Homeless mom sentenced to 5 years in prison for “stealing” son’s education

[Catherina]

Homeless mom sentenced to 5 years in prison for “stealing” son’s education
Published: FEBRUARY 28, 2012

...

I can barely believe I’m having to type this sentence again. In a post just last year, I wrote about a woman in Ohio who was convicted of lying about where she lived in order to get her daughters into a better school district and was sentenced to 10 days in county jail, three years of probation, community service, and payment of up to $30,000 in back tuition she could be required to pay the school. At the time, I (morbidly) joked that I’m surprised they didn’t hit her with life in prison and tattoo “Thug Life” on her upper stomach.

Now, a year later, the same twisted logic and interpersonal and systemic racism has landed another mother in jail for the simple “crime” of wanting her child to access public education.

Tanya McDowell was living as a homeless woman when she was arrested for sending her five year old son to a school district where she- surprise- didn’t have a permanent residence. Ms. McDowell has said that she only wanted a better education for her child. Despite a change.org petition that has generated over 15, 600 signatures asking for the charges to be dropped against her, she was just sentenced to 5 years in prison after pleading guilty in the case.

As I’ve mentioned previously, this story really hits home for me because my OWN mother did this for me, driving 30 minutes each way to school and back during a tough time of transition for my family. But because my mother is white, and we weren’t homeless, or some other inexplicable reason, she didn’t have to go to jail for her crime of fiercely loving her only child.

...

http://feministing.com/2012/02/28/homeless-mom-sentenced-to-5-years-in-prison-for-stealing-sons-education/#more-44975

America, you astound me and not in a good way these days.

[midnight]

1. I hope a real smart attorney sees this and steps in...

[Catherina]

2. Me too

This is heart-breaking.

[Warpy]

3. Yeah, because her son is going to be in truly desperate shape if she's sitting in prison

This is why we need to bring back tar and feathers. I nominate Hizzoner for the first candidate. Then we can work on the GOPs who are considering the state sanctioned rape of women who need abortions.

[msanthrope]

19. She had a smart attorney who got her a pretty good deal on 5 crack

dealing charges. She was selling crack out of the van she claims her son was living in. She could have gone to jail for 15 years, minimum, if she'd gone to trial.

[DirkGently]

4. Our priorities are almost fully inverted. If she'd gambled the economy into

oblivion, we'd be writing her billion-dollar checks. If she'd lied us into a war to help her friends get rich, killing hundreds of thousands in the process, we'd build her a library. If she'd decided her contempt for women entitled her to oppose contraception, she could run for president.

She sent her kid to school. We sent her to jail.

Unbelievable.

[Catherina]

5. This ^ n/t

[Catherina]

6. Does anyone know if any Women's Organizations are fighting such cases?

This is the sort of case where Women's Organizations should be leading the fight.

[Peace Patriot]

7. Mindboggling!

Five years in prison for a homeless woman into educating her child?!

Surely this is something out of a Dickens' novel, not a real thing that the 21st century U.S.A. did to a real woman and her child!

Really, it's just jaw-dropping! The long, vulture fingers of Bushwhackism reach into the future and everywhere. Stomp on the homeless! Put them in stocks! Strip Iraqis of their clothes and pile their naked bodies one upon another into pyramids of humiliated flesh for a prison guard joke! Snuff a few of them out--what does it matter? Where will Bushwhackism end?

We are on a bad, bad road, friends. I am sickened by this and by a long list of atrocities--to our own people and to others. It is beyond my comprehension how we got here--though I saw it all happen, like we all did. We leave our people to rot and die in hurricane flooding? We slaughter a hundred thousand people in the first week of bombing alone, to steal their oil? We torture prisoners? We JAIL a homeless woman for trying to get a good education for her child?!

What bloodsucking disease is rotting the souls of this judge, this prosecutor, this school district and whoever else is responsible for this? Have we arrived in Hell? Are we going to put up with this? Are we going to let our country become our worst nightmare of cruelty and sadism?

I am APPALLED!

[Catherina]

8. I was watching this when I read your post. Sunera Thobani: "War on Women"

Tomorrow I'm going to look into current US Women's Groups and which ones line up with what you wrote so I know which ones to support.

I'm sickened too. We can't put up with this. If we don't band together and fight this, we're complicit in hurting a lot of women who can't fight on their own and future generations of women too.

Solidarity sisters. We're going to need it.

[TheWraith]

10. What the article doesn't mention is she was also dealing drugs.

She pled guilty to selling drugs to undercover officers five separate times. That's actually what she's going to be put in prison for; the charge of sending her son to an out-of-district school is incidental.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/02/23/Mom-gets-5-years-for-stealing-education/UPI-96261330043930/

[pnwmom]

12. I thought so too, at first. But now I think she was actually given time for the "larceny"

of stealing a year's education.

She hasn't yet been sentenced for the drug charges, but when she does that time will run concurrently.

From the link at the OP:

McDowell was sentenced to 12 years in jail, which would be suspended after she serves five years, and five years probation.

She pleaded guilty this month to two counts of selling drugs to undercover officers in Bridgeport and is scheduled to be sentenced to as much as five years in jail March 27 for those charges. As part of the plea bargain, McDowell would be able to serve both sentences concurrently.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/02/23/Mom-gets-5-years-for-stealing-education/UPI-96261330043930/#ixzz1nlGQDtCF

[msanthrope]

15. She has five drug charges--three she was sentenced on, and the two she wll be sentenced on.

She dealt crack out of a van.

[TheWraith]

21. This sentence was for the out of district schooling and 3 counts of selling drugs.

The other case, where she's still awaiting sentencing, is for the other two counts of selling drugs, which apparently happened in the neighboring town. It has to be read very carefully.

[Neoma]

9. This is appalling.

Doesn't it make you wonder how many homeless moms and kids are out there?

[saras]

11. So would they let her live in her van in the place she sent her kid to school?

[truedelphi]

13. Whenever some big time war monger mentions how we need tobring our "Style of

Democracy" to other nations, even if it takes a war or tow, I think of stories like this.

No other nation does things this ass backwards.

This is truly astounding.

[msanthrope]

14. Five separate charges of drug dealing out of the van where her son resided????

There's a little more to this story. She's going to jail for the drug charges....she serves the larceny charge concurrently.

[kdmorris]

16. While I see that she was also dealing drugs...

the bottom line is that it's appalling to criminalize sending your child to a better school (the first woman got 10 days for it). That will only be used to prosecute the poor. You know damn good and well that if someone was making $500,000 a year and did this, there would be no charges.

[Starry Messenger]

17. Five years??

She shouldn't be going to jail for any of this. Some crimes like rape don't even get long sentences. Being in jail for the rest of her child's childhood is sickening. X(

[msanthrope]

18. She was selling crack out of the van she claims was

her son's residence. Perhaps the kid should not have to live with a crack dealer.

[Starry Messenger]

20. Tanya McDowell Sentenced to 12 Years for Stealing Education

http://www.the-savvy-sista.com/2012/02/tanya-mcdowell-sentenced-to-12-years.html

I literally am sitting at my desk with tears in my eyes as I type this article. I don't think I have felt this much shame about being an American since the execution of Troy Davis. It is times like these I am reminded that no matter how noble our written intentions are in the Constitution, our system is really only as "good" as the people who run it.

If you don't know the story of Tanya McDowell she made headlines last year when she was arrested for using a friend's address to send her son to a school in a better neighborhood. At the time, McDowell was homeless but wanted her son to have access to a quality education.

Now before we look at her particular case, I have to tell you all that yesterday salon.com ran an article about Presidential candidate Rick Santorum. During his stomp for the Republican nomination, Santorum has frequently referenced the fact that his wife home schools their seven children. Well according to this article, the State of PA picked up part of the tab to home school his children even though his family resided in Virginia at the time. The article went on to characterize Santorum's behavior as unethical but not quite illegal. The school district in PA, which tried to recover its money from Santorum, spent two hundred thousand dollars buying computers, software etc for five of the Santorum children for three years. Oh by the way, Santorum refused to repay the money and the State of PA eventually picked up the tab (what was that again about not making Black people rich by giving them other people's money?).

So this man can lie about his state of residency and use funds from another state to educate his children and NOTHING happens to him but a poor, homeless, mother wants to use someone else's address to send her child to the best school district in her area and it's considered theft of education??? Please tell me I am not the only person who sees something wrong with this scenario.