Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
母亲因允许5岁儿子独自步行去池塘被判6个月缓刑
A mom of five was convicted last week of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Her offense: allowing her 5-year-old son to walk about a half-mile by himself in their gated community. 上周，一位育有五个孩子的母亲被判犯有“助长未成年人犯罪”罪。她的“罪行”是：允许她5岁的儿子在他们居住的封闭式社区内独自步行约半英里。
Until very recently, Karyann Parkinson lived in leafy Williamsburg, Virginia. She and her husband, Dallin, moved there from Utah so Parkinson could attend William and Mary Law School. In June, when Parkinson was preparing for the bar—and also happened to be eight months pregnant with her fifth child—she and her then-youngest, Sam, went for a bike ride, as they often do. 直到最近，卡里安·帕金森（Karyann Parkinson）一直住在绿树成荫的弗吉尼亚州威廉斯堡。她和丈夫达林（Dallin）从犹他州搬到这里，以便帕金森就读威廉与玛丽法学院。今年6月，当帕金森正在准备律师资格考试，且怀着第五个孩子已达八个月时，她和当时最小的孩子萨姆（Sam）像往常一样去骑自行车。
They stopped for her son’s favorite activity: collecting goose feathers from the path near their community pond. When they got home, he asked if he could walk back and get some more. Parkinson said yes. It’s a short walk, along a sidewalk separated from the street by 10 feet of grass. Sam would have to cross two streets with crosswalks, which she’d seen him do safely hundreds of times—including six times that morning, she says. Off he went while she made lunch. 他们停下来进行儿子最喜欢的活动：从社区池塘附近的小路上收集鹅毛。回到家后，萨姆问是否可以走回去再捡一些。帕金森答应了。那是一段很短的路程，沿着一条与街道隔着10英尺草坪的人行道。萨姆需要穿过两条有斑马线的街道，她说她曾见过他安全地穿过数百次——包括那天早上就穿过了六次。于是，萨姆出发了，而她则去准备午餐。
A passerby saw Sam and alerted security. One of the community’s security guards escorted the boy back and gave Parkinson an earful. Pretty soon there were three cop cars, just as many cops, a security vehicle, and two Child Protective Services (CPS) workers at Parkinson’s door. CPS ended up investigating her for abuse and neglect. The cops, meanwhile, charged her with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. 一位路人看到了萨姆并通知了保安。社区的一名保安将男孩送回，并对帕金森进行了严厉训斥。很快，三辆警车、同样数量的警察、一辆保安车以及两名儿童保护服务局（CPS）的工作人员出现在帕金森的家门口。CPS最终以虐待和忽视罪对她展开调查。与此同时，警方指控她助长未成年人犯罪。
CPS found the allegations substantiated and placed Parkinson on the state’s child abuse and neglect registry. She will remain there for seven years. The ordeal reached its nadir last week when a judge convicted Parkinson of the delinquency of a minor charge, a first-degree misdemeanor. This comes with a six-month jail sentence. While the judge immediately suspended the sentence, pending good behavior and compliance with CPS’ conditions, the conviction remains. CPS认定指控成立，并将帕金森列入了该州的虐待和忽视儿童登记册。她将在名单上保留七年。上周，当法官判决帕金森犯有助长未成年人犯罪（一级轻罪）时，这场磨难达到了谷底。该罪名伴随着六个月的监禁。虽然法官立即缓刑，前提是她表现良好并遵守CPS的条件，但定罪记录依然存在。
Parkinson assumes this means she will not be able to volunteer in her kids’ schools. She fears it could also mean she will not get her law license. So let’s look at how the events unfolded. 帕金森认为这意味着她将无法在孩子们的学校做志愿者。她担心这也可能意味着她无法获得律师执照。那么，让我们来看看事件是如何发展的。
Parkinson is no newbie to parenting. She graduated Brigham Young University in 2012 with a degree in family science. She then became a family life educator and spent three years as a live-in behavioral specialist at a residential treatment center. There, she and her husband, a marriage and family therapist, oversaw the care of 35 girls. 帕金森并非育儿新手。她于2012年毕业于杨百翰大学，获得家庭科学学位。随后，她成为了一名家庭生活教育工作者，并在一家住院治疗中心担任了三年的住校行为专家。在那里，她和身为婚姻与家庭治疗师的丈夫共同负责照顾35名女孩。
In Virginia, Parkinson spent one summer interning at the Institute for Justice and another working in the law office of former Virginia state Sen. Jill Vogel (R–Winchester). Vogel was actually co-sponsor of the reasonable childhood independence law that passed in Virginia, unanimously, in 2023. The bill says that neglect is only when you put your child in serious, obvious danger. So what happened? 在弗吉尼亚州，帕金森曾在一个夏天于司法研究所（Institute for Justice）实习，并在另一个夏天在弗吉尼亚州前参议员吉尔·沃格尔（Jill Vogel，共和党籍，温彻斯特选区）的律师事务所工作。沃格尔实际上是2023年在弗吉尼亚州全票通过的《合理童年独立法》的共同发起人。该法案规定，只有当父母将孩子置于严重且明显的危险中时，才构成忽视。那么，到底发生了什么？
When the security guard brought Sam back to Parkinson’s house, he told the boy that his mom had done something she wasn’t supposed to, and that bad people would want to take him if he was out alone. “This scared the crap out of him,” Parkinson says now. She admits she was upset with the guard and asked him where in the homeowners-association rules it says that a child can’t walk by himself. The guard said it was against the law anyway and called the police. 当保安把萨姆送回帕金森家时，他告诉男孩，他的妈妈做了不该做的事，如果他独自在外，坏人会想带走他。“这把他吓坏了，”帕金森现在说。她承认自己对保安感到不满，并问他业主协会的规定里哪一条写着孩子不能独自走路。保安称这无论如何都是违法的，并报了警。
When the first cop arrived, Parkinson told him, “I don’t have any interest in talking to you.” This did not make things go smoother. The cop called for backup and summoned CPS. At that point, Parkinson asked her husband, who was having lunch with their daughter, to come home. “I told [the authorities] that kids need to be able to take reasonable risks,” he says, “in order to grow up non-anxious.” CPS responded, he recounts, that “a 5-year-old child can never be unsupervised.” 当第一名警察到达时，帕金森告诉他：“我没兴趣和你说话。”这并没有让事情变得顺利。警察呼叫了增援并传唤了CPS。此时，帕金森让正在和女儿吃午饭的丈夫回家。“我告诉（当局），孩子们需要能够承担合理的风险，”他说，“这样才能在成长过程中不焦虑。”他回忆说，CPS的回应是：“5岁的孩子永远不能处于无人监管的状态。”
Parkinson admits now that she is embarrassed by her confrontational demeanor. But of course, that was not the primary issue. The issue was whether her son could handle a walk in this community with 24-hour security, a 25-mph speed limit, and three golf courses. CPS opened an investigation and found Parkinson guilty of a “Level 2 finding” for lack of supervision. That’s what put her on the child abuse and neglect registry. 帕金森现在承认，她对自己当时的对抗态度感到尴尬。但当然，这并不是主要问题。真正的问题在于，她的儿子是否能够应对在这个拥有24小时安保、限速25英里/小时且有三个高尔夫球场的社区里散步。CPS展开调查，并认定帕金森因“缺乏监管”而构成“二级违规”。这就是她被列入虐待和忽视儿童登记册的原因。
The family immediately appealed. As for the criminal charges: Parkinson believes the “delinquency of a minor” charge was an attempt to bypass Virginia’s reasonable childhood independence law. David DeLugas, founder and executive director of ParentsUSA, a nonprofit that provides pro bono legal help to parents wrongly accused of neglect, scoffed at the charge. “Delinquency?” he asks. “Is the kid going to rob banks at 14 because he collected feathers at age 5?” 该家庭立即提出了上诉。至于刑事指控：帕金森认为“助长未成年人犯罪”的指控是试图绕过弗吉尼亚州的《合理童年独立法》。ParentsUSA（一家为被错误指控忽视的父母提供公益法律援助的非营利组织）的创始人兼执行董事大卫·德卢加斯（David DeLugas）对这一指控嗤之以鼻。“犯罪？”他问道，“难道这孩子因为5岁时捡了羽毛，14岁就会去抢银行吗？”
At the trial, the security guard, his boss, and the police testified against Parkinson. The CPS worker testified that Sam seemed happy and healthy when she saw him that day. Parkinson’s friend testified to Sam’s maturity, and that he could be trusted to walk to the pond without going rogue. The James City County family services specialist assigned to Parkinson’s case declined to comment, citing confidentiality requirements. The prosecutor in the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office for James City County said the same. 在审判中，保安、他的上司以及警察出庭指控帕金森。CPS工作人员作证说，她那天见到萨姆时，他看起来既快乐又健康。帕金森的朋友作证说萨姆很成熟，可以信任他独自走到池塘而不会乱跑。负责帕金森案件的詹姆斯城县家庭服务专家以保密要求为由拒绝置评。詹姆斯城县联邦检察官办公室的检察官也作出了同样的表示。
Parkinson’s attorney, Andrew Gordon, took the case pro bono and argued that the only real “evidence” against the mom was that Sam was 5, and that, hypothetically, a host of horrible things could have happened. But of course, a host of horrible things can happen at home or in a car or anywhere. We don’t arrest moms for driving their kids to the store, even though they could be hit by someone running a stop sign. Hypothetical dangers are not reason enough to condemn a person. And neither is hypothetical immaturity. No one proved that the boy was incapable of walking a few blocks safely by himself. After all, that would have been difficult to do, seeing as he had already done it without issue. 帕金森的律师安德鲁·戈登（Andrew Gordon）免费接手了此案，并辩称针对这位母亲唯一真正的“证据”就是萨姆只有5岁，而且假设地讲，可能会发生一系列可怕的事情。但当然，在家里、车里或任何地方都可能发生可怕的事情。我们不会因为妈妈开车带孩子去商店就逮捕她们，尽管她们可能会被闯停车标志的人撞到。假设的危险不足以成为谴责一个人的理由。假设的不成熟也不行。没有人证明这个男孩没有能力安全地独自走几个街区。毕竟，要证明这一点很难，因为他之前已经顺利地走过了。