CHARLTON (CBS) – A Charlton mom says her local library crossed the line when they sent police to collect her daughter’s overdue library books.

Her mom says the 5-year-old girl was so afraid that she burst into tears.

Charlton Police Sergeant Dan Dowd stopped by the home of Shannon Benoit to let her know that her daughter had two books several months overdue which needed to be returned or paid for.

“I thought it was way overboard,” says Benoit. “I closed my door, I looked at my daughter and she started crying.”

Hailey asked her mom if the police were going to arrest her. Hailey says, “I was scared.”

They found and returned the books, but Hailey’s mom argues that sending a cop to their house was like pounding a ten penny nail with a sledge hammer.

Even Sgt. Dowd admits he wasn’t real keen on it.

“Nobody wanted to, on this end to get involved in it,” says Sgt. Dowd. “But the library contacted us, and the chief delegated, and apparently I was one of the low men on the totem pole.”

But state law does outline a misdemeanor for such things, and police thought a friendly reminder might make a better impression and get better results than a cold summons to court.

The Benoit’s insist they never got any warnings.

anarchyrosegarden:

In The Guardian, Chris McGreal looks at the horrific state of policing in Texas schools. The age of criminal responsibility in Texas is 10, and many schools have uniformed police officers on site who ticket small children for throwing paper airplanes or flipping the teacher off. The tickets carry steep fines, and if you graduate with unpaid fines, you go to prison.

A Nanticoke man arrested for public intoxication and disorderly conduct at a city bar left his children home alone, under “God’s” supervision, police said.

Julian Jay Johnson, 32, was found inside of a silver Jaguar sedan with the car running and headlights on, after trying to initiate fights with several patrons inside of Tommyboy’s Bar and Grille, 12 N. Market St., police said.

Bar manager Stephanie Smith told police she saw Johnson pull out a large pipe-like item from the sedan’s trunk after he said he was coming back with “something” for the patrons, according to police. Smith locked the bar’s door, prompting Johnson to return to his vehicle, police said.

Upon arrival at the Nanticoke police headquarters, Johnson told officials he needed to go home because his children were there and that “God was watching them,” Nanticoke police said.

Officers arrived at Johnson’s home, 55 Loomis St., and discovered three children, ages 1, 3 and 6, home alone, police said.

Alongside Children and Youth caseworker Jamie Stuart, police observed several safety issues and insufficient living conditions within the home, police said. All three children were taken into protective custody.

Luzerne County 911 indicated that Johnson’s operating privileges were under suspension for offenses related to driving under the influence, according to the police report.

Johnson was charged with public drunkenness, disorderly conduct, two counts of harassment and endangering the welfare of a child.

He was arraigned in Wilkes-Barre Central Court on Tuesday, and jailed in Luzerne County Correctional Facility on $5,000 cash bail.

Researchers at the University of Michigan and five other universities looked at practices and perceptions of discipline in six countries. They found that spanking leads to more child aggression and anxiety, regardless of the country.

So what should parents do to teach children right from wrong?

“It may be that the long-term investments that we make in children, like spending time with them, showing that we love them and listening to them, have a more powerful positive effect on behavior than any form of discipline,” said Andrew Grogan-Kaylor, U-M associate professor of social work.

The study, appearing in the March/April issue of the journal Child Development, examined the associations of mothers’ discipline techniques with children’s aggressive and anxious behaviors in China, India, Italy, Kenya, Thailand and the Philippines.

Unlike other studies, this project collected information from both mothers and their children. Participants included 292 mothers and their 8- to 12-year-old children.

Researchers used the sample to address two questions:

—When multiple discipline techniques are considered at the same time, which forms of discipline emerge as having the strongest associations with children’s aggressive and anxious behaviors?

—Are significant associations between discipline practices and child behaviors moderated by the extent to which mothers and children perceive these practices to be normal in their communities?

The 11 discipline techniques analyzed included: teach about good and bad behavior; get child to apologize; give a time-out; take away privileges, spank; express disappointment; shame; yell/scold; withdraw love for misbehavior; threaten punishment; and promise a treat/privilege.

Mothers and children were asked about the frequency with which others in their communities used each discipline technique.

“When children perceive a discipline technique to be (normal) within their culture or community, they may be less likely to evaluate their parents’ use of it as aberrant or objectionable,” Grogan-Kaylor said.

The research, he said, showed that the relationship of some kinds of discipline with behavior problems varied according to how common that type of discipline was used in the community. However, despite small variations, there was a strong consistency in the results across countries.

The bottom line: giving a time-out, using corporal punishment, expressing disappointment and shaming were significantly related to greater child anxiety symptoms. Child aggression resulted from spanking, expressing disappointment and yelling.

anarchyrosegarden:

Increasingly, precincts have become de facto detention centers. In Albuquerque alone 90,000 students, were arrested between 2009-2010. In Texas, an estimated 300,000 kids were give misdemeanors in 2010. That number includes children as young as 6. 

As if I needed another reason to loath public schools.