This week I have more thoughts on nanny state nonsense. State Senator Ben McAdams from Salt Lake City has announced that he’ll sponsor a bill making it a crime to leave a child alone in a car. His bill would make a parent criminally negligent for endangerment of a child.
While you’re soaking that in, let’s go over his motive. Last year, in 2010, 49 children died as a result of being left unattended in a car. We can presume that those deaths occurred on hot summer days. That number of children – 49 – was a nationwide number. Forty-nine kids, out of over 100 million of them, died. Of course, just one death is sad. But I’m wondering if 49 deaths out of a possible 100 million, none of those deaths in Utah last year, is the sort of compelling reason to move a new law?
Senator McAdams says that he was asked to run the bill by a prosecutor out in West Valley City. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the prosecutor wants to “give law enforcement officers and prosecutors a wider latitude in charging negligent caregivers.” Is that what a parent is these days, a “caregiver”? Or do you think that the prosecutor is talking about babysitters?
And then there’s this sentence from the article, “McAdams said the problem with using existing child-abuse laws in Utah to prosecute people is a requirement in the law to prove that the child was harmed.” Imagine that, someone has to prove that a crime has been committed to be able to prosecute the crime!
I’m wondering just what’s the real object of this bill? Is it to deter parents from leaving little kids in hot cars while the parent runs into the store? Or is it one more “tool” for prosecutors in the state to address child abuse? If it’s to deter parents from being a parent and making a judgment call, then I wonder about the idea’s reasonableness. Perhaps we’re getting a little too intrusive into a parent’s right to raise her child?
Life is full of judgment calls for every parent. First, we have the basic decisions to make like food, clothing, and shelter. And it seems like parents aren’t making those decisions very well – Johnny’s too fat, he doesn’t have a proper coat to wear, and his home is dirty (you know, the dishes weren’t done today). Then a parent has other tough judgment calls to make like Johnny looks sick, should I keep him home or send him to school? If I send him to school should I tell his teacher that he’s sick? Or should I just keep him home? But that would mean I’d have to miss work to not leave him unattended. But if I send him to school they’d be responsible for him.
And maybe that’s the real point of all of these nanny state ideas: if we just listen to government bureaucrats or turn our kids over to them, then our kids would be safe and sound.
Seriously? We’re going to pass a law to stop a crime that has happened only eight times in the past 12 years in Utah? We have murder on the books. Could we say that a parent murdered their child by leaving him in a hot car unattended? Maybe, but probably not. Surely we could charge a parent with neglect under that circumstance. But we already have negligence laws in place. So what’s the purpose again for this bill? Here’s Senator McAdams quote, “We need to send the message that this is not acceptable, that leaving a child unattended in a car is criminally negligent and endangers the child.” We need to send a message. Really? There’s a significant amount of parents out there who don’t know it’s probably not a good idea to leave a little child in a closed car on a hot day? Really?
The Utah Legislature is kicked constantly by the media for passing so-called “message” bills. This one seems to be a prime example of a message bill – well, primarily because its author calls it a message bill.
In my humble estimation, one of the signs of a statesman is to not do something that doesn’t need to be done even when you have the power to do it. I think that’s the case here.
