A follow-up article chronicles the saga of the Bozeman Bandit, the woman had the temerity to leave her kids at the mall in charge of her 12 y/o daughter. When the daughter left the younger kids alone for a short time, the mall called the cops. Read the rest of the story to see the hell the mother was put through.

As a devotee of Lenore Skenazy’s blog, you can imagine what I think of this nonsense. Bozeman must be a wonderful place where leaving a kid at the mall is considered the height of possible abuse. I can’t imagine what these people would have done with some of the families I knew growing up, where drunken beatings were routine or kids came home to empty houses.

What crossed me most as I read the article was the courses this woman was forced to take and the money she or the state were forced to spend on them. Are we seeing another industry spring up that exists entirely because governments force people to use their wares? All for the benefit of the “children” of course?

I think we may be. It would not surprise me at all if some of these classes were found to be paying kickbacks to judges and lawyers. Think of it as the touchy-feely version the scandal that rocked my state when a judge was taking bribes to send kids to an expensive juvenile detention facility.

There’s a growing industry of people leaching off of our court system, especially the family and probate courts. Mandatory “anger management” classes, mandatory parenting classes, etc., etc.. I blogged a few weeks ago about the horrific things going on in probate courts when seniors are declared incompetent and their estates are burned to pay for expensive (and unnecessary) senior care.

Someone needs to put a stop this.