Losing Sleep Over The Safety Of Children

School shootings claiming the lives of six students and a principal over the course of five days last week have rattled the already-fragile sleep of parents. The killings in three quiet communities culminated with multiple murders in a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County, Penn. — the last place one would expect to see modern day pathological violence. That particular attack blew away, once and for all, the delusion that “it can’t happen here.” So this week school officials reviewed their school security procedures, asking themselves the question that was on ever parent’s mind: Can and should we do more?

While we were all preoccupied with this question, however, a new state law took effect October 1 that will do more to protect the health and safety of our children than all the extra locks, security guards, and metal detectors that are likely to appear in Connecticut schools as a result the events of the last week. The state’s new ban on lock-in house parties for teens where underage drinkers are served alcohol prohibits minors from possessing alcohol, even on private property. By imposing fines up to $500 and possible prison terms of up to a year for repeat offenders, the new law adds enforcement heft to an three-year-old local ordinance prohibiting anyone from hosting a party at which alcoholic beverages are served to minors without their parents or guardians being present. That ordinance carried only a $90 fine, which for some Newtown families amounts to a small party planning expense.

Alcohol-related motor vehicle accidents kill someone every 31 minutes, and half of those fatalities are teens. Motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death for people age 15 to 20, and a quarter of the young people who are killed this way die with alcohol in their bloodstreams.

Drunk driving is a crime that takes place every day in Newtown, and it is a crime that routinely kills people. It can, and does, happen here. We hope Connecticut’s crackdown on underage drinking helps keep those few remaining parents who host lock-in parties awake at night, thinking about what it would be like to spend a year in jail. We know it will help the rest of us sleep a little better.