 bond. Her court date is this Wednesday. The charge?

Risk of injury to a minor.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't outlawed in law. Look at the links provided. There were specific people / police / social services etc. that were detaining kids and threatening their kids under general "neglect" laws which exist almost everywhere in the world. Neglect is rightly a relative standard.

The problem with treating the US as lunatics is that normally we in the "civilised world" end up doing exactly the same thing ten years later. Instead, look and learn from the people in the US fighting for freedom and learn to respect people who have a much harder time than those of us who live in countries where we can take much more of our freedom for granted.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[EmeraldBot]

Land of the free my ass. It's a nation of lunatics ruled by fear.

The law was stupid, there's no doubt about that, but every country in the world has some stupid rules. The reason why most people in the US don't care isn't because they agree with it, but simply that it doesn't affect them - when your school is 30 miles away, you have to take a car or a bus, and so it wouldn't really appear in their daily life.

While the US certainly does some crazy things, and the policy towards children is absolutely ridiculous, every country has one area that is crazy. You should be able to do better than an impulsive xenophobic response, Mr. Anon, and might I point out, I'm also surprised by how well modded up this was - as good as Slashdot's system is, it's obviously not infallible, because this irrational and stupid comment provides absolutely no insight at all. If I said the UK was a nation of lunatics ruled by fear, you'd have my ass for saying that, even though it's just as idiotic a statement as this.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

there's no old law that forbids it,
there's just the fact that OVERZEALOUS police are going: child alone = child in danger = get governement involved and try to prosecute parents for child endangerment
the cases generally get thrown out of court, but they kept happening

this just gives you something explicit to point at the next time some overzealous enforcement officer tries to give you hell over having confidence in your kid

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Land of the free my ass. It's a nation of lunatics ruled by fear.

It was never outlawed; but if some neurotic busybody called the Podunk PD because they saw a kid outside and decided that they were either about to be abducted by pedo-terrorists or on their way to delinquency, and Podunk PD decided to throw some spurious neglect/endangerment charge at you, it would still ruin your day. That's the real problem. Even if the first judge who sees it tosses the case in disgust, you'll still have a lousy time until then.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Rockoon]

This is something that the state should decide.

Or we could go more narrow and have counties decide.

Taking this narrowing idea further its the cities and towns that should decide.,

Taking this narrowing idea to its conclusion and its the parents that decide.

Now according to the federal government, the parents now decide.

This is exactly the kind of law that should be federal. The federal government should always be allowed to demand that its up to the people.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is CRAZY! I went alone to kindergarden when I was only 5. (~1km, Germany)

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[MightyYar]

This is not really aimed at kids that old. Unless you live in a very scary place, or a place with no safe place to walk, a kid that age is more autonomous. You can even hire one as a babysitter.

This is meant to counter some overactive local authorities in a few states who have started harassing parents who let their younger kids walk to school (or home from the park). I still walk my 9 year old, partly because of my wife's insistence, and partly because as a girl she really needs to walk with a buddy. That buddy could be her 6 year old brother, but they have enough sibling rivalry that I can't quite leave them alone yet. Next year she'll be taking the bus, so I'd better (and my wife more so) get used to some independence :)

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[tburkhol]

Hopefully somebody is going to tell me that this Federal Law was just designed to stop one or two particular states/counties from implementing nutty policies.

This part of the law is just designed to prevent isolated municipalities from nutty interpretations of existing law.

There have been a few recent examples of private citizens reporting unaccompanied children to the police. Generally, the kids are walking short distances (~1 mile). Once the police get involved, they often feel the need to charge someone, and generally find a way to fit "leaving your 8 year old child unattended for 20 minutes" into some form of neglect or endangerment. I'm not sure if any of these have resulted in actual conviction, but they have certainly resulted in handcuffings, arrests, and (perhaps most importantly) court fees.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

"We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep into our own history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular. [...] We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result."

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[prefec2]

This means before that, parents where in danger to be charged. This has almost the same effect than a law prohibiting it. Very strange. At least from my perspective. I went to kindergarten be foot alone. Ok it was only a five to ten minute walk and I only had to cross two roads. However, most of the other kids went there on their own. Later in school, only children from outside town had to take the bus, the rest where on their own. I also could go to town on my own.

For example in Germany, depending on age different rules apply to children and parent oversight. The general notion is that the older you get the more you are allowed to do and the less parents are responsible for the mayhem you cause. Still it is always a good idea to have proper insurance ;-)

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[shawn2772]

as a girl she really needs to walk with a buddy

Why?

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[ShanghaiBill]

This is just to be clear that a parent can't be charged with neglect for allowing their kid to walk alone.

No, it just means they can't be charged with a Federal crime, by the FBI, Secret Service, or other Federal agency. This does not effect state or local law enforcement, unless you believe that kids walking to school are engaging in interstate commerce.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[hey!]

I think of this situation as being in part like the hygiene hypothesis for the rise in allergies: without the level of exposure to infectious microorganisms that would have been normal throughout most of human evolution, our immune systems go haywire. It is now so safe for children our normal protective instincts go haywire. Back when kids routinely worked in textile mills or as powder monkeys in mines nobody's eyebrows would have been raised by some kid walking a few miles to school. Now that kids are very safe indeed bad things that happen to them walking down a well-traveled street in broad daylight are a relatively greater fraction of the overall risk, even though that risk is very, very small.

Then there's the way that our information filters affect our perceptions of risk. Take school shootings; in the three years since Sandy Hook, 555 children 12 or under have been killed by firearms in the US; but as shocking as that is, you have to put it context; there are roughly 29 million children 14 and under in the US. In comparison about 2600 babies die each year from low birth weight; while in a global context the US infant mortality rate is relatively low, compared to similar wealthy countries it is shockingly high, which suggests that man of these deaths are preventable. Likewise the comparable number of children who die from influenza and pneumonia in that period isn't on the radar screen because it isn't news when a child dies from a commonplace but largely preventable infection. In 2014 there were 32,000 cases of whooping cough in the US leading to 20 deaths, and pertussis is an entirely eradicable disease.

Don't get me wrong; insofar as school shootings are preventable by practical steps we should take those steps; but we ought to prioritize causes of mortality and injury based on hard data, not our information filters.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[DarkOx]

because society places a premium on girls. Boys and men are generally considered to be comparatively disposable. This has deep roots in survival instincts.

A tribe that suffers the loss of to many young women would be unable to propagate itself, efficiently. The harm from that could last generations. The loss of almost all the young males however could be more easily survived. Older males remain fertile longer than females, and one male can easily impregnate large numbers of women. Its pretty simple really.

Our instincts are what they are. We generally instinctively protect all of our children pretty enthusiastically. Giving into our more base desires to afford our female offspring a little extra safety is probably harmless. We have plenty of other instincts that don't fit the environment most of us live in to focus on fighting.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[CastrTroy]

I'm a man, so maybe I don't "get it", but I never understood the problem that women have with walking alone. Are women really more likely to be attacked by random people on the street? Just giving a quick read through this article (from Canada, where I live) it seems that the majority of assault on women happen in a residential setting, and "Men are physically assaulted in a public place outside the home more often than women" and "Women more often physically assaulted by a spouse, men by a stranger". It seems as though men should be the ones who are worried about walking alone. Looking over the whole thing, it seems like there's little that women should be worrying about. Obviously they should probably stay out of certain areas at night, but it's not like they should never go out alone, or even worry about it most of the time.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[ShanghaiBill]

there's just the fact that OVERZEALOUS police are going: child alone = child in danger = get governement involved

The root problem is that crime rates have dramatically declined, yet we have more police than ever before. So we have too many cops with not enough "real" crime to deal with, so they just hassle people instead. People need to understand that more cops leads to more crime, not less, and stop voting for increases in policing, When you get a flyer in the mail saying a politician is endorsed by the police union, you should vote for the other guy.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[gmack]

Statistically, children are far more likely to run into pedophiles in their family or in positions of authority than randomly on the street.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[blogagog]

"there's no old law that forbids it,"

That's the saddest part. There now has to be a law that 'allows' something.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[AthanasiusKircher]

This part of the law is just designed to prevent isolated municipalities from nutty interpretations of existing law.

There have been a few recent examples of private citizens reporting unaccompanied children to the police.

I don't think you appreciate the scale of this problem. Yes, only "a few recent examples" probably reached the attention of the national media, but they are indicative of a much more widespread and more common problem. This site is obviously biased in one way, but it's dedicated to tracking stories like this. It's pretty common to see some rather outrageous intervention at least every couple weeks or so... somewhere in the U.S.

Generally, the kids are walking short distances (~1 mile).

Or an 11-year-old sitting alone in a car outside a store.

Or, ya know, an 11-year-old playing alone in his own yard unsupervised. Parents arrested on felony charges. Apparently your kid doesn't even need to be walking alone.

Once the police get involved, they often feel the need to charge someone, and generally find a way to fit "leaving your 8 year old child unattended for 20 minutes" into some form of neglect or endangerment. I'm not sure if any of these have resulted in actual conviction, but they have certainly resulted in handcuffings, arrests, and (perhaps most importantly) court fees.

This shows a gross misunderstanding of the worst issue for most parents. Yes, some parents end up held in jail for a day or something, and there are court fees.

But that's the relatively mild part and only the beginning of the nightmare that often follows. In many cases, Child Protective Services removes the kids from the parents, from anywhere to a few days to weeks to months in some cases. And even when parents fight to get their kids back, they are often subjected to various indignities -- mandatory parenting classes where they are taught how "not to neglect" their kids, periodic "check-ins" by CPS services at their homes, who have been known to find ridiculously minor "violations" or "concerns" (like a cluttered living room where kids have been playing -- too messy for CPS).

Poke around a bit and read the kinds of things that can happen. Also, keep in mind that hundreds of thousands of kids are removed by CPS to foster care in the U.S. every year, statistics compiled from CPS show that in somewhere around 1/3 of cases (about 100,000 kids), investigations eventually show that there was no credible threat at all to kids. That's not even covering cases where there was an "apparent" threat that was determined not to be significant enough to warrant removal -- these are thousands and thousands of cases where CPS takes kids and later says, "My bad. Turns out the removal wasn't really necessary." (Actually, of course, they never admit it that in those words. But they basically determine whatever evidence was used to justify removal was incomplete, a misunderstanding, or just a bogus report.)

And let's not even get into the stats on abuse and neglect in foster care, which tends to happen at higher rates than in homes with parents. So CPS is often removing kids from a safe house without investigating thoroughly and putting kids in places where they are more likely to be harmed. (Obviously, CPS also takes action in many, many cases every year where there IS serious abuse, and they should be commended for that -- but tell this to any parent whose child is taken away for no apparent reason.)

Perhaps this is getting a bit off-topic from TFA, but these are related issues. We have a culture that tends to assume any child alone (and by "child," states now often mean kids up to

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[shaitand]

I agree this is insane. My parents both worked long hours. I got up, got myself some sort of simple breakfast and went to the bus stop or to school (we moved a few times so it depends on where the school was) on my own essentially all through school.

At the times school was too far and I missed the bus THEN I'd wake my parents.

It wasn't a big deal, perhaps I was advanced for my age but I'd actually been a master of the skill called "walking" for many years prior to starting school.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[wyHunter]

And in the United States in the early 1970s I did similar things. Crime was WAY worse then than now. But nobody thought anything of it. We have become insane.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[shaitand]

If the DEA can claim growing marijuana in the shed for your personal use is a federal offense under interstate commerce then the same reasoning gives federal jurisdiction over my kid. After all, one day in the future he could theoretically cross state lines perhaps making a wrong turn on the way to school.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Grenk]

"Incidentally, one can get beaten up in school simply by referring to oneself as one." - Sheldon

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[AthanasiusKircher]

Statistically, children are far more likely to run into pedophiles in their family or in positions of authority than randomly on the street.

Indeed. Estimates vary, but most studies seem to put the number of stranger abductions as less than 5% of all child abductions. If you restrict it to "stereotypical stranger abduction scenarios" (child transported far away, detained overnight, and either held with intention to keep the child for a long time, ransomed, or killed), then you're talking about a tiny fraction of 1% of all abductions.

While we're invoking stats, it's also helpful to keep in mind that the VAST majority (~90%) of "missing children" are either "unintentionally" missing (miscommunicated plans, lost, whatever) or runaways. Of those who go missing, by far the most likely abduction scenario is a family member or close acquaintance. Even if children are abducted by a stranger, it's often close to home and they remain close to home, and often returned the same day. And though we mostly worry about young kids and pedophiles (i.e., those who prey on pre-pubescent kids), the vast majority of "child abductions" and sexual molestations, etc. are against (post-pubescent) teenagers.

In short, parents need to worry less about their little kid being abducted by a pedophile stranger and issuing an Amber Alert -- and they need to think more about their young teen being attacked by a coach or uncle or teacher or minister or close family friend.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[shaitand]

Moose attacks. F33r the moose my friend, f33r the moose.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[thejam]

The problem is not the free ride for the kid, but the arrest of the parent afterward.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[MightyYar]

Are women really more likely to be attacked by random people on the street?

No, because they travel in groups. Men are more likely to walk alone, and therefore are more likely to be targets of street crime.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[thejam]

Outside of immanent violence, women walking alone must deal with the pervasive catcalling, ogling, etc. that is both intrinsically distasteful and implicitly unsettling, even threatening... a feeling somewhat like being a fresh steak lying in front of a clan of drooling hyenas (to paraphrase my wife).

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[bitingduck]

And in the United States in the early 1970s I did similar things. Crime was WAY worse then than now. But nobody thought anything of it.

We have become insane.

Yes. I walked to school with a couple other 6 year olds in 1st grade in the 70's. It's lightspeed peer to peer communication that's made us insane. Every bad thing that happens anywhere to anyone gets bumped up to national news so it seems like it's all in your backyard and around every corner.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[edtice1559]

The funding that CPS gets is based on how many kids they put into foster care. Now I'm not saying that every CPS worker is thinking about that all of the time, but it has slowly affected the culture such that everybody has the reaction to put kids into foster care. Once a kid is in foster care, the standards are much lower. No kid would be removed from a foster family for any of these violations. The case worker would address it verbally and leave it out of the report and or decide that they've resolved it with the foster family and no further action is taken. If their funding were inversely proportional to how many kids ended up in foster families we'd see a much more sane approach. Only the most egregious cases should result in a removal of a kid from their home.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[AthanasiusKircher]

This does not effect state or local law enforcement, unless you believe that kids walking to school are engaging in interstate commerce.

Well, given that "interstate commerce" has been extended to include growing food on your own property for the consumption of your family and your own animals, I think it's pretty easy for a kid walking to school to engage in it, assuming he eats a homegrown snack along the way.

I can just see it now: a kid stops and rests on a bench to eat a sandwich on the way home from school. Suddenly, the Feds screech up in black SUVs, a helicopter swoops in overheard. "Freeze! Put down the sandwich -- slowly! We have reason to believe that that sandwich contains a contraband tomato slice, grown on your property in violation of the Godawful Ugly Grocery Produce for All Americans Act of 2016. (Otherwise known as the GUGPAA! Act, which is the sound most Americans make when they spit out flavorless store-bought tomatoes.) We will have to confiscate the sandwich, fine you for violating the Act, and escort you to a holding facility until your parents can be re-educated into proper patriotic procedures, like buying your tomatoes at the supermarket!"

And heaven help the kid if he trades sandwiches with the Native American kid at school, since the Constitution explicitly allows not only regulation of interstate commerce, but also commerce "with the Indian tribes."

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Ol Olsoc]

And in the United States in the early 1970s I did similar things. Crime was WAY worse then than now. But nobody thought anything of it. We have become insane.

And how!

Safety culture meets helicopter parents meets attachment parenting meets irrational fear equals this batshit insanity.

And the concept of no child unsupervised needs to die. These people are damaging their children with well meaning but irrational hovering, over supervision, and the fear that the second they aren't watching the child, Jerry Sandusky will show up.

Law and Order : Special Victims Unit is a fictional Television show, not a documentary, folks!

Even back in the 90's, when this helicoptering crap was getting started, my son and his friends played street hockey, in the streets!

Let's wait a minute for all the people to revive from their faint....

Okay, everyone back? If anyone needs a Xanax take a couple. We discretely kept an eye on them, but let them alone. Squabbles? Check. Silliness? Check. Learning how to get along with others to resolve issues? Check. Learning that there were some statements that were not to be ignored? (CAR!) Check.

What was impressive to watch was how kids figured all this stuff out. Nothing turned into "Lord of the Flies". These children were leaning valuable social skills, getting exercise, and having fun.

The reason this part of the law was enabled is because safety culture has entered the stage of failing. Protecting children by taking away normal loving parents is not protecting them, its doing grave damage to them in the name safety.

Because we now have to protect ourselves from safety culture.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[jedidiah]

Yup. This is the same kind of insane hysterical liberal that mistakes a jack on the hood of a jeep for an "assault rifle" and threatens to call the police. It's the same sort of punitive, vindictive use of 911, the police, or child protective services.

These people love to brag about how they will call CPS over someone in a store scolding an unruly child.

Take SWATing and add some sanctimonious political posturing.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[AthanasiusKircher]

The boy, Lucan, decided to walk to school on his own, two miles away, and was about halfway there when a business owner spotted him and called the cops.

This is something often not pointed out -- yes, police sometimes choose to intervene in such cases on their own. But very frequently they only take these actions because some neighborhood busybody calls the cops -- who then feel they need to take action.

I remember reading about this story back when it happened, and the business owner may have had a legitimate concern about how busy the streets were on the kid's route.

But the important thing is to compare the reaction to that situation a few decades ago. Fifty years ago if a local business owner noticed something like that, he'd go out and ask the kid where he was going. And then he'd offer to call the parent if he thought it was dangerous. And if the parent didn't answer, he might call the local policeman and ask if they could drive the kid, who would just do so without making a big deal. Or the business owner might even offer to close up his shop for five minutes and drive the kid the rest of the way to school himself.

These days if a business owner did the latter, the kid would likely start screaming "pedophile! offered me a ride in his car!" and the business owner would have ended up in jail along with the mom. Heck, somebody else might even think it suspicious if he went outside to ask the kid whether the kid was all right -- "unknown man approaching a child," some other passersby might think... and then THEY would call the cops on the man.

So, he did the only thing an adult male can do in the U.S. when he sees an unaccompanied child and is concerned -- he called the police without even approaching the kid and asking the kid about the situation. Instead of a reasonable community reaction to help a kid get to school, hysteria causes everyone to act in unreasonable ways.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[SuiteSisterMary]

The math I worked out once said that you'd have to let your kid sit out on the curb for about 750,000 years to guarantee a random abduction.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[james_shoemaker]

I doubt many cases actually happen in Podunktown USA, only larger cities have the resources to waste on this sort of idiocy. I know this because I live in Podunktown and most kids are on the free range plan here. If you would call the police on a kid playing in the park alone they would say, "So what's the issue? Is he/she valdalizing park equipment or beating up on other kids?"

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[sociocapitalist]

because society places a premium on girls. Boys and men are generally considered to be comparatively disposable. This has deep roots in survival instincts.

A tribe that suffers the loss of to many young women would be unable to propagate itself, efficiently. The harm from that could last generations. The loss of almost all the young males however could be more easily survived. Older males remain fertile longer than females, and one male can easily impregnate large numbers of women. Its pretty simple really.

Our instincts are what they are. We generally instinctively protect all of our children pretty enthusiastically. Giving into our more base desires to afford our female offspring a little extra safety is probably harmless. We have plenty of other instincts that don't fit the environment most of us live in to focus on fighting.

Depends on which society you're talking about. There is a severe dearth of girl babies in both China and India, relative to the population. My no doubt imperfect understanding is that in China this is largely because of the old one child law where boys would be earners and so were more desirable than girl babies, and in India where Hindu requires a boy for the death rites of the parents in addition to the boys being earners.
http://www.scientificamerican....
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl...

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[ScentCone]

Jesus FUCK! As a European, I find living 30 miles from the school your kids go to be totally batshit crazy.

Then you have no idea how millions of people in rural areas live. Huge portions of the US are a lot less crammed-in and densely populated than the European patchwork. Are you suggesting that kids shouldn't be allowed to live in rural areas? Or that we build thousands of new schools so that each facility and its staff can tend to the needs of half a dozen kids in a given grade?

Thirty miles isn't a big distance when you're used to living in wide-open spaces. Thirty miles is how far you go for groceries.

I invite you to travel to the US, and actually drive across the great midwest. See the prairies. Understand the scale of things before you call everyone who, for example, produces food for a living "batshit crazy."

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[LaurenCates]

The fear strangely grips adults also.

We put up a couch for free on Craiglist this past weekend. Which, if you've ever offered something for free on the internet, you know it descends into drama very quickly, and the bigger the item, the more drama you end up with.

The woman who responded asked if my husband (who put up the post) if he was male or female. Upon finding out he was male (as if she couldn't have found out by looking at the name next to the email, which is an unambiguously male name), she replied "okay, so what are you going to do to make me feel safe if I come over?"

Were it me answering, I'd ask who the fuck she was to accuse my husband of being a bad person before she ever spoke to him...and despite the fact that she was offered a couch for free! If you're ever in doubt, stop replying to people on Craigslist, and don't be a dick to someone who's more than likely to be doing you a solid.

There's a little reassurance in the fact that she recanted that statement after he replied with "stop wasting my time, I'm offering the couch to the next on the list", because hubby's smart enough not to give into emotional blackmail. But that's not an exchange that shouldn't even have happened.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Ol Olsoc]

there's just the fact that OVERZEALOUS police are going: child alone = child in danger = get governement involved

The root problem is that crime rates have dramatically declined, yet we have more police than ever before. So we have too many cops with not enough "real" crime to deal with, so they just hassle people instead.

I can't argue your premise, but a lot of these cases are because some alarmed person who probably watched too many episodes of Law and Order - Special Victims Unit has called 911 because there is an unattended child out in dangerville.

Just last year, we had an Amber alert about a boy in our neighborhood. School left out, he was a walker, Television, radio, police out, our cell phones, everyone in a panic.

five minutes later it was a Emily Latella "never mind". The child was talking with a friend, they were walking slowly, and took a couple minutes longer to get home.

Two months ago in the village where I grew up, there was another police activation. Some older gentleman had just picked up his first smartphone and asked some 10 year old girls a question about how to operate it. He was detained and then released because he was just some old dude who was trying to figure out how his phone worked.

Until we get a hold on safety culture, any male who has any interaction with children he doesn't know is an idiot. That old dude was from a different time, and must realize that in safety culture America, he is a pre-pedophile. He fit the profile, White - upper middle aged, and male, so that means he is one. And it's funny in a terribly unfunny way. Abused children are often distrusting of others, fearful and nervous. They've had some bad things happen to them.

So in making certain they don't get abused, we're making them distrusting of others, fearful and nervous. We have become the abusers of children. We are doing bad things to them in the name of protecting them.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

Generally speaking, there are two possibilities for what happens to a child on the way to school: something bad or nothing bad. [I'm being REALLY general here, but I think the conclusions drawn from this simple exercise apply even if you introduced more complexity by adding additional cases.]

There are two possibilities for what a police officer can do: stop the child or not stop the child.

In the "Something bad", "Stop the child" case the officer may prevent harm to the child. This is a positive outcome.
In the "Something bad", "Not stop the child" case the public tees off on the police in general and the officer in particular. "Why didn't you do your job???" Negative.
In the "Nothing bad", "Stop the child" case at worst the officer gets accused of interfering with the parents' right to allow their child to walk. At worst, mild negative.
In the "Nothing bad", "Not stop the child" case nothing happens. Neutral.

So if the officer chooses to stop the child, at worst they get the public mildly disapproving of his or her actions. If they choose NOT to stop the child, at worst they get dragged over hot coals by the court of public opinion, sued, etc. From the officer's perspective, mild disapproval is a MUCH more attractive alternative than torches, pitchforks, and/or lawsuits and so their dominant strategy is to stop the child.

Or the tl;dr version: cover their asses in case something bad would have happened to the kid.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Dixie_Flatline]

Additionally, I greatly suspect that he had no idea that anyone would be arrested for this. His intent wasn't to get someone thrown in jail, he just wanted a kid to make it to school without incident. So now he's left with a conundrum the next time something like this happens: does he call the police and possibly get a parent tossed in jail for no goddamn reason, or does he ignore the event (which is probably fine, but clearly he's got concerns) and potentially leave the child in a situation that he thinks is inherently unsafe.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[LaurenCates]

Disclaimer: I am a woman who grew up in the ghetto.

Catcalling may be distasteful, but it isn't threatening in and of itself.

If you catcall me and you stay put when I walk away, it isn't a threat.

If you catcall me and follow me in your truck for a couple blocks, I'm bound to duck into a store or veer towards somewhere I know where people are at. And I don't normally walk alone at night where there aren't people.

If your wife feels like a steak "lying" in front of hyenas, perhaps she needs to adjust her perspective to determine whether or not she's going to be attacked. I sincerely hope she hasn't, and you haven't indicated that she has been.

But let's not go overboard. If a bunch of men are hooting at you but aren't doing anything to directly endanger your safety, get a grip. If you think being "ogled" is a problem, never leave the house, so such a "threat" never befalls you.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[F.Ultra]

It's because humans are completely useless in risk assessment. Like you wrote Men are more likely (and much more so) to be assaulted by strangers than Women, but it's the Women who are afraid while close to no male is afraid. And I've heard that more people died due to them driving since they where too afraid of flying after 9/11 than actually died on 9/11.

And I guess that it's the same with the kids from TFA, they are probably many times over more likely to die or get injured in a car crash due to them being driven to school every day than them being attacked by stranger danger when walking to school.

That is also the "fault" of media since something that happens every day (i.e people getting killed or injured in a car crash) isn't newsworthy, but something that in principle never ever happens (i.e stranger danger, terrorist plane crash) will be all over the news for days.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[LaurenCates]

Yeah, we should know better by now. This weekend was an exception, though. It was rainy here, and we're decent enough folks that we'd not let a perfectly good couch that we wanted to get rid of quickly go to waste by letting it sit in the rain if we could help it.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[wvmarle]

It sounds like the CPS should be sued for mistreating children. In general it has to be pretty bad at home for a child to be better off taken away from its parents.

My 9yo often enough comes home from school by himself. Walks down to the train station with other kids, then takes the train one stop, and walks the 15 minutes back home. Good for him, this way he can get a bit of self confidence and independence. It's also pretty safe, two roads to cross, both with pedestrian lights which he knows to wait for.

Really sad that in the US children are treated this bad.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Creepy]

I had no idea this was a thing, either. In the 1970s my mom was out the door by 6AM, my dad had to drop my brother off at pre-school and then go to work, so I walked a block up to my friend Patrick's house when my dad had to leave and played until the bus came or walked the half block from there to the school and played on the playground until the buses arrived. By first grade walking was not an option - my parents moved and school was 6 miles away. Also that K-6 school closed the next year, so I'd have been bused either way.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[F.Ultra]

She has probably seen some direct to tv movie where this was the plot (i.e lure single women to your home with a free ) and since it was on TV it must be real... I'm just curios why she called at all if she was afraid that that might be the case with your couch. I mean if your husband (because no female could ever be the assailant) was planning to do something ugly then he could have invented any assuring answer to the "what are you going to make me feel safe" question, which makes the question completely moot. It's like the pig asking the wolf to promise not to eat him if he opens the door.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[tibit]

LOL. Hell is paved with good intentions.

He had two sane options:

1. Walk the kid to school.
2. Do nothing.

Yet, he (she?) chose the third option: to be a dick. He's an adult, whether he was aware of the consequences or not, he should take the blame and face the results like a fucking responsible adult that he purports to be. He should be funding the lady's defense fund and making damn sure her kid is taken care of safely while she's dealing with the legal system. And apologize profusely to both the lady and the kid. And maybe, just maybe, read online about the shit that's happening about him. It's called being an informed, responsible citizen, for crying out loud.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[internerdj]

As a child of the 80's, this was going on prior to lightspeed peer to peer communication. It was the beginning of news having to fight for ratings. Walking to school was never really an option for me, but overprotective parenting because of the kidnapping risk was prevalent for me and my friends. I try my best to not let that upbringing influence my own parenting, but there are plenty of times I step back and see I'm micromanaging my kids over irrational fears for their safety.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[BronsCon]

You must be new around here, I haven't seen noticed your posts until today and, now, I've seen several and replied to two. You seem very well grounded, which is not a good fit for what Slashdot has become lately; I welcome you to stick around despite that and, maybe, help turn things around.

With that out of the way, I'd also like to point out that it happens to men, as well. Hell, it happens to men in front of their wives! So yeah, it's not just an "issue" women have to deal with, it's a societal "problem" (quotes because really?) that only seems to get attention when it happens to a woman. I mean, I'm nothing special to look at; if I'm getting the attention, I can only imagine it's fairly common.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Krishnoid]

Maria Hasankolli ... came home in the early hours of the morning after visiting a relative at the hospital. ...
The cops ... then went to his home, woke Hasankolli and clapped her into handcuffs.

I think I'll refrain from complaining about my day for the rest of this month.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Dixie_Flatline]

I guess?

I mean, I think my perspective on the police is slightly different. I'm Canadian, and until just the last few years, I always viewed the Police as people that could help you out. I wouldn't expect the police to do any more than ask the kid if everything was okay, get them to school, and make sure they weren't legitimately neglected. The law as it's written doesn't seem to imply that responsible parents with thoughtful kids should be punished because they slept in and their kid knows the way to school on their own.

I'm not quite 40, but it really was different when I was growing up. The expectations of the Police in the community were a lot different. They didn't draw their guns as quickly and they weren't so interested in arresting people so much as having a presence in the community.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[dpidcoe]

1. Walk the kid to school.

And get charged with attempted kidnapping? No way.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[fahrbot-bot]

as a girl she really needs to walk with a buddy

Why?

Because her father is sexist. A more appropriate answer would be: because she's 9.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Ol Olsoc]

Were it me answering, I'd ask who the fuck she was to accuse my husband of being a bad person before she ever spoke to him...and despite the fact that she was offered a couch for free!

No one in my town would think it's that odd of a request. This is what happens to people who respond to free Craigslist items here: http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/19/...

The fear runs strong in you! You actually said, that all people who respond to craigslist ads kill women.

Since I have a true shaking, shitting in their pants safety culturist who has managed to turn eveyone in the world to a killer.... How in the hell do you extrapolate one killer to everyone? Do you even come out of the basement? People are killed on the streets. People are killed in the basement, people are killed in their panic rooms. True enough, but people are actually seldom killed. That's why its news. Its unusual.

Sucks to be you, scared one. Fear is the mind killer, and has just about destroyed your's. Take a deep breath, come out of the basement. It's a beautiful world out there.

Just be careful hiking, There was a killer on the Appalachian trail a few years back. So all people you meet on the trail are probably killers?

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

" So we have too many cops with not enough "real" crime to deal with, so they just hassle people instead. "

No, there is plenty of 'real' crime.
The issue is that 'real' crime is hard to deal with and it is much easier to just hassle people.
See the thousands and thousands of untested rape kits in the US.
See what happens when someone breaks into your house and steals your stuff and you ask them to take an obvious finger print and run it. (Hint, they laugh at you and tell you they will fill out a form for your insurance)
See how many cops there are in high crime areas outside of large cities. (Hint, the cops are in the nice neighborhoods by the nice houses, no cop to be found in the trailer parks with more people per square mile.)

What we need is a major shift in priorities. Murder, Rape, and Theft need to be the #1 things on the list. Auto tickets, drugs, and civil infractions should be a minor part of policing. Problem today is that they are probably 75% of police actions.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[phorm]

1. Walk the kid to school.

And instead he's assumed to be a perp. "Why are you with this child who doesn't know you"

Good luck with that. I WORKED in a school district, and even then I wasn't allowed to take children up the road to the next school when they missed the bus.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[cayenne8]

Yeah man, sure, now try shooting the "bad guy" in a packed Chuck-e-cheese without some collateral damage.

So, you think rather than risk some collateral damage, you'd rather let a shooter(s) like the ones in San Bernadino just walk around the place calmly shooting everyone to death in an orderly fashion?

I'd personally rather have someone with a gun try to stop the bastards before the CRIMINAL can succeed killing or maiming most every one in the place.

Yes, I'd rather people try to take out the criminal killer before he can do more harm, even if there is elevated risk. I'd much rather risk a good guy accidentally hitting 1-3 innocents if it prevented the bad guy from killing 20 people.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[ShanghaiBill]

AFAICT, you said: 1) we have more cops now than ever before, and 2) we have less crime than ever before, which leads you to postulate 3) more cops leads to more crime.

This does not follow.

Not every jurisdiction has increased the number of police, and not every jurisdiction has experienced the same fall in crime. If you look at individual cities and counties, there is a delayed correlation between adding cops and seeing crime go up (or at least decline less than other jurisdictions).

This week's Economist has an article about cops in schools. Schools that add cops to their staff tend to use those cops to enforce classroom discipline and criminalize unruly behavior. So kids that would otherwise get detention, or a parent-teacher conference, instead get taken to jail, and sucked into the juvenile justice system, which turns them into permanent delinquents, that cause more trouble in the school and the surrounding neighborhood, sucking more kids into trouble as the system spirals downward. So how does the system respond? MORE COPS!!!!

Purpose of the law...

[x0ra]

Isn't law meant to say what you "can not" do, rather than what you "can" do ?

Re: Purpose of the law...

[therealkevinkretz]

Usually that's true. State laws forbidding neglect or endangerment of children were being used (for example) to charge parents who let their children walk to the park with a crime. So the law isn't so much to say that parents are allowed to do X but that states are not allowed to charge parents who do X with a crime.

Re:Purpose of the law...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad phrasing in the summary:

IN GENERAL.—Subject to subsection (b), nothing in this Act shall authorize the Secretary to, or shall be construed to - ‘‘(1) prohibit a child from traveling to and from school on foot or by car, bus, or bike when the parents of the child have given permission; or ‘‘(2) expose parents to civil or criminal charges for allowing their child to responsibly and safely travel to and from school by a means the parents believe is age appropriate."

So it is phrased according to what you can't do, rather than what you can.

Re:Purpose of the law...

[Trepidity]

This law is a carve-out from previous laws that specify what you can not do. There's a very general law prohibiting parents from endangering their children. This one amends that law to clarify that letting your child walk to work doesn't constitute endangering children.

Re:Purpose of the law...

[ScentCone]

Isn't law meant to say what you "can not" do, rather than what you "can" do ?

Right. This law says that obsessive SJW neighbors and social workers can't ruin your family's life for allowing your children to walk a few blocks to school.

Re:Purpose of the law...

[wiggles]

Well, letting them walk to work might be a bit tough to defend for an 8 year old.

Surprised by this

[mattsday]

In most countries it's very common for children to walk to school in the mornings, especially when they get to 10/11 years old.

I understand the US is less pedestrian friendly as a general rule (outside of larger cities) but walking/cycling to school was one of my fondest memories, not to mention both healthy and social!

What is the motivation for having this banned in the first place?

Re:Surprised by this

[Anonymous Coward]

the motivation is the moral panic about stranger danger

while statistics say the actual risk of abduction has gone down, public perception says it has gone up
you can thank mass media for that

Re: Surprised by this

[Entrope]

The entire concept of Britain's NHS seems to be that teeth are bad, so Brits need uniformly bad health care so they don't wonder why dental care is singled out for poor coverage. Gotta love up to the standard image of having at most 20 teeth, you know.

If you think my hypothesis sounds crazy, it just shows that you don't read enough Internets. Or that you're willing to spout equally unhinged and poorly supported theories about Americans.

The nanny state is ridiculous

[AaronW]

When I was in kindergarten I walked to school every day, it was only around 3 blocks away. Going to the park alone was also normal. The sad thing is that it is a lot safer today than it was back then. I consider myself quite liberal, but I detest the whole nanny state. I've also read numerous articles about parents who are arrested for leaving young children in the car, in the shade with the windows open while running into the grocery store.

Hell, reading this article reminded me about how my mother would go into a local supermarket to do some quick shopping while I watched my younger sister in the car. Today my mother would have been arrested.

As a kid I ran around all over the place without my parents hovering over me every second. I got out and got exercise and explored, something many parents won't allow today. That was before the days of the Internet or before cell phones or bike helmets. The only difference I would have with my own kids is to make them wear a bicycle helmet when riding (due to experience with how it saved the life of a relative several times) and possibly a cell phone.

Kids need to be kids and also to learn responsibility, not be coddled like crazy.

Re:The nanny state is ridiculous

[hey!]

Well, I'm not sure how commonplace people getting arrested for letting their kids to school actually is. When these things happen they become national causes célèbres -- and with good reason. But I wonder whether this isn't the mirror image of the "stranger danger" hysteria, that is to say something that does occasionally happen but much less often than we imagine it does. I see elementary school kids walking to school or the local park in my town all the time. If you visit New York City it's not remarkable to see kids on the subway.

The thing is that my town was incorporated in 1850 and retains its early 20th C pedestrian infrastructure: sidewalks, neighborhood schools and parks. Most of those parks have no dedicated parking, so walking is the norm. Recent subdivisions have marginalized walking. Now at my sister's relatively new subdivision in California there are large, beautiful parks with ample parking, but you can't walk to them safely because there many stretches with no sidewalks or crosswalks, and the cars travel on those roads at forty or fifty miles an hour. So while I had no problem sending my kids to the park on their own in my neighborhood, I'd probably drive them there. Same parent, different urban planning context.

In Switzerland, they pretty much have to, by law

[ControlFreal]

In Switzerland (at least in my home Canton of Zurich), the children's way to school ("Schulweg") is pretty much sacred: Walking to school alone teaches the children to deal with the world around them, and it builds confidence. During the first year of Kindergarten you can bring them, but then they go alone.

When children live too far away from school, there is a bus service, but they make a point of letting the children off the bus some 1000ft from school, so that they still have their "Schulweg."

Obligatory "when I was a kid" post.

[gfxguy]

I walked to elementary school every day until we moved farther away, at which point I alternatively either road my bike or took the bus (and occasionally walked anyway). That continued through middle and high school, and that was up in NY.

Now it's 40 years or so later, I live in GA, and my kids are not allowed to ride their bikes to school. Walkers at my daughter's middle school require permits that they have to pay a fee for.

It's ridiculous.

At the same time, for whatever reason, walking to Elementary school was just fine, and walking to the high school is fine... so it's obviously up to individual school. If you're planning on having kids, and can't afford private schools, do yourself a favor and DO NOT move to GA.

Re:Obligatory "when I was a kid" post.

[gfxguy]

, you need to see the general information, "walkers" section.

You need the parents to fill out a form to get a pass, replacement passes cost $5.00, but my kids tell me their friends who have passes said they had to pay for the initial pass, too. I wouldn't know, we live far enough away that walking is not a good option, although riding a bike would work if it were allowed at all (it's not).

Unconstitutional

[markdavis]

Please show me where in the Constitution the federal government is given the power to address such things such as education or children walking to school. I seem to remember that if it isn't listed there, those powers ARE RESERVED BY THE STATES.

Re:Unconstitutional

[davide marney]

Mod parent up. We get the government we ALLOW. The federal government has no charter whatsoever to regulate this kind of thing.

Re:Unconstitutional

[Thunderstruck]

I think you're right. The SCOTUS in United States v. Lopez ( see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ) ruled that Congress cannot constitutionally regulate who can walk into a school zone carrying while a gun, because this is not interstate - commercial activity. It seems likely the same reasoning would apply to walking into or out of a school zone at all. But who's going to challenge the constitutionality of this kind of law?

Re:Unconstitutional

[Sloppy]

No, because this is obviously Interstate Commerce, of course.

Re:Unconstitutional

[Insightfill]

Please show me where in the Constitution the federal government is given the power to address such things such as education or children walking to school. I seem to remember that if it isn't listed there, those powers ARE RESERVED BY THE STATES.

A closer reading of the Act (see pages 857-858) says that the parents can't be held criminally or civilly liable if they let their kids - with permission - get to school in an "age appropriate manner." It also says that the Act itself doesn't supersede any local laws.

So: if a state or locality has decided or later decides to specifically make a law specifically against "unattended kids going to school," that law would take precedence over this act. "States rights" are still in effect here.

Re:Unconstitutional

[khallow]

those powers ARE RESERVED BY THE STATES.

Let's look at the actual Tenth Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Here, you forgot a very important party, the people. I think walking to school is exercise of a people power not a state-granted privilege. Personally, I don't think the federal government has a place in education, K-12 or higher education, except as a sponsor and propagator of educational standards (which I think is a legitimate role of the Commerce Clause). But they do have a role as a protector of the people which I think this law imperfectly attempts.

Re:So what does it do to local authorities?

[n6kuy]

.. and "mandated reporters" need to be mandated cross-examinable testifiers/witnesses in the event that the abuse/neglect investigation results in a case that gets before a judge, because often these mandated reporters don't really have a reasonable concern for the safety of the child, but just want to cover their butt "just in case."