Yall Politics

Parent urged to support bill that would hold parents criminally liable if child has a party

Parent urged to support bill that would hold parents criminally liable if child has a party

My 14yo's school sent me an e-mail yesterday, urging me to support passage of Mississippi House Bill 722, the "Social Host" bill as they call it:

Summary of the Bill - The “Social Host Bill is designed to prohibit adults from allowing a party to take place at a private residence/premises where alcohol is being consumed. This applies to any adult who knows or who should reasonably know that alcohol is being consumed. Violators of this act are punished with a misdemeanor and would receive criminal penalties in the form of a $1,000 fine and/or county jail imprisonment up to 90 days.”

I wrote back that I wasn't quite sure which of my son's friends' parents I would want to see jailed under such a law, but I appreciated learning the school's attitude towards the parents.

Call me an unreconstructed Democrat bleeding-heart, but I do not think that criminal penalties for parents are a particularly appropriate tactic here. And while there are doubtless crimes where one "reasonably should have known" this or that, the standard still makes me uneasy. My kid has a sleepover and they creep out of bed at 2 a.m. to sneak some bourbon out of the cabinet. Should I reasonably have known they would do that? Why didn't I have the cabinet locked? Why did I even have alcohol in my house? Do I want a jury to make these decisions?

Thus Blogged
2/5/10

Posted February 5, 2010 - 9:22 am

1 Comments:

It is already against the law to provide alcholic beverages to minors. It is a waste of taxpayers money for the House to work on recreating laws.

Posted by mermade on 02-07-2010 at 07:31 PM [link]

What a bunch of damn crap… all the damn fools in the MS HOUSE need to go...... from the Wormfarmer and his croonies and down. Waste of time, money, paper, air, and etc, etc etc....

And the dang schools in on it and putting kids up to getting their parents to call in and support penalties and crap on them, when the damn schools don’t wanna do anything that cuts them back or gets rid of any of them, like they’re some kind of fracking sacred cow from God above .

WHEN THE STATE OF MS SPENDS 61+ CENTS OF EVERY DANG STATE TAX DOLLAR ON EDUCATION, IT HAS GOT TO TAKE THE MOST CUTS, BECAUSE CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, IT HAS THE MOST FAT AND WASTE AND NEEDS THE BIGGEST KNIFE TAKEN TO IT.

COMMON SENSE EXCEPT TO TAX AND SPEND LIBS AND KOOL-AID DRINKERS.

Posted by Ticked_off_in_MS on 02-08-2010 at 11:22 AM [link]

Having alcohol in my parents home, not under lock and key, in plain sight was never a problem. I knew what would happen if I or my friends decided to imbibe and we got caught.

If schools and it’s administrators would pay more attention to what goes on in the classroom, and concentrate on teaching, and leave parenting up to the parents then we would be better off. This bill smacks of a look good, feel good bill, that should die a quick death.

Posted by Hammer3 on 02-08-2010 at 01:52 PM [link]

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