The Money Mustache Community
Around the Internet => Antimustachian Wall of Shame and Comedy => Topic started by: GuitarStv on May 01, 2015, 07:08:14 AM
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http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/calgary-boy-11-detained-by-security-at-lego-store-for-committing-the-modern-day-crime-of-being-alone (http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/calgary-boy-11-detained-by-security-at-lego-store-for-committing-the-modern-day-crime-of-being-alone)
Yes, he was 11 and biked to the lego store with money to buy some lego. He was detained by security due to being 11 until his father was able to spring him.
Side note - this kid sounds pretty awesome. He likes building stuff, rides his bike everywhere, works for his money, and has developed a modicum of independence. It's nice to see society doing it's damnedest to crush all the awesome out of him.
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Of course he should be supervised. Do you know how easy it is to hurt your foot in a Lego store?
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When I was 11 I would routinely head on my bike to the nearby mall to buy baseball cards and comics at the local Ben Franklin. Sometimes with neighborhood buddies, sometimes alone, but rarely with an adult.
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I had a paper route at 12 and was out in the world by myself (okay, it was my neighborhood, but still...) weekday afternoons and Sunday mornings.
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Someone threatened to call the police for child endangerment because my mother left me alone in a camper when I was 17. Someone actually came over and started questioning me because they couldn't tell if I was an adult or not. I was in my camper with the door locked. When I said I was 17 they made a huge deal about leaving children unattended in a camper and kept harassing me about it until my mother returned and then told her they could have her arrested.
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I was babysitting actual babies (like 3-4 month olds) at age 11. I can't believe that current day 11 year olds are somehow now incapable of being responsible as past day 11 year olds.
This story is just crazy.
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Lawsuit?
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very sad, how we think kids are incapable of everything nowadays.
PP in a camper at 17, that is crazy, you are old enough to drive yourself anywhere and they are threatening to call the authorities? I can just see the Policemans eyes rolling.
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I was babysitting actual babies (like 3-4 month olds) at age 11. I can't believe that current day 11 year olds are somehow now incapable of being responsible as past day 11 year olds.
This story is just crazy.
My wife was regularly babysitting 4 children, including a weeks-old infant, when she was 14. She started babysitting for other families when she was 12. It's not as though this was for family or friends, either. Today is her 27th birthday, so it wasn't very long ago. What the hell happened in the last 15 years?
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Someone threatened to call the police for child endangerment because my mother left me alone in a camper when I was 17. Someone actually came over and started questioning me because they couldn't tell if I was an adult or not. I was in my camper with the door locked. When I said I was 17 they made a huge deal about leaving children unattended in a camper and kept harassing me about it until my mother returned and then told her they could have her arrested.
This probably the most insane story in the whole thread. When I was 17, me and four of my (also 17-year-old) friends hitched up my dad's camper to my Ford Explorer and hit the road for a week of camping at the beach.
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Lawsuit?
Probably grounds, but if everything turned out OK why bother? If the kid is traumatized, however...
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Someone threatened to call the police for child endangerment because my mother left me alone in a camper when I was 17. Someone actually came over and started questioning me because they couldn't tell if I was an adult or not. I was in my camper with the door locked. When I said I was 17 they made a huge deal about leaving children unattended in a camper and kept harassing me about it until my mother returned and then told her they could have her arrested.
This probably the most insane story in the whole thread. When I was 17, me and four of my (also 17-year-old) friends hitched up my dad's camper to my Ford Explorer and hit the road for a week of camping at the beach.
I couldn't get over how irrational it was. At 17 you can drive around unattended. I think if I were at home they wouldn't have thought it was an issue. But the idea of a 17 year old unattended in a camper was just too much! I think they had some grudge against kids. When I tried to reason with them they accused me of disrespecting my elders. I even pointed out I'm only a few months away from being 18. They just retorted, "You are a child!"
I don't think they could possibly comprehend that harassing a 17 year old who was alone and wanting to stay inside their RV might possibly be worse behavior than a parent leaving a 17 year old alone in a locked RV.
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You have to be insane (sorry, mentally hilarious) to say a 17-year-old can't be somewhere alone.
To be fair, I also think the same for an 11-year-old. If an 11-year-old can't be trusted to bike to the store and back, there's probably no hope, and you may as well just ask them to run away and make a new one.
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You have to be insane (sorry, mentally hilarious) to say a 17-year-old can't be somewhere alone.
To be fair, I also think the same for an 11-year-old. If an 11-year-old can't be trusted to bike to the store and back, there's probably no hope, and you may as well just ask them to run away and make a new one.
17-year old can't be in a pool full of sharks alone
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I was babysitting actual babies (like 3-4 month olds) at age 11. I can't believe that current day 11 year olds are somehow now incapable of being responsible as past day 11 year olds.
This story is just crazy.
My wife was regularly babysitting 4 children, including a weeks-old infant, when she was 14. She started babysitting for other families when she was 12. It's not as though this was for family or friends, either. Today is her 27th birthday, so it wasn't very long ago. What the hell happened in the last 15 years?
I was a mother's helper at the beach for the summer when I was 13. I was left alone for days at a time running a household while the parents were out of town. That's pretty much why I don't have kids
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The irony is that people say things like "It's just not safe nowadays!" when in reality, actually it's certainly not like it was in the 1950's, but we are WAY better off for overall violent crime (which includes kidnappings & rapes) now than the 80's through early '00s.
(http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/files/2013/06/UCR_Vio_11.gif)
Still, when I look at graphs like this one, I understand when people talk about how it really did used to be so much safer in the 50's and early 60's than it is today.
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I babysat for other families starting at 12 or so. I had a paper route at 10.
I occasionally let my 9-year-old stay home alone for short periods of time. I lock everything, let him play Pokemon, and he doesn't move an inch. No one IRL knows this, though, bc they'd probably call CPS.
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Does anyone know any theories of why these kinds of stories keep happening- what has changed in the last couple of decades? Was there a change in laws or just a change in the interpretation of them? I'm genuinely curious about the subject and haven't really seen any reasoning behind it.
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Continous exposure to fear mongering "news" changes a nation.
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The irony is that people say things like "It's just not safe nowadays!" when in reality, actually it's certainly not like it was in the 1950's, but we are WAY better off for overall violent crime (which includes kidnappings & rapes) now than the 80's through early '00s.
(http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/files/2013/06/UCR_Vio_11.gif)
Still, when I look at graphs like this one, I understand when people talk about how it really did used to be so much safer in the 50's and early 60's than it is today.
Are we truly better off for these type of crimes or is it because children are so protected nowadays that they are not available for kidnapping and the likes?
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Someone threatened to call the police for child endangerment because my mother left me alone in a camper when I was 17. Someone actually came over and started questioning me because they couldn't tell if I was an adult or not. I was in my camper with the door locked. When I said I was 17 they made a huge deal about leaving children unattended in a camper and kept harassing me about it until my mother returned and then told her they could have her arrested.
This probably the most insane story in the whole thread. When I was 17, me and four of my (also 17-year-old) friends hitched up my dad's camper to my Ford Explorer and hit the road for a week of camping at the beach.
I couldn't get over how irrational it was. At 17 you can drive around unattended. I think if I were at home they wouldn't have thought it was an issue. But the idea of a 17 year old unattended in a camper was just too much! I think they had some grudge against kids. When I tried to reason with them they accused me of disrespecting my elders. I even pointed out I'm only a few months away from being 18. They just retorted, "You are a child!"
I don't think they could possibly comprehend that harassing a 17 year old who was alone and wanting to stay inside their RV might possibly be worse behavior than a parent leaving a 17 year old alone in a locked RV.
That's super weird--in Texas, your parents can literally kick you out of the house at 17, and you're basically on your own. I have a couple of students who have been kicked out, and then have to deal with trying to graduate while coach surfing.
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Are we truly better off for these type of crimes or is it because children are so protected nowadays that they are not available for kidnapping and the likes?
I wonder if things were skewed low in the '50's due to underreporting though as well? From talking to the older people around, back then things just weren't reported unless it was extremely serious. There was more of an attitude of solving one's own problems and not relying on society to solve them. So, you're not likely to see the attempted (and failed) kidnappings, the assaults, etc in those reports. You'll just have the times things went REALLY bad.
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Are we truly better off for these type of crimes or is it because children are so protected nowadays that they are not available for kidnapping and the likes?
I think that, since violent crime has reduced over all, not just crimes against children, it seems unlikely that special protection for children is what has made the difference (or at least not all of it).
There have been various theories advanced about why violent crime has declined; but the nature of these things makes it hard to do controlled experiments. I've seen all sorts of explanations: The "broken-windows" theory of policing is one police tactic that has changed. "Freakanomics" famously said abortion contributed to it (essentially that mothers had good judgement about when to have abortions, and were preventing probably criminals from being born).
Steve Pinker in "The Better Angels of Our Nature" points out that violence overall (not just crimes) has actually been a steady decline for millenia. So maybe we might really have to explain that uptick in the 70s, rather than the subsequent decline.
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I was babysitting actual babies (like 3-4 month olds) at age 11. I can't believe that current day 11 year olds are somehow now incapable of being responsible as past day 11 year olds.
This story is just crazy.
My wife was regularly babysitting 4 children, including a weeks-old infant, when she was 14. She started babysitting for other families when she was 12. It's not as though this was for family or friends, either. Today is her 27th birthday, so it wasn't very long ago. What the hell happened in the last 15 years?
This is me as well. I pet- and house-sat for people starting at age 10. I would ride my bike. If it was well past dark or a ways away my parents would drive me and wait outside though. I started nannying at 11. The main family I nannied for when I was 12-16. When I was 13 they had their youngest of the 4, and I started caring for all of them when she was just 6 weeks old. I would even take care of them overnight occasionally. I certainly did not feel like a child taking care of children. I made meals, helped with homework, took them on walks to local parks, etc etc. I was CPR certified and had taken care of younger cousins my whole life. Teenage girls babysit... that's just always been true.
I'm only 26, we're not talking this many years ago. Medium size town, but frankly shockingly high crime as I was growing up (lots of gangs and meth, a fair number of shootings). But no one ever seemed worried about babysitting.
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Stories like this are just ridiculous to me. When I was as young as 8 or 9 years old I was allowed to bike over to the library or the park alone. The only rule was my mom had to know where I was and how long I'd be gone. When I was 10 or 11 I would even walk or bike a couple miles away and across multiple busy roads to my friend's house.
In the summer, we would then often bike even further to the university and ride the bike trail all the way to the point where it merged onto the road (we weren't allowed on the bike lanes because the roads were too busy and drivers in that city were crazy dangerous). At that point we'd be upwards of 15 miles from home with no adult supervision. As long as we were home by whatever time we set it didn't matter too much what we got up to. This wasn't even that long ago, just the late 90's and early 00's. Just what happened between then and now, I wonder?
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Someone threatened to call the police for child endangerment because my mother left me alone in a camper when I was 17. Someone actually came over and started questioning me because they couldn't tell if I was an adult or not. I was in my camper with the door locked. When I said I was 17 they made a huge deal about leaving children unattended in a camper and kept harassing me about it until my mother returned and then told her they could have her arrested.
WOW! When I was in the military, a child of one of the higher ups got expelled from school (for skipping too much school). Instead of leaving the teen home and allowing him to sleep in, he brought his kid to work every day. He was one of those first in, last out kind of guys. It was a secure building so the teen could not actually BE inside, so he left him in the car with a jug of water and tons of snacks. Said he could open the doors, sit next to the car in the shade, but not leave. He would go check on him to make sure he was still there (this was before cell phones) and they would eat at the chow hall for lunch. For 6 weeks this went on.
If this happened today I'm sure it would be called child abuse, but the following year the teen was present every single day of school.
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I really feel sorry for kids living in a world like this.
When I was 11 much of the time we were pretty much left to our own devices,especially during the summer, and that was back in the days when there was a higher crime rate than there is today.
I mentioned this to my mother once, and she said that when I was a kid my dad's worry wasn't that my siblings and I had too much freedom, but that we didn't have enough.
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Are we truly better off for these type of crimes or is it because children are so protected nowadays that they are not available for kidnapping and the likes?
Although I don't know the answer, I have wondered this myself. If children are never alone, it is much harder to kidnap them. But of course that doesn't explain the decrease of violent crime in general. The most compelling explanation I've read to explain that is higher incarceration rates.
I consider myself between the supposed laissez faire parenting of yore and the supposed helicopter parenting of today. Honestly, my childhood in the 1980s did not resemble what you all discuss here. I never went places alone, and while my mom would let us wander at a park or swim at the pool, she was always there in the background. I wouldn't, however, call her a "helicopter" just because she wouldn't let us walk or bike to the park by ourselves at 8 years old. We had a lot of freedom as children, and past age 8 or 9, she didn't help with homework at all. Neither of my parents knew our grades until they saw our report cards.
I like the idea of letting them find their own way while still being nearby to help or supervise. I don't understand the parents who hover over their 5 year olds on the playground any more than I understand the parents who let their young kids (under 10 IMO) wander around unsupervised for hours and hours. These days we tend to demonize the former more than the latter - at least in the past few years it has become more popular to do so.
I see the crazy shit that my six year old concocts to do and I just can't fathom letting him loose in our semi-urban environment with traffic, either by himself or with a slightly older friend, but in the backyard by himself or with his friends? Hell yeah! (FYI, in these causes, hide the metal bats, though. Boys this age and metal bats unsupervised is a bad combo)
But I just had a friend (40 year old man with no kids nonetheless) excoriate me yesterday and label me as a helicopter parent because I went after my 11 month old who was wandering out of sight in the back yard. He's freaking 11 months old! He was also the one who thought that gates at stairs were crazy because "what's the worst that can happen to the baby, he falls and gets a concussion??" IMO that's the concept of free range parenting gone awry.
I think all this nonsense in the media about the new era of helicopter parenting is just that - nonsense. There has always been a wide variety of parenting styles in existence. Perhaps these days things trend too much towards over-supervision, and the government intrusion is certainly a concerning trend. Yet in the same breath, we yell at the state when they don't intervene and a child gets hurt in an unsafe household. With parenting as with governing, in general you can't win.
Plus this idealistic picture of the past is also colored by our own perceptions of the "days of yore" before smartphones, screens, etc. came into our lives. I'm not saying there isn't some validity, but we must also recognize what time does to our memories and perceptions and how we idealize the "good ole days" perhaps too much sometimes.
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Steve Pinker in "The Better Angels of Our Nature" points out that violence overall (not just crimes) has actually been a steady decline for millenia. So maybe we might really have to explain that uptick in the 70s, rather than the subsequent decline.
The increase is due to the breakdown of the nuclear family in the 1960's. Children who are raised by a single parent, regardless if its the mother or father, are more likely to get teen pregnant (if female) or become a criminal (if male). That becomes a positive feedback loop until the single-parent rate hits 100%, as those teen pregnant girls thus have children of their own while single and those criminal boys get girls pregnant then get put away in prison where they can't be present as a father even if they wanted to.
The rate of single parents has actually continued to increase since the 90s, but that time period saw technology such as DNA analysis, computerization of fingerprint searches, and rapid spread of CCTV cameras solve crimes after the fact more easily. That is both a deterrent and a stoppage by way of criminals being in jail instead of on the streets. The other things that became common in the 90's were the militarization of local police forces and creation of SWAT teams, the legalization of concealed gun carry by ordinary citizens, as well as "truth in sentencing" laws which dramatically increased the amount of jail time served for violent crimes. You can't commit a crime against the public if you've already been shot dead or are in jail for the next 18 years.
All in all, it's actually a pretty ugly situation to be honest.
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Are we truly better off for these type of crimes or is it because children are so protected nowadays that they are not available for kidnapping and the likes?
I see the crazy shit that my six year old concocts to do and I just can't fathom letting him loose in our semi-urban environment with traffic, either by himself or with a slightly older friend, but in the backyard by himself or with his friends? Hell yeah! (FYI, in these causes, hide the metal bats, though. Boys this age and metal bats unsupervised is a bad combo)
But this is what I don't get. Starting when I was six, and again this was back when crime was higher, I was expected to walk (about a mile) to school. All the kids in my neighborhood did. I think if I had expected to be driven my parents would have said "Forget it kiddo!" This isn't idealizing the "good old days" but a simple fact. So why do you think your six-year old couldn't handle it? Are kids somehow less capable now? Is self-sufficiency less valued than it once was?
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Are we truly better off for these type of crimes or is it because children are so protected nowadays that they are not available for kidnapping and the likes?
I see the crazy shit that my six year old concocts to do and I just can't fathom letting him loose in our semi-urban environment with traffic, either by himself or with a slightly older friend, but in the backyard by himself or with his friends? Hell yeah! (FYI, in these causes, hide the metal bats, though. Boys this age and metal bats unsupervised is a bad combo)
But this is what I don't get. Starting when I was six, and again this was back when crime was higher, I was expected to walk (about a mile) to school. All the kids in my neighborhood did. I think if I had expected to be driven my parents would have said "Forget it kiddo!" This isn't idealizing the "good old days" but a simple fact. So why do you think your six-year old couldn't handle it? Are kids somehow less capable now? Is self-sufficiency less valued than it once was?
Obviously it must depend on the neighborhood. We didn't walk alone when we were six. Neither did the kids I knew. That's kindergarten, for goodness sake!! Are you sure you aren't misremembering and it was later when you were in 2rd or 3rd grade? That seems awfully young to me. I could see middle to upper elementary, but not that young, at least not unless you were with an older child.
And what always cracks me up is the self-sufficiency argument - as if, if you don't walk alone to school when you are a kindergartener that somehow you are going to end up in your parent's basement for the rest of your life. As if, if you don't do your own laundry by the time you can reach the machine -- or I've even seen parents brag that their 4 year olds do their own laundry -- you are going to end up unable to ever be independent. I didn't start doing my laundry until I went to college. It's really not the hard to figure out even if you (gasp!) haven't been doing it since you could walk.
I'm not trying to make light of helicoptering. It is a real phenomenon. Parents do hover over older kids/ teenagers in unhelpful ways. It boggles my mind that a parent would call a university professor about their child's grade; yet they do. My sister still has a bed time routine with her teenager and gets her plate of food for her sometimes when they come to visit. That kinda amazes me.
But I don't think the only way to develop self-sufficiency in an early elementary child is by letting them walk alone. I actually enjoy walking my kid to school and to the bus stop. Aside from it being forbidden by the district until (I believe) 2nd grade, it is a nice time to chat. Some of the best conversations I have with my kid are on the way back from the bus stop.
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Someone threatened to call the police for child endangerment because my mother left me alone in a camper when I was 17. Someone actually came over and started questioning me because they couldn't tell if I was an adult or not. I was in my camper with the door locked. When I said I was 17 they made a huge deal about leaving children unattended in a camper and kept harassing me about it until my mother returned and then told her they could have her arrested.
What's great about this is that this person thought it was ok for them to invade your space and question you because they thought you were a minor.
It's the same with people who call the police or approach children just because they see kids walking down the road.
I just want to shake them and say, "Don't you see that -you- are the predator!"
Until that stranger came along to "protect" you, no one had frightened you, hurt you, or harassed you.
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I think the more pernicious problem than "helicopter parenting" is what I've seen called "snowplow parenting"--when the parents try to solve their child's every problem. You can teach your kids to be self-sufficient while still, if you prefer, staying near them. My sister's children, for instance (who are older than mine) have always been taught to order their own food at restaurants, etc.
The anti-baby gate friend is nuts! I let my kids take a lot of risks... on grass, mulch, and other soft (playground) surfaces. My son was going down the "big" slide on his own at 14 months (Mommy was too pregnant to hover). But on hardwood floors and concrete, we enforce no climbing.
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I think the more pernicious problem than "helicopter parenting" is what I've seen called "snowplow parenting"--when the parents try to solve their child's every problem. You can teach your kids to be self-sufficient while still, if you prefer, staying near them. My sister's children, for instance (who are older than mine) have always been taught to order their own food at restaurants, etc.
The anti-baby gate friend is nuts! I let my kids take a lot of risks... on grass, mulch, and other soft (playground) surfaces. My son was going down the "big" slide on his own at 14 months (Mommy was too pregnant to hover). But on hardwood floors and concrete, we enforce no climbing.
Exactly. The question I usually ask is - what is the worst case scenario here? If the list includes possibly death (and falling down stairs or on concrete from a high(ish) height is on that list), I nix it. If it's just a broken bone or a bruise or scab - carry on. Of course, death can occur sitting on the toilet, but if the stakes of the activity are extremely high, I don't allow a young child to do it.
And I have to add the I would never call a governmental agency on a child left in a car (unless the weather was hot and the child was at risk of getting sick or dying) or if the child was unattended in public. I don't have a problem with people parenting their kids differently and choosing to give their kids latitudes and freedoms than I am not comfortable with at an earlier age. Not my kid, not my responsibility, not my situation. In that sense, I agree with the OP. But I would not go so far as to describe someone who parents differently as "hyperprotective."
What I do, however, have a problem with is this notion that if I make a different decision that I am bubble wrapping my kid or somehow a neurotic mother.
Even with parents who more closely fit the definition of a helicopter parent, I have to remind myself that I have no idea what causes their over-protectedness and that I shouldn't be so quick to judge. Maybe they lost or almost lost a child. Maybe their kid has extremely bad allergies. Maybe the kid has a developmental disability. I don't know. Once again - not my life.
My problem with the "good ole days" is not as much that people might be misrepresenting what happened (although they might be) but this idea that the way they were raised is the best way to be raised and that new ways or alternate ways spell impending doom and will result in a generation who can't face life somehow.
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Steve Pinker in "The Better Angels of Our Nature" points out that violence overall (not just crimes) has actually been a steady decline for millenia. So maybe we might really have to explain that uptick in the 70s, rather than the subsequent decline.
The increase is due to the breakdown of the nuclear family in the 1960's. Children who are raised by a single parent, regardless if its the mother or father, are more likely to get teen pregnant (if female) or become a criminal (if male). That becomes a positive feedback loop until the single-parent rate hits 100%, as those teen pregnant girls thus have children of their own while single and those criminal boys get girls pregnant then get put away in prison where they can't be present as a father even if they wanted to.
The rate of single parents has actually continued to increase since the 90s, but that time period saw technology such as DNA analysis, computerization of fingerprint searches, and rapid spread of CCTV cameras solve crimes after the fact more easily. That is both a deterrent and a stoppage by way of criminals being in jail instead of on the streets. The other things that became common in the 90's were the militarization of local police forces and creation of SWAT teams, the legalization of concealed gun carry by ordinary citizens, as well as "truth in sentencing" laws which dramatically increased the amount of jail time served for violent crimes. You can't commit a crime against the public if you've already been shot dead or are in jail for the next 18 years.
All in all, it's actually a pretty ugly situation to be honest.
A year ago I was reading some intriguing articles about a correlation between lead exposure and violent crime rates. However, it doesn't explain anything about the sharp rise in helicoptering/ snowplowing hyperprotectiveness. If you are interested, here's a BBC article (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27067615 BBC article) or if you prefer a more scholarly approach PLOS (http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050101).
The BBC article mentions leaded gasoline, which was introduced in the US in the 1920s and banned in the 1970s (banned somewhat later in the UK). The PLOS article uses leaded paint exposure rather than leaded gasoline.
[edited for clarity on the links]
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I think one of the commenters of the article has the most important point:
The most disturbing part of all this which received no focus was that the boy was "detained" by store security. Accordingly, the question has to be what right does store security have to detain anyone who does not wish to be detained and has done nothing wrong. They can ask him to leave but they have no right whatever to detain him. Store policy may be of predominant importance to store employees but it doesn't trump the law of the land and certainly not the Charter of Rights.
Unlawful detainment/false imprisonment/kidnapping is what that is and they should sue their pants off.
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My youngest started walking home from school at 6. In the beginning with her 7 y.o. sister, but after a few times, they argued so much that they chose to walk different ways. My oldest biked to the library today, at age 8. From my judgment, our neighbourhoods are safe enough, and I trust my girls to behave within the frames we have set. Sometimes they have stepped outside those frames, and have lost a lot of their freedom. So it is not a case of laissez faire parenting, but rather that we believe that self reliance is very important for our children to learn. They have also learned to do laundry from kindergarten age, and now know how to cook dinner. I've met teenagers struggling to make it on their own, with no knowledge of how to do normal household chores. Of course they will figure it out eventually, but why should they struggle to do that, when I can teach them how at an age where they love learning it?
There is no proven negative correlation between numbers incarcerated and crime rates, in fact some studies have shown the opposite. The lead poisoning link is interesting, but I don't think it is big enough. I blame the school system, and the increased muslim population for the fall in crime rates. Kids today drink less alcohol, use less drugs, are more polite and well behaved, etc, than my generation. There is so much focus in the schools on teaching the children social skills, on special education for those who don't fit in, and a lot of cooperation between schools and the CPS to catch those who need help. Of course there is still much to do, but the improvement since my childhood is substantial.
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Does anyone know any theories of why these kinds of stories keep happening- what has changed in the last couple of decades? Was there a change in laws or just a change in the interpretation of them? I'm genuinely curious about the subject and haven't really seen any reasoning behind it.
I have a theory that it's because actually live in a very safe world overall, but our brains have to have a "danger" and this is what we've latched onto. Think about it. Child labor isn't required for basic survival. Wild animals aren't going to eat us. We have a stable government. There isn't a war going on in our country (I don't know about you, but I haven't seen any bombs flying lately).
If you were to look at how children are raised and supervised in places where these things aren't a given, I bet you wouldn't see too many people freaking out about a 11 year old being on their own for a few hours.
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As an American visiting Oslo, Norway a couple years back, I was surprised by the number of prams, equipped with babies, were left outside the local Starbucks, while mom's chatted inside. I quipped to my host "...someone would call child services in the US is they saw an unattended stroller outside a Starbucks in the US" He said something to the effect that "fussy babies need fresh air"... and I could not find a fault with his logic.
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(I don't know about you, but I haven't seen any bombs flying lately).
Mayday riots. ;)
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A year ago I was reading some intriguing articles about a correlation between lead exposure and violent crime rates. However, it doesn't explain anything about the sharp rise in helicoptering/ snowplowing hyperprotectiveness. If you are interested, here's a BBC article (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27067615 BBC article) or if you prefer a more scholarly approach PLOS (http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050101).
The BBC article mentions leaded gasoline, which was introduced in the US in the 1920s and banned in the 1970s (banned somewhat later in the UK). The PLOS article uses leaded paint exposure rather than leaded gasoline.
That's an interesting theory, although it fails the simple test which is the fact that you can take a specific geographic area, look at who is committing crimes and who's not and find the same exposure to lead for both groups. The difference pretty much always boils down to if the kid was raised with two parents or not. So many kids nowadays have the deck stacked against them not because of money, location, or what they were born with, but simply by if they have two parents at home or not. It's such a simple thing, but reliably consistent across time periods as well as geography and pretty much all other measurements. Feel free to google it. If we want a stronger society, we need to encourage two-parent families by any means available. Every kid deserves the best start possible.
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Are we truly better off for these type of crimes or is it because children are so protected nowadays that they are not available for kidnapping and the likes?
I wonder if things were skewed low in the '50's due to underreporting though as well? From talking to the older people around, back then things just weren't reported unless it was extremely serious. There was more of an attitude of solving one's own problems and not relying on society to solve them. So, you're not likely to see the attempted (and failed) kidnappings, the assaults, etc in those reports. You'll just have the times things went REALLY bad.
Well, in the 50s a person beating his wife was often laughed off and no charges laid. Ditto smacking the kids around. Not to mention a pretty high percentage of rapes (that is still an issue).
Now crimes like that are taken more seriously, thankfully. Though I suspect we still have a long way to go.
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Are we truly better off for these type of crimes or is it because children are so protected nowadays that they are not available for kidnapping and the likes?
I wonder if things were skewed low in the '50's due to underreporting though as well? From talking to the older people around, back then things just weren't reported unless it was extremely serious. There was more of an attitude of solving one's own problems and not relying on society to solve them. So, you're not likely to see the attempted (and failed) kidnappings, the assaults, etc in those reports. You'll just have the times things went REALLY bad.
Well, in the 50s a person beating his wife was often laughed off and no charges laid. Ditto smacking the kids around. Not to mention a pretty high percentage of rapes (that is still an issue).
Now crimes like that are taken more seriously, thankfully. Though I suspect we still have a long way to go.
Absolutely true! The same is true in many parts of the world including some countries in Western Europe. People just get arrested and prosecuted way more in the US. In some cases that is not warranted. Society is better served if people aren't arrested for so many non violent offenses.
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Well, in the 50s a person beating his wife was often laughed off and no charges laid. Ditto smacking the kids around. Not to mention a pretty high percentage of rapes (that is still an issue).
Now crimes like that are taken more seriously, thankfully. Though I suspect we still have a long way to go.
Actually it's the other way around now. Even as of 2010, 40% of domestic abuse victims were men according to official federal statistics. (http://domesticviolencestatistics.org/men-the-overlooked-victims-of-domestic-violence/) However the laws and social conventions are so skewed against men, that it's almost 100% impossible for a man to get charges to stick against a woman when reporting domestic abuse. I've read case after case where a woman started beating her husband, he pushed her away and ran away to call the police only to find that HE is the one who gets put in jail for admitting he pushed her [to get away]. American society is now turned completely against men.
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Well, in the 50s a person beating his wife was often laughed off and no charges laid. Ditto smacking the kids around. Not to mention a pretty high percentage of rapes (that is still an issue).
Now crimes like that are taken more seriously, thankfully. Though I suspect we still have a long way to go.
Actually it's the other way around now. Even as of 2010, 40% of domestic abuse victims were men according to official federal statistics. (http://domesticviolencestatistics.org/men-the-overlooked-victims-of-domestic-violence/) However the laws and social conventions are so skewed against men, that it's almost 100% impossible for a man to get charges to stick against a woman when reporting domestic abuse. I've read case after case where a woman started beating her husband, he pushed her away and ran away to call the police only to find that HE is the one who gets put in jail for admitting he pushed her [to get away]. American society is now turned completely against men.
I hate to derail the thread, but while you have a point about societal issues with men getting justice as victims of domestic abuse, the bolded statement is absurd.
-An American Male
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I stared to let my son use public transportation by his own when he was 7 years and ca 4 months. If it comes up in a conversation, many people are looking at me in disbelief because they are not letting their kids use the bus/tram before they are 12/13. And they are afraid their kids will get lost in our small city of ca 250k.
When I grew up, going solo at 7 was not uncommon at all.
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At age 7 in 1995 my mom gave me a watch and said "come home by 7" and I went off on my bike. I wasn't allowed to cross big roads, but I ran around with other kids in the apartment complex and had a grand time. I also walked to school (probably close to a mile) and watched my 2yo sister when my mom had to step out to do laundry or something.
At 16 or 17 (2004-5) I distinctly remember hiking 6-8 miles with my 8-9 yo sister while the rest of the family was rock climbing. We had a grand time and ate lots of blackberries. I also watched my sisters for as long as a weekend a few times. Didn't develop a babysitting clientele, though.
The kneejerk reaction to kids alone is ridiculous, but I think so is the kneejerk reaction to not wanting to put kids into a situation alone. There's a lot to be said for parental judgement; of the situation, of their child, etc. I walked to school alone at 7 with a bunch of neighborhood kids on a safe route with no big streets. Then we moved and she walked with me for a year, but I was on my own again at 9 with a friend who lived 4 buildings away down a pretty busy street (lots of eyes on the road). We moved again a few years later, and she or I picked up my sisters until they were 11 or 12, because the last 1/4-1/2 mile of their walk didn't have kids on it, and the neighborhood was very quiet in the afternoon; she didn't want to make it easy for someone to single them out or target them. I don't think her reasoning really changed, but we were different kids in different situations, so she made different judgements.
And for all that I probably got more independence early on, my sisters at 15 or 17 did things I would have been very nervous about, like going to Chicago or San Francisco alone with friends, or traveling alone (flying+taxi) to go to admitted students weekend at college (one sister had a sprained ankle at the time, to boot!). I think it took me 1-2 more years to reach those milestones; went out in the city as soon as I started college and traveled alone to an unfamiliar place probably halfway through. Or maybe even later; I think the event I'm thinking of was going to a conference with a student group, and traveling with a group is much less intimidating.
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This is part of why my wife and I are moving close to the middle of nowhere... no interest in having CPS called on us for a "free range kid" that would have been perfectly normal 20-30 years ago.
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Someone threatened to call the police for child endangerment because my mother left me alone in a camper when I was 17. Someone actually came over and started questioning me because they couldn't tell if I was an adult or not. I was in my camper with the door locked. When I said I was 17 they made a huge deal about leaving children unattended in a camper and kept harassing me about it until my mother returned and then told her they could have her arrested.
What's great about this is that this person thought it was ok for them to invade your space and question you because they thought you were a minor.
It's the same with people who call the police or approach children just because they see kids walking down the road.
I just want to shake them and say, "Don't you see that -you- are the predator!"
Until that stranger came along to "protect" you, no one had frightened you, hurt you, or harassed you.
When/if I have kids, I'm going to teach them to scream, attack, and report to the authorities anyone who tries that kind of shit.
By the way, as far as walking to school goes, if you live in the City of Atlanta and within a mile of the school, you pretty much have no choice but to walk because the school buses don't stop for you.
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... So I'd bet 75% are driven. Walk? A MILE????
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But of course that doesn't explain the decrease of violent crime in general. The most compelling explanation I've read to explain that is higher incarceration rates.
Actually the high incarcareration rates in the US increase the rate of criminality, and I am not talking about statistical results or the bullshit "spit 3 times and get a month prison" sort of law.
There are basically 2 reasons for this
1) after you were in prison, its very hard for you to get a job and a place to live. So you get arrested again for beeing homeless... no, thats one of the statistical results. I mean then you are likely to be poor, depressed and drunk. Or you get drugs to get away from your bleak life. Which costs money you only can get through crime. And so on.
2) People orient themselves at their surrounding, if everyone behaves like A, A is normal (e.g. helicopter parenting). People submit to social pressure. If people experience brutality, they tend to be brutal to others. And so on. In short: Good people influence you to be good, bad people influence you to be bad.
Now guess where the highest rate of bad people are? Concentrated in a very frustrating environment?
BINGO! In the PRISON!
Prisons make big criminals out of small ones.
In the prison!
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Someone threatened to call the police for child endangerment because my mother left me alone in a camper when I was 17. Someone actually came over and started questioning me because they couldn't tell if I was an adult or not. I was in my camper with the door locked. When I said I was 17 they made a huge deal about leaving children unattended in a camper and kept harassing me about it until my mother returned and then told her they could have her arrested.
When I was 17 and just out of high school (in 1987), I was backpacking with buddies through Europe. My parents wouldn't have known what country I was in on any given day....Like a previous poster, I too was biking to the supermarket or drugstore to buy baseball cards at 10-11. At about that time (1979-1980), my youngest sister was three and would wander around our cul-de-sac. My mom had to call around to the neighbors to figure out where she had landed for dinner, where nobody worried about food allergies because most kids weren't allergic to anything.
I'm now officially a grumpy middle aged dude.
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As an American visiting Oslo, Norway a couple years back, I was surprised by the number of prams, equipped with babies, were left outside the local Starbucks, while mom's chatted inside. I quipped to my host "...someone would call child services in the US is they saw an unattended stroller outside a Starbucks in the US" He said something to the effect that "fussy babies need fresh air"... and I could not find a fault with his logic.
I grew up in norway and think this is idiotic. Would these people leave their wallets on the sidewalk while they went inside? Probably not, but their baby is ok?
Sure, let 6 and 10 year olds run around as appropriate, but I'm not cool with leaving a defenseless baby unsupervised outside on the street. That's stupid. Especially Oslo which is a pretty shitty city full of beggars, homeless people and prostitutes.
And somebody tested the theory that babies sleep better outside in fresh/cold air (which my mom always says too) and didn't find any difference.
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But of course that doesn't explain the decrease of violent crime in general. The most compelling explanation I've read to explain that is higher incarceration rates.
Actually the high incarcareration rates in the US increase the rate of criminality, and I am not talking about statistical results or the bullshit "spit 3 times and get a month prison" sort of law.
There are basically 2 reasons for this
1) after you were in prison, its very hard for you to get a job and a place to live. So you get arrested again for beeing homeless... no, thats one of the statistical results. I mean then you are likely to be poor, depressed and drunk. Or you get drugs to get away from your bleak life. Which costs money you only can get through crime. And so on.
2) People orient themselves at their surrounding, if everyone behaves like A, A is normal (e.g. helicopter parenting). People submit to social pressure. If people experience brutality, they tend to be brutal to others. And so on. In short: Good people influence you to be good, bad people influence you to be bad.
Now guess where the highest rate of bad people are? Concentrated in a very frustrating environment?
BINGO! In the PRISON!
Prisons make big criminals out of small ones.
In the prison!
I see your point and largely agree with it. I had originally written that I was against the high rates of incarceration in this country, especially for drug crimes. But I deleted it, because it didn't relate to the topic at hand.
But if we extrapolate from what you're saying, if our incarceration rates were much lower, our crime rates would be at even historically lower rates. If so, why would you say this even more dramatic decline would be occurring? Human nature is a constant, so there must be another major change to our society that I don't see.
And the point still holds that if you incarcerate a rapist or child molester or murderer for life after their first offense, they will not re-offend. From what I understand, there are tougher sentences in place for these individuals, which would account for the supposed decreased amount of these offenses. At least it makes sense to me. And I'm not going to shed a tear for any of these parties if they spend their whole lives behind bars.
I agree with your analysis above about drugs charges, theft, etc. If they weren't hardened criminals when they came in, they are now. This is not good for them or for society as a whole.
Edited to ask LennStar - what is your suggestion then regarding incarceration of rapists, murderers and molesters? Should we not incarcerate them? They have already proven themselves to be a danger to society.
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But of course that doesn't explain the decrease of violent crime in general. The most compelling explanation I've read to explain that is higher incarceration rates.
Actually the high incarcareration rates in the US increase the rate of criminality, and I am not talking about statistical results or the bullshit "spit 3 times and get a month prison" sort of law.
There are basically 2 reasons for this
1) after you were in prison, its very hard for you to get a job and a place to live. So you get arrested again for beeing homeless... no, thats one of the statistical results. I mean then you are likely to be poor, depressed and drunk. Or you get drugs to get away from your bleak life. Which costs money you only can get through crime. And so on.
2) People orient themselves at their surrounding, if everyone behaves like A, A is normal (e.g. helicopter parenting). People submit to social pressure. If people experience brutality, they tend to be brutal to others. And so on. In short: Good people influence you to be good, bad people influence you to be bad.
Now guess where the highest rate of bad people are? Concentrated in a very frustrating environment?
BINGO! In the PRISON!
Prisons make big criminals out of small ones.
In the prison!
I see your point and largely agree with it. I had originally written that I was against the high rates of incarceration in this country, especially for drug crimes. But I deleted it, because it didn't relate to the topic at hand.
But if we extrapolate from what you're saying, if our incarceration rates were much lower, our crime rates would be at even historically lower rates. If so, why would you say this even more dramatic decline would be occurring? Human nature is a constant, so there must be another major change to our society that I don't see.
And the point still holds that if you incarcerate a rapist or child molester or murderer for life after their first offense, they will not re-offend. From what I understand, there are tougher sentences in place for these individuals, which would account for the supposed decreased amount of these offenses. At least it makes sense to me. And I'm not going to shed a tear for any of these parties if they spend their whole lives behind bars.
I agree with your analysis above about drugs charges, theft, etc. If they weren't hardened criminals when they came in, they are now. This is not good for them or for society as a whole.
Edited to ask LennStar - what is your suggestion then regarding incarceration of rapists, murderers and molesters? Should we not incarcerate them? They have already proven themselves to be a danger to society.
I don't know weather to laugh, facepalm or what at this response. There are not "tougher sentences" for rapists. And that assumes they even get convicted. Perhaps you did not hear about the 14 year old that was raped by an 18 year, even the 18 year old admitted she said no (and either way it was rape because she was underage and he was not) and the judge decided because she had sex prior, it was not rape. No, rape is one of those crimes that we as society accept, not punish.
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I don't know weather to laugh, facepalm or what at this response. There are not "tougher sentences" for rapists. And that assumes they even get convicted. Perhaps you did not hear about the 14 year old that was raped by an 18 year, even the 18 year old admitted she said no (and either way it was rape because she was underage and he was not) and the judge decided because she had sex prior, it was not rape. No, rape is one of those crimes that we as society accept, not punish.
Well, I'm glad I provided your humor/head injury for the day. But your characterization of me as out to lunch is rather misguided. Perhaps I should have said "more sentences" rather than "tougher sentences," as the former addresses frequency rather than severity. Clearly we have a long way to go in dealing with rape-- and your anecdotal example is a tragedy-- but that doesn't address whether or not incarceration rates for rape have increased or decreased over the last 50 years. I suspect they are up, even though they still don't reach the levels they should be. I will look around and see if I can find some concrete numbers either way.
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I'm not cool with leaving a defenseless baby unsupervised outside on the street.
Pfft, hardly defenseless. Diaper grenades, projectile vomit, sonic assaults, the modern baby may as well be a marvel super hero.
Seriously though, a fussy baby cooped up inside all day, take them outside, settle right down. And a fussy baby that's been outside all day, take them inside, settle right down. It's about boredom. When you can't use the internet yet you need a change of scenery every once in awhile.
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I'm not cool with leaving a defenseless baby unsupervised outside on the street.
Pfft, hardly defenseless. Diaper grenades, projectile vomit, sonic assaults, the modern baby may as well be a marvel super hero.
Seriously though, a fussy baby cooped up inside all day, take them outside, settle right down. And a fussy baby that's been outside all day, take them inside, settle right down. It's about boredom. When you can't use the internet yet you need a change of scenery every once in awhile.
1) Sure, take your baby outside, but I don't it's necessary to leave him/her alone to do so.
2) We have successfully entertained our baby inside as well, it's possible.
3) I was just quoting research. Every old wife in norway claim babies sleep so much better when you put them outside, especially in winter. (norwegians have somewhat of an obsession with "cold, fresh air", as if inside air is wildly different and will slowly kill you..). I'm sure there's not harm in it (if it's on your porch rather than the street), but the research found no better/longer sleep. I'm not sure how they measured it though.
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I remember reading awhile ago everything I could get my hands on regarding crime and the criminal justice system. Part of my tackle one thing at a time, learn as much as I can, form an opinion, and move on.
What I realized is that I very rarely encounter knowledge anymore that increases my happiness. The following webpage will start you down the road to a possible explanation on the decline in crime rates starting in the early '90's. I'm not saying it is right, but the body of evidence is...significant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_effect
What is very sketchy, is any research that tries to link the activities of the criminal justice system to crime rates. I'm going to put out there for consideration that very little, if anything, related to the official punishment of a crime discourages people from committing the crime. Going to prison isn't why I don't do bad things. Mom is why I don't do bad things. Dad is why I know which things are bad things. Other proxies may have stepped up if Mom or Dad hadn't been there, I will never know.
As a building inspector, if I inspect your building, I will find something wrong with it. That is my job.
Police are going to catch criminals. Even if there were none. If you build a prison it will fill up with prisoners. Even if nobody needs to be imprisoned.
What I expected to find when I started my research was that liberals were whining about a non-problem. What I found is that we should all be terrified of a world filled with bored cops who know we're facing a jury that just binge-watched law and order reruns receiving directions from a prosecutor that has dreams of being the next attorney general turned senator turned president of the united states.
I believe crime committed by the citizenry to be at an all time low, and injustice to be at an unimaginably high level.
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3) I was just quoting research. Every old wife in norway claim babies sleep so much better when you put them outside, especially in winter. (norwegians have somewhat of an obsession with "cold, fresh air", as if inside air is wildly different and will slowly kill you..). I'm sure there's not harm in it (if it's on your porch rather than the street), but the research found no better/longer sleep. I'm not sure how they measured it though.
Easy. :) If the baby is fussing outside, you don't hear them fussing as easily, so therefore you can safely assume they're sleeping well.
It's like how my daughter sleeps better with both her bedroom door and our bedroom door closed. ;)
(really, what happens is that my wife sleeps and I take the first watch with the baby monitor until said baby quiets down, but my wife can't sleep if she hears our daughter crying, so I go out of my way to make sure the doors are shut and white noise is on)
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What is very sketchy, is any research that tries to link the activities of the criminal justice system to crime rates. I'm going to put out there for consideration that very little, if anything, related to the official punishment of a crime discourages people from committing the crime. Going to prison isn't why I don't do bad things. Mom is why I don't do bad things. Dad is why I know which things are bad things. Other proxies may have stepped up if Mom or Dad hadn't been there, I will never know.
You make some good points that certainly explain why you and most people haven't committed a crime. I will say, however, that regardless of motivation, being in prison stops someone from committing a crime in the general public, at least as long as they stay incarcerated. I qualify this, because obviously crimes occur all the time in prisons. An interesting article I read equated prisons to cities - hidden cities that we know little about and where crime is rampant.
I did a little bit of reading of sentences for rape and found this succinct statistic from an academic study of sex crime policy in America: "[In California], the median time served for a child sex offender released in 1980 was 33 months, similar to 37 months for rapists. By 2004, time served for released child sex offenders had nearly doubled at 62 months and time served for rapists had increased for modestly to 53 months. These sentence increases are not unique to California.”
So, based on that, I would say that yes, relatively speaking, sentences for rape have become tougher. Obviously they are not where I or most people would like them, and I imagine that class and race play a large role in who is sentenced and for how long.
I think we can all agree that this is a supremely complex issue with loads and loads of variables. I plan to read more of this academic work I found and elsewhere, but what I gathered from my brief reading thus far is that crime rates go up and down all the time, leaving experts, law enforcement, etc. scrambling to understand why. In my city, this year is an historically bad year for violent crime; yet a relatively good year for minor crimes. Why? No one really knows.
One of our friends who works in a middle school was talking about how they currently have a batch of 7th graders who are just insanely difficult. They defy authority left and right and just overall have tested the limits of the teachers and administration in ways that no class in recent memory has. Can they come up with a reason why? Is it that a few bad apples spoil the bunch? They will probably never get a reliable answer, because lots of variables are at work.
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I walked home near a mile from age 6 on. Got lost a few times. Better off because of it.
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As an American visiting Oslo, Norway a couple years back, I was surprised by the number of prams, equipped with babies, were left outside the local Starbucks, while mom's chatted inside. I quipped to my host "...someone would call child services in the US is they saw an unattended stroller outside a Starbucks in the US" He said something to the effect that "fussy babies need fresh air"... and I could not find a fault with his logic.
I grew up in norway and think this is idiotic. Would these people leave their wallets on the sidewalk while they went inside? Probably not, but their baby is ok?
To be fair, cash is vastly more useful to a stranger than a baby is.
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Edited to ask LennStar - what is your suggestion then regarding incarceration of rapists, murderers and molesters? Should we not incarcerate them? They have already proven themselves to be a danger to society.
Oh dear, this is going to be longer ^^
What is the goal of the judicial system in a state with rule of law?
First we have to know what rule of law means (in german the word is much better: Rechtsstaat - especially as "Recht" (law) has connotations of justice).
It means that everyone is subject to the same law, in the same extent and same result. It also means, and that is imperative, that no one gets punished for things he has not done. That is where innocent until proven guilty comes from. If the average person is under scrutiny without special reason by e.g. police, we dont have a rule of law, that thing is called police state. The former GDR with the Stasi could be called such a thing. That is why the spying of the NSA on the germans is such a big deal here. (Of course, there are always people who say "I have nothign to hide, so I have nothign to fear, which always makes me headbang.)
As a result the state with rule of law (Rechtsstaat is better, did I mention it? is there a shorter phrase in english?) accepts that not all criminals get punished. Indeed, having one person punished for somthing she did not do is worse then having 100 criminals getting away with it. (btw. that is the main reason why I hold that death penatly is not compatible with rule of law, because errors happen and death penalty is unreversible)
It also means that the justice system has to use means that are proportional to the severity of the crime. You dont shoot a little kid for stealing bubble gum. You dont shoot anyone for stealing.
But we use punishment. Why? There are 3 reasons:
1. protection of the public - if you are in prison, you dont go around doing criminal things, at least in theory (for the sake of argument we will not talk about Mafia bosses directing their underlings from prison or inner-prison crimes). That aims at the criminal individual and aims to prevent repeating.
2. Deterrence. The punishment makes it too expensive to be a criminal. This aims at people who do not have done a specific crime so far. The amount of how good that works is determined by the severity of the punishment (and a public apology can be more deterrent then a prison sentence, in part most people dont know how it is in prison) and the how big the chance to get cought is. Sorry, how big the possible criminal thinks the chance is. Very important distinction.
3. Revenge. Most people would not admit it, possibly saying they want justice, but in 99% it boils down to revenge. The feeling that the criminal has got what he deserves. I dont blame a mother wanting the killer of her child dead. Thats human. But its still not justice.
Unfortunately all our societies put a certain amount of weight on 3. Perhaps sometimes in a future far, far away that will not be the case, but for our lifetime it will. Even Gandhi and Buddha had a streak of it. But that is neither justice nor good.
Lets have a look at these 3 things with the question: How good is the goal achieved?
3. Well, revenge could easily be done. (You dont even need the real criminal, as long as you sentence someone. Wrong was done once, "justice" was done once, if it hits the right person, thats a lucky coincidence. Dont take that too seriously, please, its just there to hint you at possible interpretations of justice and legal system.)
The "problem" here lies in the simple fact that everyone has rights. You should have heard it:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Revenge always confronts with these, and the question is: Is your right of revenge bigger then this?
In my eyes it is never.
So under rule of law point 3. is not usable as a reason for (severe) punishment.
Number 2: deterrence
Does a big sentence deter - what was it - rapists, murderers and molesters from doing their offense?
Of course, a certain amount is deterred, no question. But i think more possible criminals are deterred by their shame, morality and so forht, which can bloom in freedom, but wither in prison. What I mean is that open discussion about these topics, education and help programs for those who have problems stopping their natural urges helps more to prevent the actual crime then a big punishment.
Does giving these types of people a second change result in more crimes of the same type by these people? Yes, it does. Same applies to stealing bubble gum.
But on the other hand, how many crimes are not committed by being open about that, by helping affected possible criminals? If you hush this up, offer no help etc. a lot of people will not get the help that would have prevented the crime. That is especially true to "psychological" based crimes like rape. You have to give the would-be criminal a chance to be no criminal. If you dont do it... well, then we have one of the puzzling things of medieval times, where chopping off hands did not stop poor people from stealing. And whipping also did not make them get a job to earn money, for whatever reason, possibly the lack of jobs.
In the case of murders, most of them are not murders but manslaughter, done in the heat of the moment, and there is no deterrent effect at all for them.
btw: For deterrent you also dont need the punished to be the criminal that did the action. Psychologically a certain rate of unconnected punishment works even better. Its the same mechanism as in terror attacks and police states. You may have nothign to hide, but the important part is: Does the police know it? And can they be sure that their knowledge that you have nothing to hide is real? Hint: No, they never can be. Thats why you always have to fear something.
So, all in all, deterrence works only so lala.
Number 1: prevent crimes from the same person.
Of course, imprisoning someone (or killing him) prevents crimes from that person. But it also is a violation of his basic, unalienable rights. And, not to put too fine a point on it, prison is expensive. Both in money and psychological stress to people connected to the imprisoned.
Best would be we can prevent repeating with as less prison as possible, right? The word used for this is reintegration.
Well, you know I mentioned it already: help programs, psychological help, other methods...
Definitely try to not use prison for everyday crimes against things and small people-directed crimes. But it can also be used for the biggest crimes. Not in all cases. For murder for example, the planned killing of a human, you need a big, bad sentence as deterrent. For manslaughter, as I wrote above, prison does not really work as deterrent for others and seldom for the individual, because the occurence is mostly one of a kind (and thats also a reason why the sentence is a lot shorter.). For everything else we put these people not in prisons but in psychological institutions.
So, I dont know if I have lost the thread in all this or not LOL, but I this is always an answer that has to be given with reasons.
what is your suggestion then regarding incarceration of rapists, murderers and molesters? Should we not incarcerate them? They have already proven themselves to be a danger to society
So, the answer is: Yes, all these people must be put in prison, if only for reason 2. If they are nuts, they must be put in the psychological care.
For those who arent, there are projections of how likely they will do a crime again. If it is likely, they must remain in prison, for reason 1.
If these say they will not, then these people have to be released after the smallest possible time in prison (which includes comparison to other criminal activities).
And yes, I know that these projection can be wrong. If they are wrong it can mean that people die.
I live in a town that is unfortunately "famous" for having "prisoners" escape from the psychological care, including sex offenders. In most cases they just visit their mum or girlfriend. Some just wanted to take a stroll. Which proves a lot of different things, especially that a human being is never fully rational and as such never fully predictable, but it does not prove that they are dangerous.
But, you see, in a Rechtsstaat, under the rule of law, you can only aim for the smallest possible sentence. If you not do that, you go in the other direction, where you put the prevention of crime as as the highest goal which, because of its inherent logic, will always (if you dont stop on that way) end in things like Stasi and Maoist correction camps or even chopping heads off for a stolen loaf of bread.
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This is a good explanation of the lead hypothesis.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline
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Thanks for your contribution LennStar. Danke. Guten tag. Ich muss in die toilette gehen. And that's all the high school german I can remember...
Here's a youtube video I recommend watching once a year or so, and certainly before serving on a jury.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
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We started our parenting career as helicopter parents, because of a health condition that required pretty much constant monitoring. We're trying to move towards a much more "get out there and see the world, and let us know if you need a hand" approach, but I'll admit that it's incredibly hard to let go after years of hovering. We're pushing through, though, because we see how important it is for kids to grow up with that level of confidence in themselves. They've got to learn to navigate their way around their environment and through social situations without parents at some point.
Where we live, there is no age requirement for kids to be left at home/go out alone. Many states in the U.S. have similar laws, and it's left up to the parents to judge their kid's level of maturity/readiness.
Our 11 year old is about the size of an 8 year old, and is pretty timid. It's been awesome to see him head out alone on his bike over the past year. He throws a little flip phone and some snacks in a back pack, and is gone with his neighborhood friends pretty much all day every Saturday. We call him the mayor of the neighborhood. His confidence has sky-rocketed from these experiences.
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We started our parenting career as helicopter parents, because of a health condition that required pretty much constant monitoring. We're trying to move towards a much more "get out there and see the world, and let us know if you need a hand" approach, but I'll admit that it's incredibly hard to let go after years of hovering. We're pushing through, though, because we see how important it is for kids to grow up with that level of confidence in themselves. They've got to learn to navigate their way around their environment and through social situations without parents at some point.
Where we live, there is no age requirement for kids to be left at home/go out alone. Many states in the U.S. have similar laws, and it's left up to the parents to judge their kid's level of maturity/readiness.
Our 11 year old is about the size of an 8 year old, and is pretty timid. It's been awesome to see him head out alone on his bike over the past year. He throws a little flip phone and some snacks in a back pack, and is gone with his neighborhood friends pretty much all day every Saturday. We call him the mayor of the neighborhood. His confidence has sky-rocketed from these experiences.
For some reason, this account really moved me. That is great to hear about you and you child growing. Very cool!
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I was 11 in 1971. No cell phones. In the summer mom would let me run the neighborhood for at lease 4 hour stretches of time. We had a large wooded area which we called "the woods" behind our house and I would explore it endlessly. Mom said I knew it like the back of my hand.
I must admit we lived in a suburb that appeared very safe.
My daughter who is 13 now, began baby sitting our younger son at age 11.
My grandson, who is 9 rides his bike to his other grandpa's house unescorted for about 1 mile.
Still I must admit I think it is very dependent upon where you live, how mature your kid is etc... 11 can be a pretty immature age for some kids. I can see having my 11 year old daughter ride her bike around the neighborhood but would not allow her to do so in a "city" type setting. There are many places, either because of traffic or crime that I myself would not venture to.
So yeah, it depends.
But the 17 year old one cracked me up. Who the hell goes around bothering people at campgrounds?
As a complete aside --- I am totally against 16 -17 year old boys driving. It is crazy that we allow this. Incredibly dangerous. Over the years, I have seen just too many local tragedies involving teen driving.
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If you look at the stats, drivers over 75 a much more dangerous behind the wheel than teens.
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... So I'd bet 75% are driven. Walk? A MILE????
I assume you're replying to my "if you live in the City of Atlanta and within a mile of the school, you pretty much have no choice but to walk because the school buses don't stop for you" comment.
It's worth noting that most of the (poor, black) public-school kids don't get driven because their parents are too busy taking the bus to work themselves, and most of the (rich, white) kids that do get driven would have been driven anyway since they're going to a private or charter school farther away.
(There are some upper-middle-class white kids who walk -- especially in my neighborhood, on the dividing line between the rich and poor halves of the city -- but broadly speaking, what I wrote above is true.)
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Fair.
I live near enough a school that the backup from parents dropping off and picking up their kids backs up the main road twice a day.
I'm pretty sure some of the cars I see are from my neighborhood, under half a mile away. :/
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I'm not cool with leaving a defenseless baby unsupervised outside on the street.
Pfft, hardly defenseless. Diaper grenades, projectile vomit, sonic assaults, the modern baby may as well be a marvel super hero.
Seriously though, a fussy baby cooped up inside all day, take them outside, settle right down. And a fussy baby that's been outside all day, take them inside, settle right down. It's about boredom. When you can't use the internet yet you need a change of scenery every once in awhile.
And if a baby is fussy both inside and out, eject them into orbit. My gran always used to say "fussy babies need the cold vacuum of space."
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Thanks for your contribution LennStar. Danke. Guten tag. Ich muss in die toilette gehen. And that's all the high school german I can remember...
Here's a youtube video I recommend watching once a year or so, and certainly before serving on a jury.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
I hope you "enjoyed" it ^^
Judging from the title of your video, that would be a german version of it
http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2006/23C3-1346-de-sie_haben_das_recht_zu_schweigen.html#video
"Everything you say can be used against you" is something you should take very serious. The more the prosecution has from you, the more they will weave a case out of it, if you have done it or not. And today you can get arrested as terror leader for having access to a library and using words that are normal vocabulary in the field of science you are paid to work in. Or not taking your phone when you go meeting friends (not trackable is suspicous, right?).
If you want to refresh your german, you can try duolingo.com
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I'm not cool with leaving a defenseless baby unsupervised outside on the street.
Pfft, hardly defenseless. Diaper grenades, projectile vomit, sonic assaults, the modern baby may as well be a marvel super hero.
Seriously though, a fussy baby cooped up inside all day, take them outside, settle right down. And a fussy baby that's been outside all day, take them inside, settle right down. It's about boredom. When you can't use the internet yet you need a change of scenery every once in awhile.
And if a baby is fussy both inside and out, eject them into orbit. My gran always used to say "fussy babies need the cold vacuum of space."
I would totally hang out with your gran.
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Fair.
I live near enough a school that the backup from parents dropping off and picking up their kids backs up the main road twice a day.
I'm pretty sure some of the cars I see are from my neighborhood, under half a mile away. :/
There is often a line up of cars to pick kids up at the bus stop for our neighborhood. We only have one stop, and so it is a 5 - 15 minute walk to the houses. On very very cold days, it makes sense to pick up the kindergarteners or the first graders, or maybe when there are thunderstorms to gather the kiddos, but otherwise I find the practice a bit absurd.
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As a complete aside --- I am totally against 16 -17 year old boys driving. It is crazy that we allow this. Incredibly dangerous. Over the years, I have seen just too many local tragedies involving teen driving.
Agreed, though at 16 I was driving 35 minutes through tough Northern VA traffic each way to school. But in this era of smartphone-addicted, distracted driving, I'm terrified of my 12-year-old son driving in a few years. Not because I think he'll be irresponsible -- he hasn't gotten a phone yet -- but because of all the distracted idiots on the road. Seems teenage girls are more addicted to their phones than boys, so not sure I'd single out the dudes at this point when it comes to teenage driving.
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Fair.
I live near enough a school that the backup from parents dropping off and picking up their kids backs up the main road twice a day.
I'm pretty sure some of the cars I see are from my neighborhood, under half a mile away. :/
There is often a line up of cars to pick kids up at the bus stop for our neighborhood. We only have one stop, and so it is a 5 - 15 minute walk to the houses. On very very cold days, it makes sense to pick up the kindergarteners or the first graders, or maybe when there are thunderstorms to gather the kiddos, but otherwise I find the practice a bit absurd.
I've seen parents sitting in their cars next to the bus stop while the kids are waiting, and I don't understand it. These are middle and high schoolers. The only thing I can think of must be that their kids have a mental handicap, in which case it makes sense. What other possible reason would there be for watching your 14 year old waiting for the bus??
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I wonder if they don't trust their kids to not skip school.
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Fair.
I live near enough a school that the backup from parents dropping off and picking up their kids backs up the main road twice a day.
I'm pretty sure some of the cars I see are from my neighborhood, under half a mile away. :/
There is often a line up of cars to pick kids up at the bus stop for our neighborhood. We only have one stop, and so it is a 5 - 15 minute walk to the houses. On very very cold days, it makes sense to pick up the kindergarteners or the first graders, or maybe when there are thunderstorms to gather the kiddos, but otherwise I find the practice a bit absurd.
I've seen parents sitting in their cars next to the bus stop while the kids are waiting, and I don't understand it. These are middle and high schoolers. The only thing I can think of must be that their kids have a mental handicap, in which case it makes sense. What other possible reason would there be for watching your 14 year old waiting for the bus??
At one time I had a bike commute through a couple neighborhood roads and I could not believe the number of people I saw driving their kids a block, or even half a block, from their house to drop them off for the bus in these quiet suburban neighborhoods. Sometimes the car would then drive off, but other times they would drive right back home and go back inside. It's truly mindblowing to me.