Published on Competitive Enterprise Institute (http://cei.org)

Home > Teens, Beer and a Party's Consequences (Letter to the Editor)

Teens, Beer and a Party's Consequences (Letter to the Editor)

Teens, Beer and a Party's Consequences (Letter to the Editor)

By Hans Bader [1]
June 14, 2007
Originally published in The Washington Post [2]

The June 9 edition of The Post left me disillusioned with our criminal justice system.

The front page told the story of a Virginia mother sentenced to jail for more than two years for serving alcohol at her son's 16th birthday party ["Party Host Mom Set for Va. Jail Term"]. The back page of the news section told the story of a Tennessee pastor's wife who will serve just a few months for killing her husband by shooting him as he lay in bed ["Woman Who Killed Husband Might Serve Only 60 Days," Nation in Brief].

What kind of perverse reasoning deems killing your husband a less serious offense than serving alcohol to teenagers? We need to rethink the zero-tolerance policies that led to the Virginia mom's draconian sentence -- and the disturbing tendency to make excuses for wives who kill that led to the Tennessee woman's ridiculously short sentence.

Competitive Enterprise Institute | 1899 L ST NW Floor 12, Washington, DC 20036 | Phone: 202-331-1010 | Fax: 202-331-0640

Source URL: http://cei.org/op-eds-articles/teens-beer-and-partys-consequences-letter-editor

Links:
[1] http://cei.org/expert/hans-bader
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/13/AR2007061301936_pf.html