General Assembly: Missing Minors Act (VOTE)

Up for debate in this section is the current WA General Assembly Resolution: "Missing Minors Act". A link to the WA General Assembly page can be found HERE.

Attached is a poll question which will determine how the WA delegate will vote. With that I will cede the floor to arguments relating to the General Assembly Resolution: Missing Minors Act.

Although this resolution is rather commendable in purpose, upon further reflection I find myself confronted with two major points of contention within the resolution.

Firstly, there is no clear definition of "abuse" within the resolution. With no specific set of criteria, nor any clear distinction of what "abuse" fully entails, I believe this piece of the legislation is irresponsibly vague. In order to correct this, "abuse" can either be clearly defined, or the author of the resolution can explicitly declare that definitions of "abuse" are determined by each individual WA member nation. In its current state, the resolution's stance on abuse is unclear at best.

Secondly, there is a stipulation within the resolution that MANDATES "parent-child" counseling for every "runaway" minor who has returned home safely. While this stipulation is clearly in the resolution to address instances of parental abuse, as it relates to the child leaving home in the first place, I feel that there would be many instances of frivolous counseling. I can foresee a myriad of different examples in which a "returned runaway" would not necessarily benefit from counseling, but be legally obligated to participate.

Anyhow, these are my two cents on the subject. While this is truly a noble piece of legislation, in good faith I cannot support it in its current state.

In agree with Cool Egg, while I was reading I felt like this was a rough draft of the proposal. Many important pieces of information are missing from the article, i.e. no clear definition of abuse. Also stated in the proposal "ORDERS that penalties shall be assessed to the parents if they were abusing" without the action of abuse defined, I find that this may be a legal loop hole used to arrest and convict unruly parents with out requiring probable cause.

I personally feel that this proposal has to much government involvement. I get the chills when I think of the inefficiency involved in a government agency responsible for recovering missing children. If the structure of the new MCO agency is as sloppy as its proposal, then I fear this would just be a money pit.

In conclusion(running out of time) I vote no. I personally cringe at the thought of more government agencies with the authority to make arrests.