Parents of truant children face jail

May 14, 2010

The California Senate passed a bill Thursday that allows prosecutors to send parents of children in kindergarten through eighth grade to jail if their kids miss too much school [FresnoBee]

Senate Bill 1317 allows prosecutors to charge parents with misdemeanors punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine if their children are truant from school.

“Three-quarters of our state inmate population are high school dropouts,” Leno was quoted as saying by the Fresno Bee.

To be found guilty under the new law, prosecutors would have to show parents did not reasonably supervise their children. Chronic truancy means a child has missed more than 10 percent of the school year with out a valid excuse.


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“Three-quarters of our state inmate population are high school dropouts”


Yeah, and 100% of our state legislators are high school graduates. Sounds almost like a kid’s got better odds dropping out!


My wife insists on sending our kinder-gardener, too school with a runny green nose, now I see why! To many laws conclude that this democracy is nothing more then a hidden dictatorship, ruled by the rich, if they didn’t make a stupid new law, every month they would be like the 90% of the rest of us UNEMPLOYED, my child has missed two days this entire year and given her entire class the same virus!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Got to listen to government though, bet their kids go to private schools and never join the military!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This new law is against all school rules, which my wife loves to break, no law against that though, bottom line, keep your kids at home if they are sick, or there is an accountable reason, don’t be bullied by politicization’s greed! This law is so dumb, my kinder even knows it!


If kids hate their parents enough, now they have a new and ingenious way to get rid of them! Skip enough school and YOUR PARENTS will GO TO JAIL! Yeah – that makes sense!


There is something inherently wrong with locking up parents for the actions of their child(ren). As the parent of a 9-yr-old, I am already painfully aware that he has a mind of his own, and will act as he wishes, and my ‘control’ over his behavior is minimal when he is not in my presence, i.e. AT SCHOOL.


My son has several absences without a ‘valid excuse’ – because he was having surgery in another state, and our written notice submitted 2 weeks prior wasn’t good enough for the school. We were supposed to call EVERY SINGLE DAY and report him absent. So technically, my wife and I would be locked up under this bill.


This law is sheer lunacy at best, unconstitutional at worst, and either way its just dead wrong to criminalize raising children. If kids aren’t held accountable for their own actions, and have a scapegoat for their behavior, there will be no learning, no self-control…but hey – it takes a village!


i urge every citizen in California to remove every and ALL elected incumbent official before you end up in jail or have a nervous breakdown.

Senate Bill 1317 is a crystal clear reflection and evidence of ignorance and sinister.

If any one of them were decent they would walk away from this stupidity (YET NO ONE DID).

THEY MUST “ALL” GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


When Government and Corporations can bring society back to a time where one parent can stay at home to take care of the home and children without welfare, DO NOT make CS laws like this to make things worst than they are. You destroy the relationship, you destroy the family, you destroy the society, you destroy the future.


I STRONGLY URGE ALL CITIZENS TO REMOVE ALL ELECTED OFFICIALS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!


Yep, just what California needs, a new class of criminals.

Why doesn’t someone start an initiative drive to make it illegal to pass ANY new law before the budget is balanced, maybe if the lawmakers had their frivolity curtailed they’d get something done.


Brilliant idea to justify more revenue, taxation, and government job security.

November 2010 and 2012 GET ALL OF THESE HONORABLE ELECTED OFFICIALS THE HELL OUT OF OFFICE!!!


oh yeah!


What a revolutionary thought! Making parents responsible for their jerky kids! I hope that the penalties to parents are for more than their kids just missing school.


As for incarceration… it works. Generally speeking it is the youth that causes crimes and prison takes an 18 year old who wants to get his ‘kicks’ and turns him into a 35 year old that doesn’t think what he used to do is too ‘cool’ any more.


I thought most criminals were repeat offenders.


ie, ff you lock ’em up once, you’re likely to lock ’em up again.


What numbskull sees preventative incarceration as a means of keeping people out of jail?