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Cheree Peoples was arrested in front of her home in her pajamas in the spring of 2013. Why? Because her 11-year-old daughter, Shayla, has sickle cell and needed to miss 20 days of school.
From early-on in her career, Kamala Harris was “tough” on truancy, eventually sponsoring a law that targeted chronic unexcused school absences. The result: parents of “truant” students facing as much as thousands of dollars in fines or even a year in jail!
But Peoples knew she did nothing wrong.
She’d been careful with her daughter’s medical records, and was working with the school to provide appropriate disability accommodations. So, when she faced pressure to plead guilty to her “crime,” she refused. Because what was her crime? Being a good parent?
Eventually, after a “really long time” spent in court, the charges were mysteriously dropped.
Before the truancy law was signed, Harris laughed about the idea of scaring parents with jail time. Years later, she says she regrets it because of the way it was used to criminalize parents like Peoples.
But her regret hasn’t changed the law – and speaks to a bigger issue.
Instead of actually working with parents of absent children, the criminal legal system punishes families and makes their lives even harder. And that’s the nature of the system: finding ways to criminalize someone for a problem instead of finding a solution.