That’s got to be an outlier? Small remote town + over aggressive cops with nothing better to do. This same exact story comes up in these conversations repeatedly. One would think that if there was an epidemic of parents being arrested we would hear more about it.

Around where I live (suburban though not as remote as the place in the article) I see groups of kids by themselves all the time. Older than age 9, but still.

It's an outlier but it's the leading edge of the Overton windowframe. The age at which it's acceptable to be out by yourself gets older every year.

There's a LOT of different organisations that all had to contribute to create a result this bad. Cops, yes, but that's just step 1. Social workers, of at least 2 different organisations. The justice system, including prosecutors and judges ... because if they wouldn't back the social workers there's nothing they could have done.

... which adds up to a lot of people that could have stopped this if they wanted to. NONE of them did.