Making Child Spanking a Crime: Two Years in Prison
From 2012.
The state Senate in Delaware has passed a bill that criminalizes spanking. The bill has been sent to the House. It is Senate Bill 234.
The bill is sponsored by the Senate Majority Leader. It defines “physical injury” in child abuse as inflicting pain.
According to a new report from the Home School Legal Defense Association,
“Currently the law permits a parent to use force to punish a child for misconduct, but it prohibits any act that is likely to cause or does cause physical injury. By redefining ‘physical injury’ to include the infliction of pain on a child, spanking would become a crime in Delaware punishable by imprisonment.”
The organization said if it passes the House, “Delaware would become the first state in the nation to outlaw corporal discipline of children by their parents.”
The bill states, “These new statutes combine current statutes and redefine physical injury and serious physical injury to reflect the medical realities of pain and impairment suffered by children.”
One political action group, Delaware First Media, says that the driving force behind the bill has been state Attorney General Beau Biden, who is Vice President Biden’s son.
If this bill becomes law, the authorities will have to decide how far they can go to keep the courts happy. Parents will find out at their expense how far the state is willing to go in defining and enforcing pain.
At $150/hour the legal bills can build up very fast.
Continue reading here.
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Published on June 28, 2012. The original is here.
The bill was signed into law in September 2012.