Legislation on corporal punishment – protection for children or invasion of privacy ?

here  As far as I’m concerned, the decision was ridiculous when it was rendered.  Corporal punishment is a battery, regardless of the age of the person who was battered, and the relationship of the person who was battered to the batterer.  The father in Cobble, the batterer, should have been thrown in jail: he admitted to the battery.

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p>Your sentiment for keeping families together is duly noted, but it is irrelevant when one of the parents is an admitted criminal.

Thanks for posting my Arlington Advocate Op/Ed here, AmberPaw.  It prompted me to post it on my blog, http://www.MichaelRichLaw.blogspot.com, as well.

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p>Raj,

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p>Cobble was not a criminal case.

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p>It was about whether what the father had done met the DSS definition of abuse – which the court rightly found it did not; based on the evidence in the administrative record.

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p>As far as your position that all corporal punishment is a crime — you’re entitled to the opinion that you wish it were; but, that just isn’t the case.

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p>The U.S. Constitution gives families a level of privacy that permits reasonable choices (including the use of reasonable force) in child rearing while keeping the state out of private affairs unless there is injury or an unreasonable risk of injury.

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p>Massachusetts criminal law provides for a defense of reasonable use of non-injurious force in parental discipline.

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p>Though I don’t agree with Mr. Cobble’s use of a belt in disciplining his son, I don’t want DSS to be able to scare a parent into monthly home visits or be able to remove a child to foster care every time a parent swats a child on the butt or says, “Wait ’til your other parent gets home.”

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p>Criminal prosecution in parent-child corporal punishment cases should be reserved for when parents injure their children.