Is this even legal? Missed Meetings Could Mean Jail Time for Parents

[CatWoman]

DETROIT (AP) — The night Demarco Harris shot and killed a woman during a robbery on a Detroit street, his parents told police knocking on their door at 2 a.m. they didn't know where their 12-year-old was.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said that's indicative of a larger issue in Detroit, where the lack of making parents accountable for their children partly is blamed on elevated truancy and dropout rates, as well as a recent rash of violent crimes involving teens.

Worthy has a new idea she hopes will fix the problem: Jail parents for up to three days for repeatedly missing scheduled parent-teacher conferences.

"I have seen that younger and younger children are committing more violent acts and we need to look at different approaches," Worthy told reporters. "I know we need to try something different. We should not have to legislate this, but what we have been doing is not working."

She's still working on the details, but once her proposal is finished, she hopes to present it to county commissioners in August and persuade them to approve an ordinance. After that, she may take it to state legislators in Lansing.

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_state_of_black_america_news/20059

[dgibby]

1. Wonder who'll watch the kids while the parents are doing time?

Is she planning on babysitting? The stoopid-it burns!

[elehhhhna]

2. a minor is out shooting at night, and performing poorly in school,

so his parent(s?) will be punished for skipping ptc's? Unless it's a charter school lolol.

logic logic logic

[LiberalFighter]

3. They shouldn't be jailed for missing PTC meetings.

They should be jailed for not supervising their children properly.

The problem is that the government can't create curfew laws. But I wonder if they can require parents to have curfew laws for their children?

[TexasObserver]

4. Probably legal, but definitely stupid and illogical.

There is a contingent in society who think the answer to every problem is to punish someone. These are the same people who think shoving a puppy's nose in urine and hitting him makes him think "wow, I don't want to pee on the carpet again," instead of the "wow, why are they hitting me?"

Parents are not always able to take off and go to such conferences. The notion that the world is at the beck and call of school teachers is a bit ridiculous. In my view, whether a parent meets with a teacher is always the option of the parent. They might have better things to do than meet with the teacher, and ultimately it should be their decision - not the teacher's - which controls their attendance at such a meeting. We hire teachers to teach our kids, not to issue edicts to us.

[lapislzi]

5. Hm. High crime and drop out rates...could this possibly be a low-income area?

Or perhaps an area with a high preponderance of single parent homes? Maybe Mom's working a second or third waitressing job and still can't make ends meet? Granted, in this instance both parents were home at the time. But how often is that the case, really?

I am a single parent of a teenager. I work long hours. There are times when I *don't* know where my kid is. Kids can be pretty crafty, especially when they're up to no good. If she's at Daddy's and hasn't told me she's sleeping over at so-and-so's, or going to the movies, or whatever, there's a good chance I wouldn't be able to track her down. Maybe that makes me a shitty parent, but that's the way it is sometimes. Do I deserve to go to jail for that? How does that benefit anybody if I lose my job? Then I can't get another because I have a criminal record. I lose my house. And down we go on the merry spiral of poverty.

One of the problems is a lack of access to affordable child care. Kids raising kids is another.

Sorry, but that idea is simply cruel and absurd.

[Raineyb]

6. Just to take a wild guess I'd say it probably is a low income area.

They never come up with stupid shit like this for people on the suburbs.