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I generally agree with the idea of not criminalizing an honest mistake. I change my tune when it comes to mistakes that show a lack of fitness for the general t

I generally agree with the idea of not criminalizing an honest mistake. I change my tune when it comes to mistakes that show a lack of fitness for the general task/required skills. In some cases I think a civil action like a fine or some type of legal mark that can identify serial 'mistake' makers. If you 'forget' to wear your motorcycle helmet 7 times maybe you just don't get to operate a motorcycle anymore. Or if you 'forget' to wear your seat belt enough times the fines escalate and require mandatory safety classes. Especially in the case where the harm is generally only to the mistake maker, I think these are reasonable. Where I completely change my tune is when the lives of other are in your care, including animals. If you forget to feed your pet or children to the point of harm, you're clearly not a suitable caretaker. If you cannot seek timely medical attention and your child dies, you should be held accountable. If you leave your child in the car and they die, you should absolutely be held accountable. I've got three kids under five, I cannot imagine a world where I forget that they're there (partially because they make a ton of noise). I think there's an infinitesimally small percentage of people who actually forget, I think the likelihood is that: a) they thought it would be ok, but oops, and b) they just don't care- maybe even want the worst to happen. This goes back to my point of showing signs that you are unsuitable to care for others. I want to draw a clear distinction, I'm not one of those people that believe children need to be bubble wrapped and monitored 24/7. I don't think people should be admonished if there's a couple of kids in the car and they ran in to the 7-11 and grabbed a (whatever) quickly while the kids were in plain view the whole time. I think kids that show the ability to go to the neighborhood park by themselves should be able to. I think we've taken a lot of the learning you get from free-roaming and seriously stunted our kids growth and resilience. The distinction is, the kids don't get a say in their treatment or care. If you're ability to care for them is so diminished that they are harmed by a neglectful act, you should be punished harshly, if it's found that a reasonable person would have acted differently. I'm willing to give that in all these negligent care cases we should look at the totality of the circumstances and make judgements based on that, as none of this can be black and white. For example, say mom had a slip and fall a couple weeks ago and got a concussion. No one realized it, and she's got memory issues. She forgets the kiddo, and the kiddo dies. Now it's going to be a long, twisted, painful road, but I would think the right outcome is that the mother isn't punished anymore than she already will be for the rest of her life. The hard part would be getting that concussion post-diagnosed and recognized as an extenuating circumstance. I'm still okay with negligent care cases defaulting to a presumption of guilt, because you HAVE to fuck up to get in to this position, now we just need to see if it was a reasonable mistake or not. A reasonable person does not forget their child(ren) in the car.

icebraining 9y ago
I've got three kids under five, I cannot imagine a world where I forget that they're there Which is the whole problem. Our imagination and perception is flawed and limited. The idea that you can rely on it to accuse others of terrible crimes shows an unwarranted confidence in it. People who actually studied memory are telling you (in the article): yes, it can happen to everyone, and you don't need any concussion. Yet, you have an unshaken faith in memory, based on nothing but the fact that it never happened to you. It's quite scary, actually.
crooked-v 9y ago
> I think there's an infinitesimally small percentage of people who actually forget It happens more often than you believe, unfortunately. That's literally the entire point of the article. > There's a dismayingly cartoonish expression for what happened to Lyn Balfour on March 30, 2007. British psychologist James Reason coined the term the "Swiss Cheese Model" in 1990 to explain through analogy why catastrophic failures can occur in organizations despite multiple layers of defense. Reason likens the layers to slices of Swiss cheese, piled upon each other, five or six deep. The holes represent small, potentially insignificant weaknesses. Things will totally collapse only rarely, he says, but when they do, it is by coincidence -- when all the holes happen to align so that there is a breach through the entire system. > On the day Balfour forgot Bryce in the car, she had been up much of the night, first babysitting for a friend who had to take her dog to an emergency vet clinic, then caring for Bryce, who was cranky with a cold. Because the baby was also tired, he uncharacteristically dozed in the car, so he made no noise. Because Balfour was planning to bring Bryce's usual car seat to the fire station to be professionally installed, Bryce was positioned in a different car seat that day, not behind the passenger but behind the driver, and was thus not visible in the rear-view mirror. Because the family's second car was on loan to a relative, Balfour drove her husband to work that day, meaning the diaper bag was in the back, not on the passenger seat, as usual, where she could see it. Because of a phone conversation with a young relative in trouble, and another with her boss about a crisis at work, Balfour spent most of the trip on her cell, stressed, solving other people's problems. Because the babysitter had a new phone, it didn't yet contain Balfour's office phone number, only her cell number, meaning that when the sitter phoned to wonder why Balfour hadn't dropped Bryce off that morning, it rang unheard in Balfour's pocketbook. > The holes, all of them, aligned. > There is no consistent character profile of the parent who does this to his or her child. The 13 who were interviewed for this story include the introverted and extroverted; the sweet, the sullen, the stoic and the terribly fragile. None of those descriptions exactly fits Lyn Balfour, a 37-year-old Army reservist who has served in combat zones and who seems to remain -- at least on the subject of the death of her son -- in battle.

icebraining 9y ago

I've got three kids under five, I cannot imagine a world where I forget that they're there Which is the whole problem. Our imagination and perception is flawed and limited. The idea that you can rely on it to accuse others of terrible crimes shows an unwarranted confidence in it. People who actually studied memory are telling you (in the article): yes, it can happen to everyone, and you don't need any concussion. Yet, you have an unshaken faith in memory, based on nothing but the fact that it never happened to you. It's quite scary, actually.

crooked-v 9y ago

> I think there's an infinitesimally small percentage of people who actually forget It happens more often than you believe, unfortunately. That's literally the entire point of the article. > There's a dismayingly cartoonish expression for what happened to Lyn Balfour on March 30, 2007. British psychologist James Reason coined the term the "Swiss Cheese Model" in 1990 to explain through analogy why catastrophic failures can occur in organizations despite multiple layers of defense. Reason likens the layers to slices of Swiss cheese, piled upon each other, five or six deep. The holes represent small, potentially insignificant weaknesses. Things will totally collapse only rarely, he says, but when they do, it is by coincidence -- when all the holes happen to align so that there is a breach through the entire system. > On the day Balfour forgot Bryce in the car, she had been up much of the night, first babysitting for a friend who had to take her dog to an emergency vet clinic, then caring for Bryce, who was cranky with a cold. Because the baby was also tired, he uncharacteristically dozed in the car, so he made no noise. Because Balfour was planning to bring Bryce's usual car seat to the fire station to be professionally installed, Bryce was positioned in a different car seat that day, not behind the passenger but behind the driver, and was thus not visible in the rear-view mirror. Because the family's second car was on loan to a relative, Balfour drove her husband to work that day, meaning the diaper bag was in the back, not on the passenger seat, as usual, where she could see it. Because of a phone conversation with a young relative in trouble, and another with her boss about a crisis at work, Balfour spent most of the trip on her cell, stressed, solving other people's problems. Because the babysitter had a new phone, it didn't yet contain Balfour's office phone number, only her cell number, meaning that when the sitter phoned to wonder why Balfour hadn't dropped Bryce off that morning, it rang unheard in Balfour's pocketbook. > The holes, all of them, aligned. > There is no consistent character profile of the parent who does this to his or her child. The 13 who were interviewed for this story include the introverted and extroverted; the sweet, the sullen, the stoic and the terribly fragile. None of those descriptions exactly fits Lyn Balfour, a 37-year-old Army reservist who has served in combat zones and who seems to remain -- at least on the subject of the death of her son -- in battle.