A place Harris will need to grow (or, I hope, already has)

[Ms. Toad]

History as a prosecutor: jailing and fining the parents of children with excessive absences

Here we see the limits of the “prosecutorial mindset”. Like the old slogan “when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” when all you have is the ability to bring criminal charges, everything looks like a crime.

Harris looked at the problem of perpetual truancy and believed she ought to start locking up parents. A humane progressive looks at the problem and asks: why do absences actually occur? Truancy occurs disproportionately among children whose parents are poor and less-educated, and among children who don’t feel safe at school, who have to work or support their families, who have mental and physical health issues, and who are in unstable living situations.

Given the social reality, the idea of fining or jailing parents over student absences is both cruel and unwise. It targets the poorest and most desperate parents, and it doesn’t actually address the root causes.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/31/kamala-harris-laughed-jailing-parents-truancy

Does anyone know what Harris's position currently is - and whether she has renounced her prior position/actions?

(A quick search suggests her position has not changed - which I find troubling)

[vsrazdem]

1. Yes, I find it very troubling, but also the fact that she seemed actually giddy with joy about it.

[Ms. Toad]

4. I'm willing to put the giddiness on the tape down to politics

I don't like it, but it is political reality.

What I find more troubling is that she apparently liked the policy of prosecuting parents of truant children enough that she used it as a campaign plank in her bid to become attorney general. So it was not just a matter of having a hammer, so everything looks like a nail. It was standing back and admiring the brokenness this policy inherntly creates and deciding it would be good to implement a similar policy statewide. With apparently no change of heart since then.

[Callado119]

2. Another misleading hit piece..

And it quotes Walter Bragman, a Bernie Stan/champagne socialist who spends most of his time attacking others who are a threat to his candidate. We have truancy laws in all 50 states and no one was jailed during her tenure..

[Ms. Toad]

3. The article is based on her own words and policy decisions

Which - to the extent I can find updates - she still holds.

Reports differ as to whether parents were imprisoned under her watch - the closest I can pin it down there were not parents imprisoned while she was prosecutor, but there were while she was attorney general - under the truancy law she campaigned for - including one parent who was sentenced to 180 days in jail. I can't find a record of fines, but fines in each of the 20 cases she had prosecuted as of the time the article was written were up to $2500.

There is a significant diffference between campaigning for such laws as a good solution (which she apparently did in her drive to become state attorney general) and living with the reality that such laws exist. Feel free to listen to her own words on it, from less than a decade ago.

So do you believe it is appropriate to threaten parents of truant children with jail and fines, as a matter of policy?

If so, then it appears Kamala Harris is your gal. As a person who has spent more than half of a 31 year career in education, and 2/3 of that teaching in an inner city school, I do not find it an acceptable policy - not because Walter Bragman is quoted in the article, but because I did enough research to determine that the substance of the article is accurate. I listened to her words, I read what policy pieces I could find from her, I looked for more recent awakening. And I still find it troubling.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

5. I'm sure only white wealthy San Franciscans were jailed and fined.

[ehrnst]

10. I'm sure you'll be relieved to hear that no SF parents were.

Last edited Sat Feb 2, 2019, 11:11 AM - Edit history (1)

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[Hassin Bin Sober]

23. Nonsense

[ehrnst]

11. Can you cite where she campaigned for the Truancy law?

[Ms. Toad]

12. Here you go

If the bill becomes law, parents of chronically truant elementary school children could face a year in jail or a $2,000 fine.

"These children will invariably be what will end up in our criminal justice system," San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris testified.

Harris, who sponsored the legislation, told legislators that elementary school truants usually become high school dropouts – and face worse problems.

. . .

A few years ago, the district attorney launched a truancy reduction initiative in San Francisco. She says it’s pretty successful. Harris, who’s running for state attorney general in this year’s election, says she wants specific tools to punish parents who allow their kids to ditch school. But she also wants to help them.

https://www.scpr.org/news/2010/04/26/14493/Truancy-penalty/

From her inauguration speech:

And as unacceptable as this problem is —?I know we can fix it. In San Francisco, we threatened the parents of truants with prosecution, and truancy dropped 32 percent. So, we are putting parents on notice. If you fail in your responsibility to your kids, we are going to work to make sure you face the full force and consequences of the law.

https://www.colorlines.com/articles/new-calif-truancy-law-goes-effect

[ehrnst]

13. Thank you. I understand she jailed no parents, and waived any fines if they

agreed to an attendance plan.

Here are the 2013 truancy guidelines:

Link to tweet

My understanding is that one woman, in another jurisdiction, Lorraine Cuevas, who had a criminal record and refused to answer any calls or attempts to contact her by school officials after her kids missed 100 days of school, was jailed for 180 days.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kamala-harris-homeless-mother/

California school districts had another option short of prosecution: School Attendance Review Boards. They bring together parents whose kids aren’t attending school with prosecutors and social workers. Kopperud said that’s where the most important work in truancy prevention takes place.

[aidbo]

6. Sam Seder's thoughts with the video.

[Ms. Toad]

7. Thank you -

The comparison regarding Clinton stopping his campaigning to return to Arkansas to execute Ricky Ray Rector, a mentally ill black man, to prove he was tough on crime resonates.

More than tough on crime talk as a prosecutor, it is that she used used implementing a similar policy state-wide as a campaign plank in runnning for AG that bothers me.

Ultimately, I voted for Clinton, but I was considerably less enthusiastic about him after he used Ricky Ray Rector's execution as a campaign tool. This is early - Harris could easily see the error of her ways & revise her position. But if not, my support will be less than whole-hearted. Education - especially among the population most impacted by her policies - has been a significant calling in my life. Jailing or fining parents who are likely poor and/or minority becausee their children are more frequently absent than their peers does not sit right with me.

[aidbo]

8. You're welcome, of course. Left is best!

Edited to add;

I didn’t realize that she had used that policy to run for statewide position too. I must confess I didn’t RTFA.😬

PS: It’s still early 2019 there are more candidates to come, Sen. Harris hasn’t won the nomination yet. Of the announced, I’m leaning towards Warren at this point.

[ehrnst]

9. No parents were jailed. in every case, she cut a deal, and waived the fine.

Last edited Sat Feb 2, 2019, 11:19 AM - Edit history (3)

They were told to show up at court. If they agreed to a plan for getting the kids to school, fines were waived.

Whatever her "giddiness" in front of that audience, her actions were to avoid jailing parents, because that would have meant that the policy had failed:

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Further details on the mechanics and procedures involved in the truancy initiative can be found here, but the key point is that the purpose of the program was not to criminally prosecute or jail parents of truant children. In fact, such an outcome would mean the program had failed. Its purpose was to use the threat of prosecution to “bring parents to the table” and initiate a series of steps that (crucially) involved providing services and resources to parents and did indeed have the effect of lowering the rate of truancy in San Francisco.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kamala-harris-homeless-mother/

[nini]

14. Honestly I'm glad the truancy issues are being addressed

Truancy is a huge problem with the dropout rate way too high.

These cases are not the occasional missing school types, but major problems with kids at risk of dropping out or worse. Parents are responsible for making sure their kids get to school. I was a single parent and I know how tough it is to monitor everything when you have to work and be all things at all times. But they still are the ones to make sure their kids get to school.

As others have said no one was jailed or fined if they agreed to a plan. Which hopefully was followed and helped the kids. We lose far too many kids who end up not graduating from high school. If desperate measures are needed to help them then so be it.

[Ms. Toad]

21. Arresting and charging a homeless mom of 3 who is working 2 jobs to make ends meet

is NEVER a satisfactory solution.

Even though this particular mom was not jailed, she now has an arrest record and a court record to contend with as she is trying to pull herself up out of poverty.

It is the posture that threatening parents (overwhelmingly poor and minority) with jail is an appropriate means to an end - when it is likely the circumstances that often accompany being a poor POC in this country that led to poor attendance at school in the first place.

As for not being the "occasional missing school" types - the law permits prosecution for 10 unexcused absences (or, I believe, tardies of more than 30 minutes). That's pretty occasional, as far as I'm concerned. The babysitter is sick, and an older child has to take kids to an alternate sitter; mom is sick and an older child has to taket the others to school making the older child late, the bus pass runs out a few days before payday. It doesn't take that much to rack up 10 days of unexcused (but justifiable) absences.

And - while parents were not jailed when she served as a prosecutor, she campaigned for an even more punitive law at the state level as part of her campaign to become AG - AND people were charged and jailed under that law.

[nini]

22. There's a difference between unexcused and excused absences

And truancy is a huge problem - huge.

Many warnings/notices are given before it gets to that point. It isi a process to get to that point. IF it is not handled that way then I would agree. Every situation has its own merits but as a rule these things need to be followed up on.

Something tells me we won't find any common ground on this so I'll just agree to disagree.

[dsc]

15. Sometimes truancy happens because a parent doesn't give a damn

and yes, those parents should be seeing the inside of a jail cell. In what I read she mentioned one parent, whose kids had missed 100 days (out of 180), and yes that parent got jail. 100 days. 100 days. Assuming this wasn't a high school age child, I have zero problem with that parent or those parents seeing the inside of a jail.

[ehrnst]

16. And because the accusations have been about her "building a career on jailing black parents"

I'll note that the parent who was jailed had a criminal record, and was not black.

[Ms. Toad]

17. And she also arrested a homeless mother of three, working two full-time jobs

to keep food on the non-existent table under the same law.

Regardless of how many days her children were absent, tossing a woman working 80 hours a week just to try to make ends meet is not an appropriate solution. HomeFirst, or child care during the hours her children needed to be getting ready and leaving for school would be two far better starting points.

I don't know the circumstances of the woman who was jailed - or what might have kept her from getting her children to school. Do you? Do you know that depriving the children of their parent for 180 days made their situation better, not worse? What about the intervention of Children's services (which does not leave a public record of arrest and conviction that create further barriers to moving forward with a productive life)?

[dsc]

18. she threatened the first with jail

and all of the sudden the truancy stopped, fancy that. We would literally never accept this excuse in regards to child support. Given that there is literally one case where she did jail someone it clearly wasn't the first, second, third, or fourth option.

[ehrnst]

24. These are the circumstances:

Criminal record, kids hadn't gone to school for more than 10% of attendance days, she did not respond to any and all attempts by the School to contact her.

https://kmph.com/archive/mom-jailed-for-kids-truancy-hanford-mother-sentenced-to-180-days

[Bucky]

19. This is a great lesson in why we need to study Montesquieu and limited government

Kamala Harris meant well. 90% of the misdeeds in government begins with somebody who wants to do something good for their community.

The problem is that (1) if your tool is a hammer you'll think your problem is a nail. And (2) as Montesquieu noted, people, including politicians, are naturally ambitious. They want to do good, they want to be acclaimed for doing good, and their jobs often depend on showing the world the good they've done.

So when a public servant sees a problem and they have a way of getting at that problem, they will use what tools they have at hand to address it, even if it's not the right tool for the job. Criminalizing the parents of truant kids is very much not the right tool for the job.

What should have happened is that leaders from across many government and public and private organizations should have gathered and deliberated on a unified approach for dealing with this problem of truancy and juvenile delinquence. But if nobody among the busy, ambitious politicians spearheads that unified approach, then individual initiatives can lead to government overreach.

This is exactly why Baron Charles de Montesquieu in the 1750s praised the British system of dividing the powers of government. This is the wisdom borrowed from him by the founding fathers in the 1780s when they wanted a strong government that still wouldn't abuse its own people.

Senator Harris is a great public servant, and I truly hope she learned from the problems she encountered and using a limit tool for the wrong job.

[Ms. Toad]

20. Perfectly stated. n/t