What’s a single parent burglar to do?
In Arlington, Virginia, police stopped and arrested Nehemiah Guillermo Gonzalez, 30, fleeing the scene of a burglary he had just committed. Inside the Jeep , along with antique silverware and gold coins stolen from the home was the criminal’s four-year-old child. After all, he couldn’t leave the little tyke alone while Dad plied his profession. You know how hard it is to find babysitters, and he had to rob someone to pay for child care, but couldn’t rob anyone without child care. So it had to be “Bring Your Kid to Work Day.”
Yes, I think better subsidized day care for criminals is essential. Think of the children! Sure, we can keep charging caring, desperate, single working parents like Nehemiah with child endangerment, or we can do something kind, compassionate and productive.
What are the odds that some legislator will actually make this argument?
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Spark and Pointer: Lianne Best
Facts: NBC
Graphic: Lilly and Bliss
Ethics Alarms 
What are the odds? Didn’t Romney have a number for that?
Just a hair off 50/50.
No. Throw the burglar in jail, and blame him when his kid goes into the foster care system. Sorry, amusing as it might be to think about, no one will have the nerve to subsidize child care for criminals… And frankly, as awful as the foster care system is, the poor kid will still be better off than living in danger with a criminal.
Yes, I think better subsidized day care for criminal’s children should be provided, provided the burglar can prove he was working at the time by documenting where and when he was working and a list of items he stole.
I betcha that all of Gonzalez’s relatives will show up for his trial weeping lachrymosely pleading for probation or dismissal of charges to the judge. This is what drives prosecutors nuts.
…but not a single one of them will offer to take care of his child.
–Dwayne
That makes the point I had in mind, Dwayne. Rather than place the child in a foster home, one would naturally rather place her with responsible relatives. But suppose there are none that are responsible in any sane sense of the word? How to tell? Their reaction to the burglar’s case might be one. Another might be an explanation of just where they were when this child was being hauled around by daddy as he plied his trade. Yet another (as Dwayne mentions) is how motivated they are to take in this lovely little girl as an extended family. If family and/or values mean so little to them, maybe the whole clan is just plain rotten and the child would be better off raised by non-related foster parents who would love her for her own sake.