Parenting as a Crime

Table of Contents Show

Introduction

Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children in this country.[1] This stunning and horrifying fact angers us. The United States also has the highest number of school shootings of any developed nation.[2] This is particularly upsetting since school is supposed to be a safe haven for children: a place to learn, play, and discover who they are and who they want to be.[3] Our hearts ache for the parents who have lost their children or whose children have been traumatized by a shooting. We live in fear that our children’s school will be next.

As attorneys who have worked in the juvenile and child welfare/family policing systems,[4] and professors who teach, research, and write about them, we are also devastated when a child causes harm. We wonder what interventions along the way could have prevented these children from committing unspeakable acts of violence towards their peers and teachers. We think about the kinds of support necessary for these children and their parents that could have made a difference and saved the lives lost.

In a few recent, high-profile cases, holding parents liable for their children’s crimes has emerged as the preferred response, especially when children have access to guns. The idea is that parents are responsible for their children and should, therefore, be accountable for their violent acts. If parents understand that they could be criminally charged, this account says, they will be more careful with their children’s access to weapons and more attentive to their mental health needs. By charging parents and making examples out of them, communities will prevent similar acts in the future and keep our children safe.

However, these prosecutions are legally unsound and largely driven by public pressure, emotion, and the desire to hold someone—anyone—responsible. Although the emotions are understandable, they are misdirected and ignore the real, structural causes of these cases, such as the adolescent mental health crisis and the lack of gun control. This approach is flawed, and these prosecutions will, if anything, make children and society less safe. Even the prosecutor in the Crumbley case acknowledged that deterrence is not the goal in these cases.[5] She recognized that her first-of-a-kind case was not “about creating a new type of deterrence for gun-owning parents[,]” acknowledging that she would rather focus on the risk of children killing themselves or others than the threat of prosecution.[6] Recently, the same prosecutor came under fire for not disclosing a deal she made with school personnel who may have also shared culpability in failing to prevent this tragedy. Those personnel had met with the child on the day of the shooting yet were essentially promised immunity from prosecution. Charges were brought only against the parents.[7]

In the Spring of 2024, for the first time ever, Jennifer and James Crumbley were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter after their son Ethan committed a mass shooting.[8] Mere months later, in Georgia, Colin Gray, the father of Colt Gray, who killed children and adults in a school shooting, was charged with second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, and cruelty to children for “knowingly” allowing his son to own a gun.[9] To be clear, the children in these cases are also being prosecuted as adults despite their mental illness and young age (fifteen and fourteen years old, respectively). After Mr. Gray was charged, the hashtag #chargetheparents was trending on the social media platform X. Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts tweeted, “Charge. The. Fucking. Parents . . . “[10] Some legislatures across the country will likely move to codify this response, making it even easier to charge parents in these situations. These “pathological politics” of the carceral state also mean that prosecution of parents (along with their children charged as adults) will become the dominant, virtually the only, government attempt to address these complex public health and infrastructure issues.[11]

The current trend of punishing parents is problematic for children, their families, and society alike. In this Essay, we explain why this nascent trend is flawed from a doctrinal perspective and, more broadly, will harm families, increase racialized overcriminalization, and expand coercive prosecutorial power without meaningfully addressing the crises of gun violence or adolescent mental health. We argue that charging parents will not keep children or communities safe—indeed, it will make us less safe—and highlight some measures that would be better options to that end. Expanding the scope of criminalization will result in even greater racialized, gendered, and heteronormative scrutiny of children, parents, and families without providing them the support they so desperately need, and that could decrease violent crime and prevent future shootings.[12] In short, these are not problems that we can prosecute our way out of.

I. Hard Cases Make Bad Law

The cases where parents have been charged recently are egregious and exceptional. In both the Crumbley and Gray cases, the prosecution asserted that the parents had bought their children guns as gifts.[13] The Crumbleys may have ignored communications from their son’s school regarding concerns for his mental health.[14] When parents are charged in cases that are unsympathetic or shocking, holding them “accountable” might seem easy. But as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes cautioned, “hard cases . . . make bad law.”[15]

For many, a case like the Crumbleys or the Grays might seem straightforward.[16] But the next case may not be: what about a parent who owns a gun, generally locks it up, and on one occasion forgets, and their child uses it to kill? Or a case where a struggling parent is working multiple jobs, leaving a teenager unsupervised for many hours on end, and unbeknownst to them, their child has purchased a gun illegally? What about the many, many cases, including the recent ones, where the community has a shortage of support, especially around adolescent mental health? What about a parent who buys their child a car, and the child drives recklessly, killing another teen? Such a case has already been prosecuted in Queens, N.Y.[17] In that case, the parents of a teenager who drove without a license and killed another teenager were charged with endangering the welfare of a child because prosecutors allege that they knew the child was driving without a license. But imagine the same facts except the child did have a license?

Although we mostly focus on gun violence in this Essay, given its prevalence and devastation, prosecuting parents for any of their children’s harmful actions has no meaningful limiting principle. Indeed, it conflicts with a bedrock tenet of our criminal law system that one is not responsible for the acts of another person; hence, the lack of a duty to report a crime or intervene to stop, for instance, a baby’s death, no matter how easy it is and how much harm it would prevent. Eroding this principle could lead to many unintended consequences, including making people liable for their friend’s, roommate’s, or partner’s actions. Here, although the parents are being held responsible for their children’s actions, the children are also being held liable as adults—the prosecutions merely expand the web of criminal liability.

Even if the statutes themselves do not change in response to high-profile, unusual, and devastating events, their implementation does. This is a pattern we see time and time again in various legal contexts.[18] For instance, in the family policing system, when one child dies at the hands of their caregivers, the removals of other children skyrocket. As a result, more children are traumatized, as are their parents.[19]

Pathological politics lead to ever-expanding criminal law, making policy off flawed, misunderstood, or non-existent data and narratives—often racialized—about “bad” people.[20] The related tendency to make policy based on one high-profile outlier case is particularly prevalent in criminal law, termed the “Willie Horton” effect. It refers to the dismantling of an entire successful prison release program because one of the thousands of participants committed a violent crime post-release; government officials used that tragic event to overlook the evidence that the vast majority of other participants in the program were safely and successfully released.[21] We argue that there is even more political pressure for this one-way ratchet to increase surveillance, family separation, and punishment when children are involved.[22] Caseworkers, prosecutors, and judges in the family policing system worry about ending up in the newspaper;[23] these very lopsided incentives lead to undercounting the trauma of family separation and have also defeated many system reforms.[24]

Combined with immense public pressure on prosecutors and legislators to “do something” after a tragedy, this reactive rush to more prosecution results in a focus only on individual punishment rather than on addressing the systemic causes of this nationwide trend towards increased school shootings by adolescents. In short, once Pandora’s box is open, it will be difficult to shut.

II. Prosecuting Parents Will Harm Families & Expand the Racialized Carceral State

Targeting parents for their children’s behavior is a distraction that will not only fail to address the underlying problems but will also increase the surveillance and punishment of marginalized families and expand the already immense carceral state.

A.     Prosecution Harms Families & Blames Parents for Systemic Failures

This emerging trend builds on a long history of failing to provide support to families, particularly impoverished families, and instead accusing these parents of neglecting their children and/or punishing them for their children’s delinquency.[25] Child and family poverty rates are shockingly high in the U.S., and even middle-class families struggle to obtain education and health care, including mental health treatment, for their children.[26]

Holding struggling families solely responsible for their children’s well-being both ignores society’s interest in healthy and productive future citizens and traps families in intergenerational cycles of scarcity and harm. As low-income parents themselves put it, this pattern conveys that “the government does not have an ongoing responsibility to support families, that if something bad happens to our families, it is solely our fault, and that we—alone—are responsible for decades of political neglect.”[27] Similarly, children’s widespread access to guns and the lack of good safety measures, like the lack of safety measures in cars before seat belts, is a structural rather than individual problem. Prosecuting individual parents both overstate their ability to control access to firearms in a country awash with them[28] and takes attention away from the larger problem of gun manufacturers, lobbyists, and sellers profiting off this unsafe reality.

In one particularly high-profile example of blaming parents for systemic failures, former Vice-President Kamala Harris expressed wanting to charge parents for their children’s truancy, a policy that Harris now says she regrets.[29] More recently, in Baltimore, the State’s Attorney unveiled a plan to charge parents with contributing to the delinquency of a minor if their children commit illegal acts.[30] This plan was widely critiqued, and attorneys—even prosecutors—explained how hard these cases would be to prosecute.[31] Nonetheless, political pressure means that many parents could be charged, even if the prosecutions are unlikely to succeed, harming the families involved to no end.

Attention in recent cases has similarly been myopically focused on individual parents rather than society at large. As with other recent expansions of criminal liability, such as opiate homicides and conspiracy—that obscure and fail to actually address the societal problems of skyrocketing overdoses and gang violence—punishing parents for their children’s crimes does not actually address the root causes of mental illness, unsafe driving, or gun violence.[32] On the contrary, it actually creates problematic incentives and leads to decreased trust and communication between children and parents. For instance, parents may avoid seeking help when struggling[33] and may not teach children gun safety or ask them about their well-being or mental health to avoid the mens rea “knowledge” that underlies the Crumbley and Gray prosecutions. Analogous harmful incentives to gain knowledge about health recently prompted California, the first state to criminalize HIV transmission, to mostly eliminate that crime.[34] The rush to punish “bad parents” also obscures the failure to offer families support and affordable and accessible services before a crisis.

B.     Prosecution Expands the Racialized Carceral State

Most of the parents who have been publicly charged have been white and middle-class, but these cases will create ripple effects that will generally fall hardest on marginalized communities.[35] For instance, just days after Colin Gray’s charges for his teenage son’s mass killings were covered in an international media frenzy, a twenty-two-year-old, low-income, Black woman in Memphis was charged for the actions of her six-year-old.[36] Expanding this precedent will further subject families to gendered, racialized, and heteronormative scrutiny.[37] For example, on the gendered point, the prosecution and media touted Mrs. Crumbley’s extra-marital affair as evidence of her bad mothering.[38]

We have seen this play out both in the criminal and family policing systems over and over again. “Governing by crime” is particularly ineffective at supporting families dealing with structural issues such as mental illness or addiction.[39] During the racialized and exaggerated panic over “crack babies” in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s,[40] Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) to ensure that children had “permanency,” a legal concept that did not acknowledge children’s realities, as “permanency” often meant closing cases by terminating parental rights, even when children had no chance of being adopted.[41] An abysmal failure, ASFA has severed the legal relationships of over a million families and created over 100,000 legal orphans, or children whose parents’ rights to them have been terminated yet have no chance of being adopted.[42] Parents impacted by this law have described how it reflects “troubling histories in the United States and “judgments around who were worthy families and who were not”;[43] scholars label it “the Worst Law Affecting Families Ever Passed by Congress.”[44] Despite the clear negative effects of the War on Drugs in the 1990s, states, including Tennessee, passed fetal assault laws in response to the opioid crisis that permitted criminal prosecutions of pregnant people.[45] As a result, pregnant people stopped seeking substance use treatment or prenatal care.[46] Unsurprisingly, in both instances, the majority of those affected by these systems were low-income, female-identifying, and racial minorities.[47]

This overcriminalization also leads to an unnecessary increase in the immense power of prosecutors to coerce pleas, particularly for lower-income families—most of those in the system—who cannot afford bail.[48] Example after example shows that prosecutors do not exercise this discretion well.[49] While one case with extreme facts may seem to justify prosecutorial intervention, subsequent cases will more likely punish low-income families of color for minor parenting imperfections. This is particularly true when the laws are broad and vague, such as those used to punish parents for mistakes and/or for their children’s wrongful conduct. [50] How many parents never make a mistake, and how many teenagers never engage in wrongful conduct?

III. Prioritizing Systemic Solutions Over Parental Prosecution

In this Part, we flag a few measures that could help prevent and redress the harm caused, particularly in the school shooting context. We do not intend this to be a comprehensive list or a “solution” to the complex and multifaceted problem. We believe, however, that the interventions listed here are more effective at preventing these tragedies than prosecuting parents and create far less societal harm.

A.     Lack of Empirical Support for Parental Prosecution

There are no empirical findings that prosecuting parents prevents crime by minors. Additionally, parental prosecution fails to “address the systemic issues underlying these crimes–such as a lack of basic mental health care and gun safety laws. Outside of white-collar crime, punishment has not been proven to be particularly effective at changing behavior, white-collar crime, punishment has not been proven to be particularly effective at changing behavior, and it is particularly ineffective at addressing family behavior like parenting.[51] State agents themselves have acknowledged this; nonetheless, prosecutors bring these charges to show they are taking action in these high-profile cases despite still failing to address the more politically sensitive, very difficult issues of adolescent mental health, bullying, and gun control that are essential to addressing this violence.[52]

If anything, these measures make us less safe because they divert resources and, perhaps most importantly, public attention to individuals rather than the systemic and structural issues creating these dangers. To reduce young people’s violence, families need more financial and community-based support. Teens who commit violent crimes, as amply demonstrated in these recent prosecutions, often struggle with untreated mental health needs. Although many young people and families have struggled without treatment in the past, the U.S. is currently facing an unprecedented crisis in adolescent mental health.[53] Those parents who seek mental health care are often unable to find it due to limited options and high costs.[54] This problem is even worse for parents of limited means.[55] Parents also worry about the stigma of accessing mental health care for their children in a society where mental illness is judged harshly.[56] Currently, many families can only access the services that they need if their child has juvenile system involvement or the parent is enmeshed in the family policing system. Accordingly, researchers suggest partnering with schools to ensure students can easily access mental health care in a non-stigmatized environment. Yet only half of schools nationwide currently offer mental health assessment, and even fewer can address mental health issues.[57]

B.     Need for Gun Control and Community Support

Another essential measure to prevent future violence is gun control, including limiting the ability to own semi-automatic assault weapons or high-capacity ammunition magazines like AK-47s and AR-15s. Universal background checks and mental health screenings are also common-sense measures with wide support.[58] We understand that the latter measures would not have prevented the shootings in the specific cases that we have discussed, but in numerous other cases, requiring background checks for all gun sales can prevent teenagers from buying guns online or at gun shows.[59] For example, in Montgomery County, Maryland, a student shot and seriously injured another student in the bathroom of a high school with a “ghost gun” – a gun sold in parts that can be assembled by the purchaser and bear no serial numbers.[60]

More broadly, what is empirically proven to prevent violence is community infrastructure and support.[61] This includes investing in everything from playgrounds to mental health support instead of punishment. Indeed, if prosecution and incarceration made us safe, the U.S., as the world’s largest per capita incarcerator, would not also be the site of the most school shootings worldwide.

To be clear, this article does not mean to suggest that parents have no responsibility, but rather that they do not have sole responsibility and, more significantly, that after-the-fact harsh criminal punishment is ineffective at prevention and healing. (Indeed, even the Crumbley prosecutor has made it clear that she saw the homicide prosecution as primarily an “effort to promote responsible gun ownership.”)[62] In contrast, a promising area of prevention is regulation and assistance to families around safe gun ownership and storage. Other experts and we believe parents should be required to properly store weapons.[63] As a recent study concluded: “[P]rosecuting parents is a strategy that is likely to be used only after preventable tragedies have occurred. Enacting and enforcing strong child-access prevention laws can preempt these tragedies. . . .”[64] These laws already exist in twenty-six states.[65] Unlike the standards used in current homicide prosecutions, both the requirements and the consequences of these laws are clear.

If the worst still occurs, there are promising supports to help repair damaged families and communities. Principles of restorative justice seem particularly appropriate in this context. Restorative justice focuses on healing rather than punishment and proposes “constructive responses to wrongdoing by bringing those who have harmed their victims and affected communities into processes that repair the harm and rebuild relationships.”[66] Restorative justice is particularly effective in both preventing and healing violent crime among people who know each other (counter to ongoing myths about why people, especially young people, commit violence, myths that are both incorrect and unjust).[67] In this context, “those who have harmed” can include the youth, their parents, and those shot or otherwise victimized. Incarceration is generally not necessary, as accountability looks different in this context. Following basic principles of restorative justice, the facilitator focuses first on the victims or their families and what they need to heal. Then, the person who caused harm must accept certain obligations such as apologizing, acknowledging the harm, and taking steps to ensure that harm does not occur again, such as committing to mental health treatment. Finally, the community also takes responsibility to support both the family who was harmed and the person who caused harm. This process encourages all stakeholders to engage and requires the person who caused harm to understand the consequences and to take responsibility for their actions.[68]

Conclusion

In this essay, we argue for a fundamental shift in our approach to dealing with families whose children engage in gun violence—to replace punishment with greater, universal support for families in this time of growing adolescent mental health trauma and economic strain. Although political realities may make realizing the goal of prioritizing prevention over prosecution nationwide overly optimistic,[69] critiquing the expansion of criminal liability is an important first step to changing the conversation about childhood and teen crime and struggling families. An emotional response is natural given the highly sensitive nature of the issue, but it is particularly at these times that we need to focus on evidence-based approaches, prevention, and healing for all involved.

Copyright © 2025 Cynthia Godsoe and Shanta Trivedi. The authors contributed equally to this article and are listed alphabetically. Cynthia Godsoe is a Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School and Shanta Trivedi is an Assistant Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts at the University of Baltimore School of Law. We are grateful to Jocelyn Simonson for her thoughtful feedback and to Andrea Hutton for her excellent research assistance.

           [1].     See S. Villareal et al., Johns Hopkins Ctr. for Gun Violence Sols., Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Sch. Pub. Health, Gun Violence in the United States 2022: Examining the Burden Among Children and Teens 1 (2024) at 7 (finding that in 2022, for the third year in a row, firearms were the leading cause of death among children and teens ages 1-17).

           [2].     See Chip Grabow & Lisa Rose, The U.S. has had 57 Times as Many School Shootings as the Other Major Industrialized Nations Combined, CNN (May 21, 2018, 5:08 PM) at 3, [https://perma.cc/9S98-XL9R].

           [3].     Julia Hernandez, Family Policing in the Schoolhouse, forthcoming (on file with authors).

           [4].     We use the phrase “family policing system” in recognition of the true nature of the child welfare system as a system “predicated on the subjugation, surveillance, control, and punishment of mostly Black and Native communities experiencing significant poverty.” Alan Dettlaff et al., UPEnd, How We EndUP: A Future Without Family Policing (June 18, 2021) at 3, https://upendmovement.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/How-We-endUP-6.18.21.pdf [https://perma.cc/FNM8-C2RN].

           [5].     Deterrence is a questionable concept empirically in any case and is particularly unlikely to work in cases of parenting or family relationships. See Rich McKay, Charges Against Father of Georgia Shooting Suspect Test Emerging Legal Strategy, Reuters (Sept. 6, 2026, 7:41 PM) [https://perma.cc/CUZ4-HEWR].

           [6].     Id at 3.

           [7].     Ed White, The Convicted Mother of a Michigan School Shooter is Seeking a New Trial Over Witness Deals, The Associated Press, (Feb 1, 2025), https://www.michiganpublic.org/criminal-justice-legal-system/2025-02-01/the-convicted-mother-of-a-michigan-school-shooter-is-seeking-a-new-trial-over-witness-deals [https://perma.cc/S293-V7M6].

           [8].     Quinn Klinefelter, James Crumbley, Father of School Shooter, Found Guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter, NPR (Mar. 14, 2024), https://www.npr.org/2024/03/14/1238641709/james-crumbley-guilty-oxford-school-shooting-involuntary-manslaughter.

           [9].     See Jeff Amy & Jeff Martin, Father of Georgia School Shooting Suspect Arrested on Charges Including Second-Degree Murder, A.P. News (Sept. 5, 2024) at 2 , https://apnews.com/article/georgia-high-school-shooting-c3c97267a4dfff64a59e1605e515c2f9 [https://perma.cc/UR66-K3L5].

         [10].     Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts), X (Sept. 5, 2024, 2:43 PM), https://x.com/shannonrwatts/status/1831765042729193772 [https://perma.cc/E3DY-NXUK].

         [11].     Professor William Stuntz presciently described the legislative one-way ratchet to increased criminalization and punitiveness. See William J. Stuntz, The Pathological Politics of Criminal Law, 100 Mich. L. Rev. 505, 509 (2001).

         [12].     Scholars, including us, have noted the disproportionate punitive state intervention in marginalized families. See, e.g. Dorothy Roberts, Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—and How Abolition Can Build A Safer World 26 (2022) (tracing the “benevolent terror” of the family policing system, particularly against Black and indigenous families); Khiara M. Bridges, The Poverty of Privacy Rights (2017) (describing the state’s invasions of poor mothers’ privacy rights in matters of family and reproduction); Shanta Trivedi, The Harm of Child Removal, 43 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 523, 527–52 (2019) (documenting the harms of removal and the foster system); Cynthia Godsoe, Disrupting Carceral Logic in Family Policing, 121 Mich. L. Rev. 939, 941 (2023) (connecting the family-policing system and the criminal justice system as institutions “that operate to police, discipline, and most importantly, subordinate [minoritized] population[s] in the name of safety or protection.”).

         [13].     See Stephanie Desmon, What the Conviction of a Parent of a School Shooter Could Mean, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Sch. Pub. Health (March 1, 2024), https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2024/the-conviction-of-a-parent-of-a-school-shooter-and-gun-violence-laws [https://perma.cc/69Q7-8MH3]; See also Dalia Faheid, Charges Against Teen Georgia School Shooting Suspect’s Father Push the Boundaries of Who’s Responsible for a Mass Gun Attack, CNN (Sept. 6, 2024, 1:22 PM), https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/06/us/colin-gray-georgia-shooting-suspect-father-charges/index.html.

         [14].     See Ed White, Counselor Recalls Morning of Michigan School Attack When Parents Declined to Take Shooter Home, Assoc. Press (March 11, 2024, 3:52 PM) at 1, https://apnews.com/article/oxford-school-shooting-james-crumbley-4156bb0b1fc0596e03f872a4f9972af0 [https://perma.cc/VK23-ECES].

         [15].     Northern Securities Co. v. U.S., 193 U.S. 197, 400 (1904) (Holmes, J., dissenting).

         [16].     Without getting into too many details, even the Crumbley and Gray cases are not as simple as portrayed. For instance, the state had intervened in the Gray family via the child welfare/family policing system and a court ruled that Mr. Gray, who legally owned guns and legally let his child hunt, was a more stable custodian than the child’s mother, who has substance use disorder. See Yahya Abou-Ghazala et al., Georgia High School Shooting Suspect Referenced Parkland Massacre in Writings Found in His Bedroom, Source Says, CNN (Sept. 6, 2024, 3:32 PM), https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/05/us/colt-gray-suspect-georgia-shooter/index.html [https://perma.cc/3U37-4XSA].

         [17].     Maria Cramer & Claire Fahy, Parents of Teen Driver Who Killed Girl in High-Speed Crash Are Sentenced, N.Y. Times (July 22, 2024), https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/22/nyregion/teen-driver-queens-crash-parents-sentence.html [https://perma.cc/F83J-6YAQ].

         [18].     American overcriminalization arose from a “tacit cooperation between prosecutors and legislators, each of whom benefits from more and broader crimes.” Stuntz, supra note 11 at 510.

         [19].     See Greg B. Smith, Embattled NYC Children’s Services Agency Caseloads Sharply Rising Following Zymere Perkins Death, Daily News (Apr. 8, 2018, 9:19 AM), https://www.nydailynews.com/2017/02/20/embattled-nyc-childrens-services-agency-caseloads-sharply-rising-following-zymere-perkins-death/ [https://perma.cc/ZP65-A3LY].

         [20].     See, e.g., Carroll Bogert, Analysis: How the Media Created a ‘Superpredator’ Myth that Harmed a Generation of Black Youth, NBC News (Nov. 20, 2020, 6:00 AM) at 4, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/analysis-how-media-created-superpredator-myth-harmed-generation-black-youth-n1248101 [https://perma.cc/H9V7-ZLHV] (finding that branding a generation of young men of color as animals and “superpredators” paved the way for a harsher juvenile legal system).

         [21].     See John Pfaff, The Never-Ending ‘Willie Horton Effect’ Is Keeping Prisons Too Full for America’s Good, L.A. Times (May 14, 2017), https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-pfaff-why-prison-reform-isnt-working-20170514-story.html [https://perma.cc/6NBB-5JAL] (discussing the “Willie Horton” effect, in which “it’s politically safer” to be tough on crime).

         [22].     See Caitlin Garcia & Cynthia Godsoe, Divest, Invest, and Mutual Aid, 12 Colum. J. Race & L. 601 (2022) 621 (finding that family policing agencies are likely even more publicity-shy and skewed towards the risk of wrongful separation.).

         [23].     See Shanta Trivedi, The Hidden Pain of Family Policing (forthcoming) (on file with author).

         [24].     System actors frequently minimize family separation and the trauma to children that comes from even short separations from their parents. See, e.g., This Land, The Heart of It, Crooked Media (Aug. 16, 2021), https://crooked.com/podcast/this-land-season-2-coming-august-23rd/ [perma.cc/Z6UA-QT4A] (discussing judges and adoption attorneys’ minimization of the trauma of family separation among Native Americans).

         [25].     See Barbara Fedders, The Anti-Parent Juvenile Court, 69 UCLA L. Rev. 746 (2022).

         [26].     See Rasheed Malik, Working Families Are Spending Big Money on Child Care, Ctr. for Am. Progress (June 20, 2019), https://www.americanprogress.org/article/working-families-spending-big-money-child-care/ [https://perma.cc/X5ZY-L86M].

         [27].     What is the Adoption and Safe Families Act?, Repeal ASFA, https://www.repealasfa.org/what-is-asfa [https://perma.cc/QP45-YEVJ] (last visited Sept. 20, 2024).

         [28].     See N’dea Yancey-Bragg, How a ‘Horrible Perfect Storm’ Fueled a 65% Increase in Homicides Committed by Kids, USA Today (Oct. 18, 2024, 11:51 AM), https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/10/18/guns-juveniles-crime-homicide-increase/75349011007/ [https://perma.cc/PV6N-9WVT] (linking the increasing rate of juvenile crime involving firearms with juveniles’ increasing access to guns).

         [29].     See Katie Galioto, Harris: ‘I Regret’ California Truancy Law, Politico (Apr. 17, 2019, 3:00 PM), https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2019/04/17/harris-i-regret-california-truancy-law-976889 [https://perma.cc/2B2D-AAC6].

         [30].     See Mikenzie Frost, SA Bates to Pursue Parental Accountability Amid Juvenile Crime: ‘You May Need a Lawyer’, Fox Balt. (Apr. 4, 2024, 12:37 PM), https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/sa-bates-to-pursue-parental-accountability-amid-juvenile-crime-you-may-need-a-lawyer [https://perma.cc/9JUW-8LZZ].

         [31].     See Dylan Segelbaum, ‘Parental Accountability’: Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates’ Plan has Potential Pitfalls, Balt. Banner (April 22, 2024, 5:30 AM), https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/criminal-justice/ivan-bates-parental-accountability-CIB4JTO2BVEYRIGFAV4YFLWZGM/ [https://perma.cc/5TX7-PYMF].

         [32].     See Jennifer J. Carroll et al, Drug Induced Homicide Laws May Worsen Opioid Related Harms: An Example from Rural North Carolina, 97 Int’l J. of Drug Pol’y (2021); Cynthia Godsoe, Criminalizing Community, Policing Space: Conspiracy, Young Thug & the “Stop Cop City” Protestors, Harvard L. Rev. Blog (Aug. 28, 2024), https://harvardlawreview.org/blog/2024/08/criminalizing-community-policing-space-conspiracy-young-thug-the-stop-cop-city-protestors/ [https://perma.cc/5QYR-JLAW] (purporting to address gang violence by prosecuting a prominent rap artist and others on his label).

         [33].     Similar disincentives to seek help for housing uncertainty, domestic violence, and a child’s disability or educational struggles arise from the punitive nature of the family policing system. See, e.g., Kelley Fong, Getting Eyes in the Home: Child Protective Services Investigations and State Surveillance of Family Life, 85 Am. Socio. Rev. 610, https://scholar.harvard.edu/sites/scholar.harvard.edu/files/kfong/files/fong_asr.pdf [https://perma.cc/2HSF-KQQV].

         [34].     Ctr. for HIV L. & Pol’y, HIV Criminal Law Reform, Before and After: California (2020), https://www.hivlawandpolicy.org/sites/default/files/HIV%20Criminal%20Law%20Reform%20Before%20and%20After%20California%2C%20CHLP%202020.pdf [https://perma.cc/7J9Z-BA59].

         [35].     Nazgol Ghandnoosh & Celeste barry, Sent’g Project, One in Five: Racial Disparity in Imprisonment — Causes and Remedies 3 (2023), https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/one-in-five-racial-disparity-in-imprisonment-causes-and-remedies/ [https://perma.cc/657Y-2T2H ] (“Laws and policies that appear race-neutral have a disparate racial impact.”).

         [36].     Mandy Hrach, 6-Year-Old Found with Gun at School Raises Safety, Parental Responsibility Concerns, FOX 13 Memphis (Sept. 6, 2024), https://www.fox13memphis.com/news/6-year-old-found-with-gun-at-school-raises-safety-parental-responsibility-concerns/article_0fcc3158-6c92-11ef-8721-234128fe982d.html [https://perma.cc/KEU3-58RZ].

         [37].     See Courtney G. Joslin & Catherine Sakimura, Fractured Families: LGBTQ People and the Family Regulation System, 13 Cal. L. Rev. Online 78 (Nov. 2022), https://www.californialawreview.org/online/fractured-families-lgbtq-people-and-the-family-regulation-system [https://perma.cc/N268-RARS] (discussing the disproportionate surveillance and punishment of LGBTQ families); S. Lisa Washington, Weaponizing Fear, 132 Yale L.J. F. 163 (Oct. 2022), https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/weaponizing-fear [https://perma.cc/HR4W-59VS] (reporting research that if a Black mother was lesbian or bisexual, her child was more likely to be removed than if she were heterosexual).

         [38].     See Marie Holmes, Is Being A ‘Bad Mom’ A Crime?, Huff post (Feb. 6, 2024), https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bad-mom-crime-jennifer-crumbley_l_65c1036be4b069b665dc2c0a# [https://perma.cc/TB6H-SHLM ] (stating that over the course of the trial, prosecutors revealed Crumbley’s extramarital affair and raised the question of whether she was more committed to her horses than to her son, since she had more pictures of them on her phone than she did of Ethan).

         [39].     Jonathan Simon, Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear (2009).

         [40].     See generally Shanta Trivedi, The Adoption and Safe Families Act Is Not Worth Saving: The Case for Repeal, 61 Fam. Ct. Rev. 1 (2023); see also Erika Derkas, “Don’t Let Your Pregnancy Get In the Way of Your Drug Addiction”: CRACK and the Ideological Construction of Addicted Women, 38 Soc. Just. 125, 136 (2011).                  

         [41].     See, e.g., What is the Adoption and Safe Families Act?, https://www.repealasfa.org [https://perma.cc/WR99-3UT8], supra note 27; Elizabeth Brico, The Civil Death Penalty – My Motherhood is Legally Terminated, Filter Mag. (July 13, 2021), https://filtermag.org/motherhood-legally-terminated [https://perma.cc/NT3T-VUFY]; Latagia Copeland Tyronce, Yes, the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) Can and Should Be Repealed!, Medium (Dec. 24, 2018), https://medium.com/latagia-copeland-tyronces-tagi-s-world/yes-the-adoption-and safe-families-act-asfa-can-andshould-be-repealed-9c18ac391997 [https://perma.cc/F6HA-U9UD]; Victoria Copeland, Centering Unacknowledged Histories: Revisiting NABSW Demands to Repeal ASFA, 16 J. Pub. Fam. Regul. 1, 1–6 (2021).

         [42].     See Chloe Jones, 1 in 100 Kids Lose Legal Ties to Their Parents by the Time They Turn 18. This New Bill Aims to Help, PBS News (Jan. 3, 2022), https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/1-in-100-kids-lose-legal-ties-to-their-parents-by-the-time-they-turn-18-this-new-bill-aims-to-help [https://perma.cc/HY5Y-RRAS].

         [43].     Repeal ASFA, supra note 27.

         [44].     See generally Martin Guggenheim, How Racial Politics Led Directly to the Enactment of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997—The Worst Law Affecting Families Ever Enacted by Congress, 11 Colum. J. Race L. 711 (2021).

         [45].     See Vanessa Soderberg, More Than Receptacles: An International Human Rights Analysis of Criminalizing Pregnancy in the United States, 31 Berkeley J. Gender L. & Just. 299, 329 (2016); see also Ian Vandewalker, Taking the Baby Before It’s Born: Termination of the Parental Rights of Women Who Use Illegal Drugs While Pregnant, 32 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 423 (explaining how the political and media climate surrounding the War on Drugs led to punitive laws) (2008); Wendy Bach, Prosecuting Poverty Criminalizing Care 11 (2022) (describing Tennessee’s fetal assault law and its negative and harmful effects of on pregnant people).

         [46].     See Sandhya Dirks, Criminalization of Pregnancy has Already been Happening to the Poor and Women of Color, NPR (Aug. 3, 2022), https://www.npr.org/2022/08/03/1114181472/criminalization-of-pregnancy-has-already-been-happening-to-the-poor-and-women-of [https://perma.cc/2CN3-7QTB]; Bach, supra note 45.

         [47].     See Mical Raz, Our Adoption Policies Have Harmed Families and Children, Wash. Post (Nov. 18, 2022), https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/11/18/adoption-parental-rights/[https://perma.cc/DC2T-MTE3]; Bach, supra note 45; Kathi L. Harp & Amanda M. Bunting, The Racialized Nature of Child Welfare Policies and the Social Control of Black Bodies, 27 Soc. Pols. 258, 258 (2020), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7372952/#:~:text=Specifically%2C%20black%20women%20and%20their,is%20exercised%20on%20multiple%20levels [https://perma.cc/ZT4X-2DDQ].

         [48].     Audrey Courty, The Michigan School Shooter’s Mother Jennifer Crumbley was Convicted of Manslaughter. Could the Landmark Ruling Set a Legal Precedent?, Austl. Broad. Co News (Feb. 6, 2024), https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-07/legal-precedent-michigan-school-shooter-mother-jennifer-crumbley/103435710 [https://perma.cc/K5NA-DTYN] (quoting Professor Ekow Yankah that parents will receive longer prison sentences without the public scrutiny of the process that comes with a trial: “instead of being national news, it’ll be a quiet plea bargain”).

         [49].     See e.g. Godsoe, supra note 32 (discussing the recent prosecution of Jeffrey Williams a.k.a. “Young Thug” in Atlanta).

         [50].     See generally Carissa Byrne Hessick, Vagueness Principles, 48 Ariz. St. L.J. 1137 (2016) (“Vague statutes fail to give sufficient notice, lead to arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement, and represent an unwarranted delegation to law enforcement.”); Dorothy E. Roberts, Foreword: Race, Vagueness, and the Social Meaning of Order-Maintenance Policing, 89 J. of Crim. L. and Criminology 775 (1999.) (explaining how vague loitering laws in Chicago led to the arrest of primarily Black and Latino people.)

         [51].     For instance, over fifty nations have banned parental corporal punishment, usually via civil ban. See Joan E. Durrant & Staffan Janson, Law Reform, Corporal Punishment and Child Abuse: The Case of Sweden, 12 Int’l Rev. Victimology 139, 142 (2005). Sweden, the first country to ban corporal punishment, “aimed [its law] at educating the Swedish public, not at prosecuting parents.” Id. Their rates have dropped dramatically, while corporal punishment in the U.S.—which prosecutes parents for unreasonable corporal punishment—remains very high. Id. This compounds the already questionable efficacy of harsh penalties for deterrence. See also Daniel S. Nagin, Deterrence in the Twenty-First Century, 42 Crime & Just. 199, 201 (2013) (“[T]he certainty of punishment is conceptually and mathematically the product of a series of conditional probabilities: the probability of apprehension given commission of a crime, the probability of prosecution given apprehension, the probability of conviction given prosecution, and the probability of sanction given conviction.”).

         [52].     After the Georgia shooting, the Michigan prosecutor lamented the similarity of the two cases, noting that “I can’t believe the facts that stood out as so egregious in our case seem to be so similar.” Ed White, With Father of Suspect Charged in Georgia Shooting, Will More Parents Be Held Responsible?, Assoc. Press (Sept. 7, 2024), https://apnews.com/article/georgia-school-shooting-father-charged-05e8cfb5aff0b99350c3265981c1ecec [https://perma.cc/853X-Y4ZV]. These similarities from states across the country speak less to the “bad” parenting, as to the widespread presence of guns, and the dearth of child mental health services in most communities. See id.

         [53].     Catherine Ho, Nearly 90% of Teens and Young Adults Have Mental Health Challenges, Survey Finds, S.F. Chron. (Aug. 3, 2024), https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/teen-adult-mental-health-18273324.php?utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=google&utm_campaign=content_acquisition&utm_content=core_local&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADfW6kHcbG6c1GMt3dKMLXHf0uQzP&gclid=CjwKCAjw0aS3BhA3EiwAKaD2ZbK7lQoEQpe_dCOWeOufBm9qmRwDEh51mzIFeFt_jb4ZRYmaWeCJkxoCjk4QAvD_BwE [https://perma.cc/VEG5-3TL]; Matthew Stone, Why America Has a Youth Mental Health Crisis, and How Schools Can Help, Educ. Week (Oct. 16, 2023), https://www.edweek.org/leadership/why-america-has-a-youth-mental-health-crisis-and-how-schools-can-help/2023/10 [https://perma.cc/MRG4-7TG6].

         [54].     Bernard J. Wolfson, Why Parents are Struggling to Find Mental Health Care for Their Children, PBS News (May 7, 2019, 8:42 AM), https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/why-parents-are-struggling-to-find-mental-health-care-for-their-children [https://perma.cc/YK7Q-NYQX].

         [55].     Study Reveals Lack of Access as Root Cause for Mental Health Crisis in America, Nat’l Council for Mental Wellbeing, https://www.thenationalcouncil.org/news/lack-of-access-root-cause-mental-health-crisis-in-america/ [https://perma.cc/4ETD-4WKY] (last visited Sept. 20, 2024).

         [56].     Halewijn M. Drent et al., Factors Related to Perceived Stigma in Parents of Children and Adolescents in Outpatient Mental Healthcare, Int’l J. Env’t Rsch. & Pub. Health (2022).

         [57].     Zara Abrams, Kids’ Mental Health is in Crisis. Here’s What Psychologists are Doing to Help, Am. Psych. Assoc. (Jan. 1, 2023), https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/01/trends-improving-youth-mental-health [https://perma.cc/S9GX-7LXC].

         [58].     Polling data from a June 2022 national survey by Gallup shows 92 percent of Americans favor requiring background checks for all gun sales, 86 percent support prohibiting individuals who are a danger to themselves or others from purchasing a gun, and 81 percent of Americans support allowing courts to confiscate guns from those deemed a danger to themselves or others. Guns, Gallup, In Depth: Topics A to Z, https://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx [https://perma.cc/EJ5B-WRN5] (last visited Oct. 24, 2024).

         [59].     Tom Jackman & Emily Davies, Teens Buying “Ghost Guns” Online with Deadly Consequences, Wash. Post, (July 12, 2023), https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/07/12/teens-ghost-guns-deadly-shootings/ [https://perma.cc/TTU3-ZMPY].

         [60].     Id.

         [61].     Miya Yoshitani, In Oakland, Community Solutions Keep Us Safe, Not More Cops, Ella Baker Ctr., Medium (Feb. 16, 2021), https://ellabakercenter.medium.com/in-oakland-community-solutions-keep-us-safe-not-more-cops-7b231500814e [https://perma.cc/C3DB-Q7HC]; Roge Karma, How Cities can Tackle Violent Crime Without Relying on Police, Vox (Aug. 7, 2020, 8:10 AM), https://www.vox.com/21351442/patrick-sharkey-uneasy-peace-abolish-defund-the-police-violence-cities [https://perma.cc/C7ZJ-5C58].

         [62].     Stephanie Saul, In the Michigan School Shooting, the Prosecutor Asks, What About the Parents?, N.Y. Times (Dec. 21, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/us/michigan-school-shooting-prosecutor.html [https://perma.cc/W4EE-YTS4].

         [63].     The Opinions, Charging Parents Won’t Stop Mass Shootings, N.Y. Times (Sept. 10, 2024), https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/10/opinion/georgia-school-shooting-megan-stack.html?. [https://perma.cc/NZ8B-P9YT].

         [64].     Andrew R. Morral, Will Charging Parents of School Shooters Help Prevent School Shootings?, Rand: Commentary (Sept. 23, 2024), https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/09/will-charging-the-parents-of-school-shooters-help-prevent.html [https://perma.cc/F2Q4-Y8W3].

         [65].     Everytown Research & Policy, Which States Have Child-Access and/or Secure Storage Laws?, Everytown Rsch. & Pol’y (Jan. 4, 2024), https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/law/secure-storage-or-child-access-prevention-required/ [https://perma.cc/J9PF-ZY8L].

         [66].     Thalia González, The Legalization of Restorative Justice: A Fifty-State Empirical Analysis, 2019 Utah L. Rev. 1027, 1035 (2020).

         [67].     Restorative Justice: Why Do We Need It?, Common Just., https://www.commonjustice.org/restorative_justice_why_do_we_need_it [https://perma.cc/Q5CF-885W] (last visited Sept. 20, 2024).

         [68].     Livia Luan, Making Victims Whole Again: Using Restorative Justice to Heal Hate Crime Victims, Reform Offenders, and Strengthen Communities, 37 Temp. Int’l & Comp. L.J. 161, 169 (2022).

         [69].     It is heartening that both major party candidates in the 2024 Presidential election supported an expanded Child Tax Credit following data showing a temporary COVID-related expansion to the credit in 2022 cut childhood poverty by 46 percent. Nancy Cordes, Why Boosting the Child Tax Credit has Become a Key Issue for Harris and Trump, Cbs Evening News (Sept. 13, 2024, 7:56 PM), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/boosting-child-tax-credit-key-issue-harris-trump/ [https://perma.cc/VMD9-ZDEC].