Community Chat

[adelle38]

On 6/14/2014 herekitty_kitty said:

On 6/14/2014 kittymomNC said:

On 6/14/2014 herekitty_kitty said:

On 6/14/2014 terrier3 said:

I don't see how fining parents will solve this problem.

PA jails many people for other strange fines. One guy was jailed for catching a large mouth bass during small mouth bass season.

In my county in NY, a woman was jailed for having two overdue library books. She had been stopped for having a taillight out and when the police found the warrant for her arrest, she offered to pay for the books - $85 total (including fines). The police told her it was too late to pay and she was brought to jail. They denied her insulin, even though she complained, and she had a stroke. She is now suing.

It costs MORE money to process these people owing civil fines, jail them, etc.

Then they have to deal with being criminals...who wants to hire people who served time in jail, even if it was only for a few days?

It affects poor people much more often and is a waste of time & money, IMO.

"Patton said he has lost sleep over her death. At the same time, he acknowledged that a short jail stint can sometimes "break the habit" of parents who'd rather party into the night than take their children to school the next day. The county started a program a few years ago that gives families 30 to 60 days to keep daily logs of each class and assignment. He estimated that the district truancy rate had dropped more than 30 percent."

if they don't want to be an active parent they shouldn't have children. the woman was living off the government. she was a stay at home mom. the least she could have done was be an active parent. stop blaming the court system. she put her self there.

LOL the system failed her? the system didn't make her have 7 kids. they didn't hold her down and say "you will have 7 children!" she shouldn't have had so many children. that's on her.

Apparently you must know nothing about bi-polar disorder...maybe it would be good to educate yourself about something before you make these kinds of statements. There are different levels of bi-polar disorder, and it can be very difficult for a person to live anything close to a normal life if they have a severe form of it. It's like other mental illnesses...even if she had been prescribed medication for it, it doesn't always help, and the people who suffer, and yes, I said SUFFER, from this disease don't always remember or are unable to take their medications for various reasons related to the illness.

It's a sad state of affairs that there is still a stigma attached to mental illness, and people would rather ignore it than try to understand it. Yes, I do think that the "system", whatever system it was, social services, the courts, the doctors, whatever, let her AND her children down. This should never have happened, but it also should not be blamed solely on this woman.

I stand by what I said. Then maybe we need some kind of law in place before people with a mental illness can have children if they are so, so fragile. Obviously they can't deal with life as so many of you want to keep posting about. It they are that fragile they shouldn't be bringing a life they have to care for into the world. It's abusive to allow a child to be raised in this environment.

They had many of those laws in place in Germany in the 1930's. There are plenty of highly educated and wealthy parents who are abusive. They just have the money to get away with it.

[magicmoodz]

Sitting on my hands . . .

[garmer]

If you can't pay your fine, they lock you up to "work off the fine". So much money per day towards the fine. Same as a parking ticket or other minor infraction. It's not only for truancy. I think without the threat of incarceration many people wouldn't bother to pay.

It's a sad situation for this family but, not unusual (except the death,of course). It costs a lot more to house the "criminal" , a lot more than the amt. of the fine, usually. So the county loses the fine money and the money it costs to keep the inmate.

Doesn't make a lot of sense but, I don't know of any other way to force people to pay what they owe. The threat of being locked up probably makes many people pay up. So, I don't know, in the long run, maybe it is cost effective.

Speaking in general, not specifically about this woman's case.

[kittymomNC]

Before this thread goes down, I have one more thing to say.

This is not directed at anyone in particular - it's simply a statement. If someone is lucky enough to never have been affected themselves or have a member of their family affected by any kind of mental illness, and there are many, then they should thank whatever god they pray to every day for their blessings!

This is so misunderstood, which is probably why people want to ignore it, because it would take too much effort on their part to learn about it and try to understand it. It's a difficult thing to understand - unlike cancer, or heart disease, or back problems, or any other physical illness, it's too mysterious because even doctors don't have all the answers. And it is impossible to truly understand it unless you've personally experienced what it does yourself or unless someone close to you has been affected by some form of it in some way.

I just makes my blood boil at the attitudes some people have -- most people with a mental illness, unless it's so severe that they can't think rationally at all, would tell you if they could choose a physical illness instead, even a bad one, they would. Most wouldn't wish it on their worst enemy, and they certainly don't choose to have it. And as I've said repeatedly, they do SUFFER - it's no picnic in the park!

I've lived a long time and peoples' attitudes overall are not as bad as they used to be - but I don't think I'll live long enough to see the day when people stop saying "oh, just get over it", or "you shouldn't have kids", or "just deal with it" or any other as*sinine remarks. My rant is over.....

[tansy]

Applauding your post, kittymom.

[garmer]

I also wonder about the truancy charges. If the children are home sick from school, (in my district) they must bring in a written excuse from their parent within three days of returning to school. If they don't, the absence is marked as illegal.

I know of a child that never handed in the excuses that the parents wrote. They sat in her desk, she forgot to give them to the teacher. When they had "desk cleaning days" the teacher would find the excuses. Too late to change the absence to legal. Fortunately, this child didn't miss much school but , the parents could have been in trouble if the child had a lot of sick days. I'm talking about a very young child, first grader.

It could have been something like this for this woman, I don't know.

[garmer]

Those fines shouldn't have gone back to 99. The statute of limitations should have run out on 15 year old fines. I'm assuming these are summary fines, not felonies.

[kittymomNC]

“It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.”
? Maurice Switzer

[SydneyH]

On 6/14/2014 garmer said:

I also wonder about the truancy charges. If the children are home sick from school, (in my district) they must bring in a written excuse from their parent within three days of returning to school. If they don't, the absence is marked as illegal.

I know of a child that never handed in the excuses that the parents wrote. They sat in her desk, she forgot to give them to the teacher. When they had "desk cleaning days" the teacher would find the excuses. Too late to change the absence to legal. Fortunately, this child didn't miss much school but , the parents could have been in trouble if the child had a lot of sick days. I'm talking about a very young child, first grader.

It could have been something like this for this woman, I don't know.

In my district, the absence is noted on that particular day. A parent can notify the school that the child will not be in attendance, however after several days, the household may be required to provide a doctors' note for multiple days that are missed.

[garmer]

Here, even though you must call your child off by nine am (phone the school), you still have to turn in a written note when they go back to school, even for one day. After three consecutive days out, you must provide a doctor's excuse to return to school.

I was wondering what if that mother wrote notes that never made it to the teacher. That would be really a shame, to end up dying over that.

None of us know what really happened. We shouldn't be critical of this mom. MO, for what it's worth.