Confusion

While I think she was really stupid, I wonder if the lady in the tent incident was not under the influence of her boyfriend and really didn't know the tent was locked. And what was she taking that she slept so long. For her, the sentence was probably correct but she should be told to have no more contact with the boyfriend and he probably should get a longer term. Lot of that boyfriend, stepfather stuff going on.

The day care case is another issue all together. Maybe it is widely used to help keep providers sane by making sure the kids sleep. But it shouldn't be and she should serve more than five years and be banned from contact with children for the rest of her life.

By the article you linked to, it sounds as if they did have a lot more on him that made him a danger. And remember, he was under the federal guidelines which, in some cases, are much harsher than state laws and do not reflect the facts of the case. The judge actually went beyond the guidelines and he's still got molestation charges coming up in state courts. I expect since one set is federal and the other state, he won't be able to serve any state time concurrently. I could be wrong about that, however, depending on how the judge rules.

And Sam, I think we didn't post on the earlier comment because we agreed with you and didn't know what else to add.

Sam's Darling Wife: I agree with the bulk of what you say. I'm not excusing her, particularly since I wonder what she had been taking to have ignored her kids for 12 hours of sleep. But in our society, women do tend to stay in bad situations for one reason or another, often a complete lack of self respect or a complete lack of any will inside themselves. They are so externally driven that they cannot act on their own, even to defend their kids. And boy friends and step fathers are the worst child abusers, often without the woman's knowledge. I do not know what to do about it unless to keep women from becoming so submissive; it seems to happen in the teens and early 20s.

Back when it was Eastern Montana, a faculty member involved with efforts to support women set out a psychological study that indicated women were coming into college then with much less self esteem than men and much less than girls seemed to have before they entered their teens. Remember, young women have to meet the Barbie Doll/Hollywood made up actress image while men don't have that much pressure on them.