Re: Mother arrested because 10 year old son walked alone to store

BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

Feb 22, 2025 at 9:18:41 PM PST, shawn <nanoflower@notforg.m.a.i.l.com>:

Sun, 23 Feb 2025 04:44:06 -0000 (UTC), Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>:

Three months ago, a mother took one child to the doctor. While at the
doctor, her 10 year old son, left home alone, walked a mile to the
store. Now, he didn't have her permission but it wasn't a big deal for
the mother as her son hadn't gone anywhere he wasn't familiar with.

The cop that showed up at the house arrested her for reckless
endangerment, stating that it was illegal (in Georgia) for a 10 year old
to walk alone.

I guess I broke the law as a child more than once.

All the time. We weren't just walking down to the store, either.

On a typical Saturday, we would set out on our bikes first thing in the
morning and be gone all day. (We had to be gone before dad got going or we'd
end up having to do yard work all day.) Our rule was we had to be home for
dinner before the streetlights came on, but for the rest of the day, our
parents had no idea where we were while we were out in the woods miles away
riding the trails, building forts, playing ball, etc. Today, that would be
(absurdly) chargeable as criminal child abuse/neglect.

Yeah. My mother just expected us to return "eventually", but don't be
late for dinner. I rode my bike all over the place. I once rode all the
north on Sheridan Road, which makes it through Kenosha but ends at the
south boundary of Racine.

I crossed the Cheddar Curtain and lived to tell about it!

The frequent response is, "Well, we live in more dangerous times now", but
that's completely false. Per the FBI crime statistics, it's actually much
*safer* now in terms of child assault/abduction/murder than it was in the
"good old days" of the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s.

Is this specific to being kidnapped by strangers or all child
abductions? I thought abductions by non-custodial parents were steady.
As far as adults in position of authority over the child, or a relative
or adult known to the family, I have no idea.

But one aspect of times are more dangerous today, well, if parents drive
children to and from school at a school that was intended to have child
walk, the few children who walk are in danger of being struck by the
SUVs of the parents driving their kids.

When I was 10 years old, I had
some weirdo pull up beside me in a black van while I was out riding my bike
and ask if I wanted a ride and kept trying to convince me to come with him. I
told him to get lost and when he kept following me, rode toward the police
station. Once he realized where I was going, he sped away.

The difference is that thanks to 24-hour cable news, now you hear about cases
you never would have heard about back then. During those times, there were
essentially only three channels on TV-- ABC, CBS, and NBC-- and they had only
30 minutes per day to bring you the news from the whole world. So the story
about a little girl that got abducted in Idaho was pushed aside for a story
about the latest incursion by the Soviet Union or the political battles in
Congress. Then came CNN and 24-hour news and rather than have to cut stories,
they were struggling to fill the schedule all day, every single day, and
suddenly you started hearing about crimes you never knew had been occurring
the entire time and the perception was that suddenly there was an explosion of
child molesters out there, hiding behind every shrub and tree trunk.

Finally, prosecutors decide not to proceed but charges are dropped
WITHOUT prejudice, which allows them to be refiled again within two
years of the incident.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0CKus1J1DU