10 Miles to School Uphill Both Ways in the Snow
Today is the first reprint in this For Better of For Worse sequence which doesn’t have anything to do with Elly getting old or worried about her appearance. Instead she laments to herself how she did something just like her mother did, and she swore she wouldn't do. So, maybe the theme for this sequence is not looking old, but perhaps anything having to do with feeling that you are older.
Over on April’s Real Blog, I wrote a version of adult Mike telling this story, pointing out the most obvious difference in letting a kid walk to kindergarten by themselves between 1979 and 2007, which is Stranger Danger, a program in both the United States and Canada. Before my boy’s Asperger Syndrome got the better of the local public elementary school, we lived close enough to my kid’s school to walk them to school. This is something that I miss doing. Nevertheless, I remember that Stranger Danger was an issue, even in suburban Arizona. In addition to managing the school cross walks, the school crossing guards were also instructed to look out for strangers. The most common form of it was “the same car passing by the school over and over again.” And it happened a few times. As parents, we would get reports from the school to be extra cautious, because the school crossing guards spotted someone and they would call the police. Naturally that someone in the car, would disappear when the police car came rolling in to talk to the guards. Then, for a few days, there would be a police car by the school cross walk.
These things seem overly cautious, but as I have mentioned before in this space, I was in Texas back when the incident with Amber Hagerman occurred (of the Amber Alert System fame). It was big news at the time, and made a deep impression on all the parents of young children because the kidnapping was not one of those, “stranger enticing a kid into a dark alley where the kid could be taken with no one watching” kinds of things, but a man pulling a kid off her bike, throwing her into his truck and driving away before the parents could do anything to stop it.
My daughter attends a class called Girl Power, where a good part of the class is to instruct young girls how to physically defend themselves from adults. My son’s Boy Scout literature requires that he know about Stranger Danger in order to advance as a Scout. The joke of today’s For Better or For Worse has to do with the old joke where the kid complains and the parent tells them how much better they have it than they did. In my kids’ case, they have it worse than I did. When I was young, I didn’t worry about some pervert trying to kidnap me, like my kids have to.
Over on April’s Real Blog, I wrote a version of adult Mike telling this story, pointing out the most obvious difference in letting a kid walk to kindergarten by themselves between 1979 and 2007, which is Stranger Danger, a program in both the United States and Canada. Before my boy’s Asperger Syndrome got the better of the local public elementary school, we lived close enough to my kid’s school to walk them to school. This is something that I miss doing. Nevertheless, I remember that Stranger Danger was an issue, even in suburban Arizona. In addition to managing the school cross walks, the school crossing guards were also instructed to look out for strangers. The most common form of it was “the same car passing by the school over and over again.” And it happened a few times. As parents, we would get reports from the school to be extra cautious, because the school crossing guards spotted someone and they would call the police. Naturally that someone in the car, would disappear when the police car came rolling in to talk to the guards. Then, for a few days, there would be a police car by the school cross walk.
These things seem overly cautious, but as I have mentioned before in this space, I was in Texas back when the incident with Amber Hagerman occurred (of the Amber Alert System fame). It was big news at the time, and made a deep impression on all the parents of young children because the kidnapping was not one of those, “stranger enticing a kid into a dark alley where the kid could be taken with no one watching” kinds of things, but a man pulling a kid off her bike, throwing her into his truck and driving away before the parents could do anything to stop it.
My daughter attends a class called Girl Power, where a good part of the class is to instruct young girls how to physically defend themselves from adults. My son’s Boy Scout literature requires that he know about Stranger Danger in order to advance as a Scout. The joke of today’s For Better or For Worse has to do with the old joke where the kid complains and the parent tells them how much better they have it than they did. In my kids’ case, they have it worse than I did. When I was young, I didn’t worry about some pervert trying to kidnap me, like my kids have to.
posted by howard at 10:47 PM
23 Comments:
Actually, yes, you did have the exact same reasons to be afraid. You just didn't know it. Those incidents were just not reported in the national media in many cases. And when they were, they were considered more random happenings, and not a call for ultra vigilance against something that has a one in a million likelihood of happening.
If you have any question about this at all, you can check out some of the websites that talk about historic missing persons cases. There are zillions of incidences of kids just being grabbed off of sidewalks and other horrific, brazen crimes from prior to 1985. Of course, there are the the famous cases, like Johnny Gosch (kidnapped off his paper route in broad daylight in the early 1980s), and lesser known crimes like the kidnapping of teenaged babysitter Evelyn Hartley right out of an upper-middle class suburban home with neighbors all around (in the 1950s). But there are also dozens and dozens of lesser known child abduction cases, like that of Sheila and Katherine Lyons, two sisters who were kidnapped off a sidewalk in 1975 in a Maryland suburb.
Just looking at the forum at Websleuths.com is an education in how many very brutal, shocking "stranger danger" kidnappings happened prior to the advent of Stranger Danger. It is by no means new. What is new is that we pay attention to it and try to prevent what is a rare, random, and largely unpreventable phenomenon. (Yes, we can teach our kids all about self-defense and street smarts, but the Lyons girls were 11 and 13, and Evelyn Hartley was 16--and they were physically overpowered and removed by attackers.)
The same year that Johnny Gosch was kidnapped from his paper route, I was walking to kindergarten unaccompanied, seven doors down from my home. Nobody raised a call to change that practice after his kidnapping, either. It is the media and parents that have changed, not the danger itself.
If I had kids, I would still let them walk unaccompanied in the same situation that I did in my youth (virtually crime-free suburb). I have said this before on this blog: I think some risks are so remote that it is not worth worrying too much about them. I am for teaching kids some self-defense and so forth, but I think filling our minds with the remote possibility of such evil and being constantly paranoid is more harm than help.
Studies show we humans are very bad at assessing risk. We freak out about events like Amber's kidnapping because it seems so inexplicable, sudden, and out of our normal range of comfort. Yet parents take the risk of letting their under 18 year old children walk on sidewalks and cross streets alone quite frequently, though they run a much higher risk of being hit by a car (accompanied by a parent or not) than of being kidnapped. Yet we are comfortable being around cars, they are within our everyday experience, and we are numbed to the risk of having them around us all the time. Kids are more likely to die of accidental acetamenophin overdose as well. Yet how many parents send their kids to classes to teach them of the dangers of over the counter medicines? How many refuse to have them in the house? Almost zero. Because they are common and familiar and do not seem as risky as they actually are. (Yeah, I took a couple of courses in how humans assess risk. There are studies to back all of this up, but my files are still packed up from the move.)
And actually, it is an extremely common phenomenon for a child to be molested by a family member or peer. Statistically, it is thousands of times more likely than stranger kidnapping. Yet how many parents seriously talk to their children about how they can come talk to them even if a relative touches them in a funny place? Almost no parents send children to classes telling them it is okay to defend against relatives or friends molesting them. In that case, it is because people are so uncomfortable with the reality of the situation that they ignore it or do not talk about it in proportion to the likelihood that it will happen.
My point is, it is time for people to stop letting the alarmist media scare them into panic mode. They report these stories now not because they are doing us a service, but because they have learned that preying on the panic of parents will sell papers, generate website hits, etc. Teach kids about stranger danger, yes. But it should not be emphasized any more than other rare risks.
I know this is an unpopular opinion, so feel free to tell me how wrong I am. But I think the science indicates that herd mentality is wrong on this one. If you live in a relatively safe, crime-free town, you can let your kids walk to school alone and still be a good parent. So long as you teach them about looking both ways.
Child molestation by relatives other familiar figures was another depressingly common thing that the media used to ignore up until recently so that's another way we've hed our noses rubbed in the fact that the Norman Rockwell version of North American life wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Spousal and child abuse also didn't make the headlines because they happened behind closed doors.
We have an elementary school in walking distance, and I can see letting my son walk there--but only when he's a few years older. He'll be five in March and starting kindergarten in September. I can't see opening the door and telling him to walk to school by himself when he's still only five. And that has more to do with crossing streets safely and knowing the way!
Tonight, on News at 11: Don't Let Your Child Go Anywhere or Play Outside Because a Bad Man Once Grabbed a Kid. Also, Why Are America's Young People So Fat?
DreadedCandiru2, I'm not quite sure what your point is. You are right, although I would argue that the media reporting about kidnappings is more hysteric than that about abuse and other issues you mention. Of course, many other factors go into assessing risk than just media exposure.
Katje, your point is a good one, and doesn't really contradict anything I said. I would be comfortable letting a kindergartener make the same walk I made alone. But a lot of factors go into that--that it was a quiet street, that there were other kids out on the sidewalks, that there was a stay-at-home mom at every house along the way, with many of them at the front door, seeing their own kids off. It was a virtually crime-free town. My point is not, "All kindergarteners anywhere can walk alone." It really is, "Some of them can, in their situation, and you don't have to be manipulated into thinking you're a bad parent if you decide it is safe enough just because of some media hysteria."
And to bring the topic back to the strip--I actually think 3 blocks is probably too long a walk to trust a kindergartener alone. And especially a little fink troublemaker like Mike.
Also, DLAuthor--LOL!
qnjones
There are different sides on this issue and I am familiar with them. The fine folks on the Amber Alert website would probably tell you that even though child kidnappings existed before, they have been on the increase and quote the statistics (12 per day, 4400 a year). They will also tell you the number of kids who have been saved thanks to the use of the Amber Alert system. Typically the argument against the child kidnapping statistics is that they have a tendency to include kidnapping cases where it is an estranged parent doing the kidnapping and that skews the results. And your argument that incidents were not reported in the national media only means that a statistical comparison cannot be done against how things were in the old days, since the method of collecting the statistics is not the same. The only statistic which sticks is the kids saved by Amber Alert. That statistic would run against your “largely unpreventable phenomenon”, except for the fact that the number of kids saved is small compared to the overall number of kids kidnapped. The one statistic that neither of these groups wants to deal with, is back in the old days, a man convicted of killing a kid, was much less likely to get out of prison alive, frequently due to attacks from other convicts. That statistic has changed our society, but the idea of going back to that system is repellent.
“It is the media and parents that have changed, not the danger itself.”
I will definitely agree that the media and parents have changed. As for the danger, I can only speak from my own experience. I grew up in a small town in North Carolina and my mom was a school teacher. During the whole time I was growing up, I never knew of any kids getting kidnapped off the streets until recent years. I knew every kid in my school who died (there were not many); but I knew the reasons for each and every death. Then after I graduated from high school there were a few (not many) kids who were kidnapped off the street and killed, and not by relatives or friends. My mom was still teaching school and the first one (a high school girl kidnapped while waiting for a school bus) shocked the community. I know this is a limited base of experience; but that’s what I have. At least until the point came from my own child walking to school and the school crossing guards for that school see a guy stalking the school yard. Were the school crossing guards being paranoid? I don’t know; but I am glad that they did not ignore the possibility that they were right.
As for your other examples. I am a little paranoid about my kids crossing the streets and walking in parking lots. I have narrowly missed being hit by whacko drivers, and I have no reason to expect my kids are exempt. In particular my daughter gets this warning, because she is not tall enough to be seen over cars. I am not too worried about walking on sidewalks.
Acetaminophen overdoses. My kids have not been taught anything specifically about this drug. However, they have had the “only mommy and daddy or the doctor gives medicine” and “this isn’t candy” lecture from us and from their school. However, we do have Tylenol in the house, kept only in mommy and daddy’s room.
Child molestation by a family member or peer. This problem is also discussed in my children’s school. The Boy Scout literature has as its first requirement that the Scout parent discuss the Scout literature with their son, with the emphasis to talk to parents if it happens. Also, at my church, in the school, and in the Scouts, in situations involving children they are required to have 2 adults present to prevent such things from happening. Also, all Scout leaders, teachers, and church child care workers have to undergo a background check. How extensive the check is, I do not know.
So, you can see, paranoia is all around me.
aprilp_katje
I can't see opening the door and telling him to walk to school by himself when he's still only five.
Neither could I when my son was 5. He was so little and fragile, and I especially enjoyed giving him a big hug and waving to him as he went inside the school gate. These days, I can barely get my kids to acknowledge my existence as they enter the school gates.
dlauthor
Tonight, on News at 11: Don't Let Your Child Go Anywhere or Play Outside Because a Bad Man Once Grabbed a Kid. Also, Why Are America's Young People So Fat?
I love those kinds of news reports. Don’t forget “Are We Over-Medicating Our Children?”
dreadedcandiru2
Spousal and child abuse also didn't make the headlines because they happened behind closed doors.
Not only that but there was a different expectation. I remember episodes of I Love Lucy where Lucy made jokes about Ricky hitting her if she did something particularly bad.
We do live in a different age, there's no denying that. I often wonder what things we think are acceptable the next few generations will condemn. Our grandfathers made almost a joke of abuse; what do we laugh at now that our grandchildren will be revolted by?
Howard,
I'm not against Amber Alert, or any of the other prevention measures, really. And I'm happy that Amber Alert has saved some kids. I just see that even reasonable precautions fail. We can't guard against everything that might happen. And I think we actually can damage children by trying (by scarring them psychologically).
And actually, you are wrong that it used to be unlikely a child killer/molester would get back out on the streets. In the 1960s and 1970s, the average murderer got out in 7 years. Penalties are actually much higher now than they have been at any time since the 1800s. And the tales of how child molesters/killers are murdered in jail are largely a myth, today and in the past. Truly, the major difference is that people just overlooked this stuff.
I think it is hard to know if these crimes are increasing in frequency because authorities used to overlook child murders in the old days and record them as natural deaths because it was "unpleasant" suspect foul play. I remember one shocking cold case story of a man who came forward in adulthood to say that his mother had stomped his little sister to death when he was a child. The authorities looked the other way on the obvious murder.
It is interesting that you talk about your experiences as including kids who were murdered by strangers. Mine does not include that. I knew 3 kids who were hit by cars in my high school class (1 lived but was head injured). I have known at least 6 people who OD'ed on OTC meds before age 18 (one died, one needed a liver transplant). I grew up in affluent suburbs in New Jersey and Iowa. In both towns, we had high-profile "family annihilator" murders where the father wiped out his wife, kids, and self. Lots of murder, assault, and molestation by family members and friends. I have a number of friends who were raped. My cousin was murdered. But I have never known a victim of a "stranger crime" that was violent (as opposed to a property crime). All this evil was perpetrated by family and friends of the victims. And studies show that my experience is common--that violent crimes (inc. sexual assaults) are more likely to come from family and friends.
My conclusion is that we should spend relatively more time teaching our kids how to be critical in choosing their friends and how to say no to people even if they are friends or family, and relatively little time on Stranger Danger. Patting ourselves on the back for being so vigilant about Stranger Danger is ludicrous because commonly accepted "good parenting" today actually does not give adequate attention to more common dangers.
This is not really an indictment of anyone in particular--all humans are bad at assessing risk. If we would just be less sanctimonious about Stranger Danger and take a more critical look at how we cope with various risks, I would be satisfied.
No, I wasn't trying to be contradictory, qnjones--I guess I was thinking more of the contrast between what's going on in today's strip and what I'd actually expect my son to be able to do on his own. It's hard to believe that he's almost the same age that Michael Patterson is supposed to be in this strip.
Your story about overlooked child murders reminds me of a case that was publicized several years ago. A woman was convicted decades after having killed one baby after another. At the time, she was not suspected of murder and the infant deaths were presumed to be SIDS deaths. I don't remember what prompted her case being re-examined and the bodies exhumed and subjected to forensics, but once they were, it became clear that these were not natural-causes deaths. ::shudder::
DreadedCandiru2.
Our grandfathers made almost a joke of abuse; what do we laugh at now that our grandchildren will be revolted by?
For Better or For Worse (Sorry. That was too easy.)
qnjones
And the tales of how child molesters/killers are murdered in jail are largely a myth, today and in the past.
Internet searching I was unable to find any statistics one way or the other to refute or confirm your statement. However, I think Jeffrey Dahmer would disagree with you on that point, if he could.
I think it is hard to know if these crimes are increasing in frequency because authorities used to overlook child murders in the old days and record them as natural deaths because it was "unpleasant" suspect foul play.
Possibly so. In my grandmother’s day, stillborn babies were buried in the backyard and left unrecorded; so it doesn’t take a great leap from that to natural death records.
It is interesting that you talk about your experiences as including kids who were murdered by strangers. Mine does not include that.
Like you, I knew kids who were hit by cars, or were in car accidents, or had brain tumours, etc. We had no "family annihilators". In a small town, all of these things are scandalous and/or well-known. That is why the stranger crime which occurred was shocking. It’s one thing for the kid known to be a reckless driver to have an accident. That’s almost expected. It’s another for a molester from the nearby larger city to come to town to do his dirty work. I am not denying your experience is common, supported by studies and the like. I am saying that my limited experience gives me a different perspective on whether or not things have changed.
Patting ourselves on the back for being so vigilant about Stranger Danger is ludicrous because commonly accepted "good parenting" today actually does not give adequate attention to more common dangers.
As I tried to state above (apparently not very well), within my realm of experience, parents also pay attention to the more common dangers, in addition to Stranger Danger.
Howard, I think what I am not saying very well is that while parents do pay attention to other dangers, they do not pay attention to them in proportion to the risk of those dangers. If that makes sense.
Example: Kids die in swimming pools far more often than they suffer from stranger abduction/molestation/murder. I found stats saying that approximately 115 children per year are abducted in a "stranger danger" scenario (as opposed to by a family member/acquaintance). But over 1000 children die every year in swimming pools. 27,000 children every year have an accidental Tylenol overdose.
Therefore, shouldn't parents spend 10 times more energy on preventing swimming pool accidents? And 270 times more energy on preventing Tylenol overdose? Of course, they do not. Stranger Danger gets a disproportionately high amount of attention from parents, and other, greater risks get less attention than they deserve. This is what makes me nutso.
I wish I still had the materials from my criminal justice classes that refuted the idea that child molesters/killers are frequently picked on/murdered in prison. I know two prison guards who say it doesn't happen, in their experience. Jeffrey Dahmer is an interesting case, but he was not a pedophile. He did victimize some teenage boys, but not prepubescent children. The disgust for him was primarily as a cannibal. The interesting part is that some evidence indicates his death was not a random inmate-on-inmate crime, but that it was premeditated and the guards were involved.
And, of course, inmate-on-inmate crime does occur, just not in great disproportion on child molesters/killers.
qnjones
Therefore, shouldn't parents spend 10 times more energy on preventing swimming pool accidents? And 270 times more energy on preventing Tylenol overdose? Of course, they do not.
Well, among the parents I know which have a pool, they do spend time setting up safety precautions to keep random kids out of them – fences, lockable covers and the like. As for me with my kids, they were not allowed to swim anywhere, even with floaties or the like, without a parent observing them.
However, you are talking about proportion and that is a different issue. From a practical perspective, 10 times more energy might be possible, but 270 times is obviously not. There comes a certain point at which the kid’s attention span prevents any further lectures on the subject. In danger situations, the parent has to remind them about it. In the Boy Scouts, the leaders are required to run through the safety regulations before an event, even if it is something the kids have done many times. It’s even worse with my Asperger’s boy, who has to be told every single night to put on his pajamas and brush his teeth, or he won’t do it.
With Tylenol and other medicines, you lock them up, lecture your kid about them, and presumably you are safe. With pools, you lock them, lecture your kid, and presumably you are safe. Everything is reasonably controlled, except for your kid. If they are bound and determined to break into the medicine cabinet or the pool and kill themselves, then they are pretty darn ambitious. You have to hope at some point, when they are reaching for that crowbar, it will occur to them, that mommy and daddy really don’t want them to do it. With Stranger Danger, you add in a new uncontrollable element and therein lies the parental concern and the extra time. You can say, “See that bottle of medicine. Don’t open it and eat the medicine. Mommy or daddy or the doctor will give you what you need to eat.” With a human being you say, “If the man tells you to help him look for his doggy, then don’t. If the man tells you to get into the car because your mom has been hurt, then don’t. If the man tries to grab you, etc.” There are more options, and more things to be told, and thus more time.
I wish I still had the materials from my criminal justice classes that refuted the idea that child molesters/killers are frequently picked on/murdered in prison. I know two prison guards who say it doesn't happen, in their experience.
Yes, but my issue is not how things are, but how things used to be. Also, it would reflect badly on your two prison guard friends, if it did happen. You see, I remember stories from back in the days of the hobo towns, where the local sheriff would gather together the men from the town and run the hobos off, using methods that were often very violent, and often never reported. I remember the case of Leo Frank, where a local lynch mob, fearing that a child killer and Jew was going to get off, decided to take his life. I remember when my great uncle was nearly beaten to death by the family of one of his students at school, and how the townspeople were ready to murder that entire family in retribution. The earlier days of this country were savage when it came to law and order compared to these days. I don’t know if your prison guard friends are even old enough to know about what happened to child molesters in prisons in those days. What time frame did your criminal justice classes cover?
My point was, we are about right on how we treat swimming pools, maybe need a little more safety on OTC meds, and Stranger Danger doesn't deserve all the attention it gets.
My classes covered back to the mid 1800s. Yes, there were lynch mobs, but you stated "significantly less likely to get out of prison alive," and that just isn't so. Some criminals were lynched, but prison sentences were remarkably short for murder, rape, etc. prior to the 1980s. If you actually look at sentences for murderers, they hovered around 5 years in the mid 1800s. The idea of the "hanging judge" was a minority occurrence in our justice system. Our justice system today is more predictable but the rules are stricter. Whereas the justice system back then had more unpredictability (lynch mobs) but the rules themselves were not as strict. Inside-prison justice has been largely a myth historically and today. This is based on studies. While there are some occurrences of it, they are not as common as people think. Especially when you are talking about the idea that there is prison justice for child molesters/murderers. Studies have not found that this happens to any significant degree. That does not mean there are not famous exceptions.
Bottom line: lot of the conventional wisdom about how the criminal justice system works today and historically is distorted by the media and popular culture.
I mention the experience of two acquaintances who are prison guards only because you seem to like anecdotal evidence. They're good guys, but of course I can't expect you to believe that.
qnjones,
So, if I have this straight. In the old days:
1. Prison sentences were about 5 years for murders.
2. The “hanging judge” was a minority.
3. Inside-prison justice was a myth, except for the famous exceptions which are probably the examples I have been given for most of my life as examples of inside-prison justice (Dahmer, for example).
I am quite astonished by this information. You see I read about the history of US presidential assassins at one point (thanks to the Stephen Sondheim musical Assassins), and I had gotten the impression from that result (they were all dead within a year of their attempted assassination up until the 1970s), that the justice system of the old days was swifter and more brutal than the kinder and gentler modern days where John Hinkley lives on and on.
Obviously, with presidential assassination attempts, the high profile of it must have brought out the “hanging judge” mentality in the old days, which was not perpetuated into the last 3 decades. Otherwise all those assassins would have been back on the streets within 5 years after their attempt, or shorter if they were unsuccessful. I suspect my perspective of the old justice system has been tainted by specific famous cases or cases where there is a class difference in the murder victim.
I just tuned in, and OMG, that was a lot of to read! I love the title "10 Miles to School Uphill Both Ways in the Snow"
Only after reading your comments did I realize that Elly was not wearing a coat in today’s strip.
What struck me is Michael’s complaint about the long distance between his house and school. When my son was about Michael's age, we lived one block from his school. I’ll never forget my kid complaining about the LONG walk; he suggested that we move to the building across the street from the school because this walk was making him very tired!
I don't remember my response, but it must have been similar to Elly's.
Anon NYC
Howard, I think you have read my comments as being more definite than I tried to express. I will repeat that our justice system from the mid-1800s to about 1980 had a lot of variability in it. You can't just look at the existence of lynch mobs and the fact that Presidential assassins were swiftly executed and draw the conclusion that everyday justice was like that on average. Because when sentences for murder and other major crimes are averaged out in that time period, they were short (around 5 years in the 1850s according to one study I saw).
The key is the variability. Some murderers were lynched. Some were executed by law. But many also went to prison and got relatively light sentences. Back then, there was a lot of leeway in how a judge/jury could sentence a murderer. And not all murderers were reviled (the "he had it coming" school of thought). As you know, the race and the social prestige of the victim and/or the perpetrator could really factor in here as to how harsh the sentence was. This is one reason that studying Presidential assassins will give you a false sense of the execution rate for murder. First, killing the President is a federal crime, and what happens in federal courts has always been different than what happens in state courts. Second, it has always been a part of our system that murdering "special people," people considered to have higher status in the community, will make it more likely you will be executed. Killing the President is one of the most sacred of these special people.
In the 1900s, the parole system also tended to let people out very early (after serving 1/3 of their sentences). So sentences could be long but they were not served. And despite what people think they know about the death penalty, after the Civil War, it fell gradually out of use in the U.S. until we were executing almost no one by the 1960s (though there were people on death row). It was in the 1970s, with the rise in crime rates, that interest in the death penalty came back.
This is why there were major reforms of our justice system in the 1980s, including sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimums, to remove some of the variability. Before 1980 or so, there was almost no predictability in sentencing; now we have a lot of predictability, and the sentences that are handed out are longer and tend to be served more fully than pre-1980.
But the fact is, it is not possible to talk about how harsh/lenient the justice system used to be in general terms before 1980, and especially before World War II, because it was really harsh on some, really lenient on others, and all the degrees in between, plus extrajudicial "justice" like lynch mobs intervened. I can't tell you what percentage of people experienced each degree of harshness because I haven't seen specific data, and I don't think it exists. I did recently listen to a talk by an author who did a study on 1800s justice (haven't got the book yet) and she states that most murderers experienced the lenient end of the spectrum, and that executions were not as prevalent as pop culture would have us believe.
As for "prison justice," I can speak only about prison justice targeted at child molesters/murderers. Studies indicate that this does not happen at a statistically significant level today. Of course, that does not mean it never happens. And inmates kill/assault other inmates all the time where officials do not know the real motive. It is hard to know for sure. But child molesters walk out of prison all the time today, as evidenced by the sex offender registries.
As for in the past, whether prison justice against child killers/abusers happened at significant levels, all I can offer you is my extensive reading on the subject that seems to indicate that people who committed crimes against children before 1980 or so:
1) usually did not get caught or prosecuted,
2) often did not get convicted of the crime if they were caught,
3) if they did go to prison, it was often due to convictions on other crimes, like murder of an adult,
4) when in prison for other crimes, fellow inmates would likely have no way of knowing someone was also a child murderer/abuser.
The sad and scary truth is that, prior to around 1980, the majority of crimes against children were ignored. This is because the majority of crimes against children have always been committed by friends and family members. The status quo was that officials would look the other way. Adults were presumed to have the right to mistreat children, who did not have full human rights, and this often extended to non-family adults too, especially if the adults had community standing.
Stranger crimes against children are harder to prosecute than stranger crimes against adults, in general. This is because kids generally are worse witnesses. Before forensics, that left almost no evidence in many crimes against kids. Even if other kids saw the crime, in the past, their word would not be given the same weight as an adult (although race and social standing factors in here).
I'm rambling now, but my point is, in general, people just didn't care much about crimes against kids in the past. Brutality against children was accepted. Until the Victorian era, there was almost no sentimentality about childhood at all. It's hard for us to comprehend what it was like before the major campaigns against child abuse and for children's rights in the 1960s and 1970s worked to change attitudes. But I've looked into it enough to know that the majority of people did not consider crimes against children (in general, regardless of who they are) to be a big or special deal. The change has been gradual. We still see it going on today, as there is still more outcry about crimes against white middle-class children than there is if the victim is poor or a minority.
All of the above talk about kids and crime I got from my studies with Prof. Elizabeth Bartholet in law school, who is an expert in children and the law.
Qnjones,
Although I have not studied this topic, everything that you write rings true to me. Justice - on all levels - is extremely elusive.
Anon NYC
qnjones,
Very informative as always. Thanks for taking the time and effort to explain the historical legal situation so clearly and thoroughly. I feel much better educated than before.
Whew, I am relieved. I am going to go to bed now feeling like I maybe at last explained myself clearly. :)
I taught some classes on the criminal justice system this semester, as a TA. It showed me that many of the commonly held perceptions and ideas about how the system does/should work are not borne out by a look into the history books or a perusal of the studies on outcomes. Our education on the realities of the system (versus the popular mythology about it) is not very good. Heck, some of what I was taught as gospel truth in my Criminal Law class in law school has been contradicted by scientific studies.
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