Paying For Your Child’s Choice

[390 words] According to an investigative article by Eli Hager published in the Washington Post, March 2, 2017, entitled “Your child’s been sent to jail. And then comes the bill,” many states bill parents when their juvenile children are in the legal system. One woman in California was charged $30 a day, while her son waited for 300 days to be tried. In this case, all the charges were dismissed because someone else had committed the crime. Many parents of adolescent children are poor and can barely afford to live themselves. Many never pay, many others are threatened and harassed by attorneys for the state, while others are turned over to debt collectors. States typically spend well over 50 percent of what they collect in collection procedures alone. Laws were passed a number of years ago to allow what I’ve just described. The state thought that many parents were dumping…