<story><title>Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile</title><url>https://reason.com/2022/11/16/suburban-mom-jailed-handcuffed-cps-son-walk-home/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>NoImmatureAdHom</author><text>This strikes me as crazy. Every interaction with any human or inanimate object bears the risk of death, it&amp;#x27;s just so low it&amp;#x27;s not worth thinking about it.&lt;p&gt;U.S. police kill about ~1000 people per year, and the vast majority of those aren&amp;#x27;t at all questionable. If there are 330,000,000 people in the U.S., that&amp;#x27;s 0.000303% of the population per year. Each person has, on average, maybe 10 contentious police interactions in a lifetime of 75 years? That&amp;#x27;s 0.134 interactions per year.&lt;p&gt;So, given on this Fermi estimate, you have about a 0.00226% chance of being killed per contentious police interaction if we spread it completely evenly, or 2.26 in 100,000. And spreading it evenly doesn&amp;#x27;t make any sense at all.&lt;p&gt;So, if you&amp;#x27;re young, black, male, and running around Chicago dealing drugs carrying an illegal gun--yeah, maybe worry about it. For everyone here on HN, it&amp;#x27;s a stupid thing to worry about. Worry about your sedentary lifestyle. Worry about driving safely if you drive a lot. Worry about diabetes. Worry about whether your relationships with friends and family are good. Worry about your diet. Worry about exercise. Worry about falling down the stairs. The cops aren&amp;#x27;t going to kill you.</text></item><item><author>klyrs</author><text>Every police interaction in the US bears the risk of death.  Police will stop kids on the street with or without being called.  Ergo, it is unsafe for children to walk to school in the US.&lt;p&gt;Sure, that&amp;#x27;s all a bit circular, but good luck breaking the spiral with a &amp;quot;law and order&amp;quot; mentality.</text></item><item><author>rlkf</author><text>In my twice-the-size European city, kids walk twice that distance to school and back home again, alone. Every. Single. Day. If this place isn&amp;#x27;t safe enough for kids to walk by themselves, maybe the question should be raised whether the police and municipal government really is doing their job the way they&amp;#x27;re supposed to.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>yunwal</author><text>The worry about police violence is really misplaced worry about the effects of a broken justice system. It&amp;#x27;s not just that police kill unarmed, non-violent black teens. It&amp;#x27;s that &amp;quot;they&amp;quot; (the justice system as a whole) also lock people up for non-violent drug offenses, put a felony on their record, condemning them to a life without job opportunities. Then &amp;quot;they&amp;quot; kick them out of their homes when they&amp;#x27;re late on their rent. Then they forcibly break up homeless encampments so people without homes can never feel safe or settled or have somewhere to sleep.&lt;p&gt;Police shootings are just a potent symbol for a much larger issue with the Justice System. The problem is that conversations about complex systemic issues become circular and conversations about symbols often don&amp;#x27;t.</text></comment>
<story><title>Mom handcuffed, jailed for 8-year-old son walking half a mile</title><url>https://reason.com/2022/11/16/suburban-mom-jailed-handcuffed-cps-son-walk-home/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>NoImmatureAdHom</author><text>This strikes me as crazy. Every interaction with any human or inanimate object bears the risk of death, it&amp;#x27;s just so low it&amp;#x27;s not worth thinking about it.&lt;p&gt;U.S. police kill about ~1000 people per year, and the vast majority of those aren&amp;#x27;t at all questionable. If there are 330,000,000 people in the U.S., that&amp;#x27;s 0.000303% of the population per year. Each person has, on average, maybe 10 contentious police interactions in a lifetime of 75 years? That&amp;#x27;s 0.134 interactions per year.&lt;p&gt;So, given on this Fermi estimate, you have about a 0.00226% chance of being killed per contentious police interaction if we spread it completely evenly, or 2.26 in 100,000. And spreading it evenly doesn&amp;#x27;t make any sense at all.&lt;p&gt;So, if you&amp;#x27;re young, black, male, and running around Chicago dealing drugs carrying an illegal gun--yeah, maybe worry about it. For everyone here on HN, it&amp;#x27;s a stupid thing to worry about. Worry about your sedentary lifestyle. Worry about driving safely if you drive a lot. Worry about diabetes. Worry about whether your relationships with friends and family are good. Worry about your diet. Worry about exercise. Worry about falling down the stairs. The cops aren&amp;#x27;t going to kill you.</text></item><item><author>klyrs</author><text>Every police interaction in the US bears the risk of death.  Police will stop kids on the street with or without being called.  Ergo, it is unsafe for children to walk to school in the US.&lt;p&gt;Sure, that&amp;#x27;s all a bit circular, but good luck breaking the spiral with a &amp;quot;law and order&amp;quot; mentality.</text></item><item><author>rlkf</author><text>In my twice-the-size European city, kids walk twice that distance to school and back home again, alone. Every. Single. Day. If this place isn&amp;#x27;t safe enough for kids to walk by themselves, maybe the question should be raised whether the police and municipal government really is doing their job the way they&amp;#x27;re supposed to.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pessimizer</author><text>&amp;gt; So, if you&amp;#x27;re young, black, male, and running around Chicago&lt;p&gt;I did this without the drugs and guns part, and had guns drawn on me three times growing up in Chicago for the crime of walking. If I had been killed, I&amp;#x27;m sure it would have been coded in a way for you not to see it as a problem.</text></comment>