New hazing penalties could hobble immature adults for life

[ASTalumna06]

https://news.yahoo.com/hazing-penalt...183200378.html

Jun. 13—COLUMBUS — Legislation requiring tougher penalties after hazing-related injury and death on college campuses could make convicted felons of students whose brains are not yet fully developed, the Ohio Public Defender's office has argued.
.....
The committee is considering House Bill 205, sponsored by state Reps. Haraz Ghanbari (R., Bowling Green) and Mike Sheehy (D., Oregon). It would increase the general offense of hazing from a fourth-degree to a second-degree misdemeanor, the latter carrying up to 90 days in jail.

It would also create a new third-degree felony when the hazing involves recklessly coercing another into consuming alcohol or drugs, leading to physical harm. That charge could carry up to three years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

The bill and another measure carrying different penalties in the Senate would be named for Collin Wiant, an 18-year-old Ohio University student from Dublin, Ohio, who died of asphyxiation in 2018 after inhaling a canister of nitrous oxide during a fraternity ritual.

Further fueling the call for stiffer penalties was the early March death of Stone Foltz, 20, of Delaware, Ohio, who died from alcohol poisoning following a fraternity event at Bowling Green State University during which pledges were expected to consume large amounts of alcohol.

[GoldBows]

Good. You know what else hobbles immature adults for life? Injuries sustained while being hazed.

[DGTess]

Originally Posted by GoldBows

Good. You know what else hobbles immature adults for life? Injuries sustained while being hazed.

ABSOLUTELY THIS!

[Kevin]

In these cases, there are already laws being broken. There are already charges which can be filed. This is going to be a piling on of charges, and generally speaking, society does not benefit at all from turning people into felons.

[*winter*]

That was my thought. Some of these people absolutely deserve to be felons, but they’ve broken enough laws to merit that without creating a new law.

[Kevin]

It also seems pretty Orwellian to me.

C) No parent or guardian whose child is a student at any
primary, secondary, or post-secondary school or any other public
or private educational institution who knows, or has reasonable
cause to suspect based on facts that would cause a reasonable
person in a similar position to suspect, that a person
associated with the school or institution has suffered or faces
a threat of suffering any physical or mental wound, injury,
disability, or condition of a nature that reasonably indicates
hazing shall recklessly fail to immediately report that
knowledge or reasonable cause to a law enforcement agency in the
county in which the victim of hazing resides or in which the
hazing is occurring or has occurred.

So I get that the mandatory reporter language is similar to that used in the context of child abuse or neglect mandatory reporting. I don't like where this mandatory reporter mission creep is headed and I think there's a huge difference between reporting abuse or neglect of a child and being a mandatory reporter of what adults, who are capable of advocating for themselves, are doing.

[Sciencewoman]

In that sentence, is it the parent or guardian who is in trouble if they fail to report suspected hazing? Does child = minor child or any age offspring?

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Sciencewoman

In that sentence, is it the parent or guardian who is in trouble if they fail to report suspected hazing? Does child = minor child or any age offspring?

Since it is referring to children attending a post-secondary school, the vast majority of those students will be adults.