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I don't understand the issue. Do you agree that child abuse should be a crime? If so, do you think you could correctly define it in legally precise language on

I don't understand the issue. Do you agree that child abuse should be a crime? If so, do you think you could correctly define it in legally precise language on the first try, with no unintended consequences? Legislators are human and make mistakes. It's good that they're proactively considering potential unintended effects of a law, and it's not that sad that they didn't get it exactly right the first time.

Retric 9y ago
I don't think child abuse necessarily needs to be a separate law from general harm.
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- sbov 9y ago
  It has to be separate because your responsibilities towards your kids are different than your responsibilities towards other people. There are things you can do to your kids you can't do to other people (e.g. grounding). There are things you can't do to your kids that you can do to other people (e.g. refuse to provide shelter).
  - Retric 9y ago
    That's not limited to children, your parents with dementia may have diminished capacity. Age is a trap as not all 16 year old children are capable of taking care of themselves for a weekend alone, but many are.
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- burkaman 9y ago
  You'd have the same issue even if there weren't a specific child abuse law. Does letting your 8-year-old walk to school alone count as "general harm"? What about leaving them home alone for a day? A week? A month? Who gets to decide? If the law doesn't specify, the police and the courts decide. And if the police start making decisions that the public disagrees with, then we pass new legislation to clarify what exactly counts as general harm.
  - Retric 9y ago
    How is that different from a 35 year old mentally handicapped sibling under your care? It's not a question of age, it's one of responsibility.
    - burkaman 9y ago
      It's not different. If police started arresting people for letting their adult mentally handicapped dependents do reasonably independent things, then it might be a good idea to pass some legislation to modify the relevant law.
Diederich 9y ago
Perhaps this is a clarifying question: are the activities associated with 'free range children' covered under child abuse laws?
- burkaman 9y ago
  Yes, otherwise this new law would be unnecessary. Utah has a child abuse law, and saw that other states were overreaching with similar laws. So they're passing new legislation to amend and limit their own existing child abuse law.
will4274 9y ago
You're missing it. If the original law is overbroad, it makes sense to modify the original law, not pass a second law adding exemptions where it doesn't apply. If something as innocuos as letting your kids walk home was "endangerment", there are still other, equally innocuous things that qualify as endangerment but aren't covered by this exception. In other words, if the standard is wrong, change the standard (but keep it uniform), don't add (non-uniform) exceptions for the examples that showed the standard was wrong
- burkaman 9y ago
  I think it's very hard, if not impossible, to write the kind of uniform standard you're talking about. I feel pretty confident that if you came up with an example standard, we could both easily come up with unintended effects and unclear gray areas.

Retric 9y ago

I don't think child abuse necessarily needs to be a separate law from general harm.

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sbov 9y ago
It has to be separate because your responsibilities towards your kids are different than your responsibilities towards other people. There are things you can do to your kids you can't do to other people (e.g. grounding). There are things you can't do to your kids that you can do to other people (e.g. refuse to provide shelter).
- Retric 9y ago
  That's not limited to children, your parents with dementia may have diminished capacity. Age is a trap as not all 16 year old children are capable of taking care of themselves for a weekend alone, but many are.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
burkaman 9y ago
You'd have the same issue even if there weren't a specific child abuse law. Does letting your 8-year-old walk to school alone count as "general harm"? What about leaving them home alone for a day? A week? A month? Who gets to decide? If the law doesn't specify, the police and the courts decide. And if the police start making decisions that the public disagrees with, then we pass new legislation to clarify what exactly counts as general harm.
- Retric 9y ago
  How is that different from a 35 year old mentally handicapped sibling under your care? It's not a question of age, it's one of responsibility.
  - burkaman 9y ago
    It's not different. If police started arresting people for letting their adult mentally handicapped dependents do reasonably independent things, then it might be a good idea to pass some legislation to modify the relevant law.

Diederich 9y ago

Perhaps this is a clarifying question: are the activities associated with 'free range children' covered under child abuse laws?

burkaman 9y ago
Yes, otherwise this new law would be unnecessary. Utah has a child abuse law, and saw that other states were overreaching with similar laws. So they're passing new legislation to amend and limit their own existing child abuse law.

will4274 9y ago

You're missing it. If the original law is overbroad, it makes sense to modify the original law, not pass a second law adding exemptions where it doesn't apply. If something as innocuos as letting your kids walk home was "endangerment", there are still other, equally innocuous things that qualify as endangerment but aren't covered by this exception. In other words, if the standard is wrong, change the standard (but keep it uniform), don't add (non-uniform) exceptions for the examples that showed the standard was wrong

burkaman 9y ago
I think it's very hard, if not impossible, to write the kind of uniform standard you're talking about. I feel pretty confident that if you came up with an example standard, we could both easily come up with unintended effects and unclear gray areas.