Public Defense

Accidents no more: Everything?s a crime

By Gideon

At least in fair Norwich, CT, as this story leads me to believe. I can only imagine how this scene unfolded. Cops arrive at the scene of a fire. A building is destroyed, 14 people (including 7 children) are now homeless.

They arrest and charge the offender….who happens to be eight years old. That’s right. They arrested an 8-year old for recklessly starting a fire.

Not only that, they charged her with a felony. Now, this kid is either the devil incarnate or the whole damn thing was an accident.

The charge is Arson in the third degree, which states:

(a) A person is guilty of arson in the third degree when he recklessly causes destruction or damage to a building, as defined in section 53a-100, of his own or of another by intentionally starting a fire or causing an explosion.

Did the child’s acts fit the statute? Perhaps. Is it a crime? I really, really, really doubt it. However, since “accident” seems to have disappeared from the dictionary, this poor girl has been arrested at the age of eight, charged with a felony and will probably have some trauma from this.

Do we always have to assign blame for loss or damage? Have we become so focused on criminalization that we cannot see we are compounding these people’s misery? What is the point of this arrest? You’re going to send an eight-year old to jail? You’re going to ask her to complete probation or community service?

Reckless or not, I doubt she knows what the hell she’s doing or did.

It’s not like the Norwich police don’t have anything to do. Note that this is a Class C felony, which carries a maximum term of 10 years.

This led me to wonder: What sort of movie would The Problem Child be today? Then I realized it wouldn’t be a movie. It would be a Law and Order episode.

(Side note: Who is Law and who is Order in L A& O?)

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Full post as published by A Public Defender on May 16, 2008 (boomark / email).