# Is it kidnapping? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 27, 2011, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-kidnapping/569230 "2011-01-27T20:32:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-kidnapping/569230/21 "2011-01-30T23:49:07Z")
> [@xoferew](#): > > Can you take her with you to find a phone? Does it matter if she is willing or unwilling to go with you? If you take her into a store and her mother comes looking for her, can you be charged with kidnapping, or is it a good samaritan thing? Do you have to move a certain distance before it is kidnapping? Maybe you just go five feet into a store with her, but she is no longer visible from the street. Maybe you want to get her inside because it is so hot/cold/pouring rain outside. Maybe she describes running out of a store and from her description you recognize that it’s a store two blocks away, and you take her back there. I’ve always told myself that if this happened, I would need to ask a perfect stranger, preferrably a woman (\*), to help me do whatever needed to be done (walk the child to the info counter at the mall, for instance). Hopefully this would disarm most allegations of pedophilia, kidnapping, etc. (\*) I’m a guy. Gay, at that. Imagine. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-kidnapping/569230/22 "2011-01-31T17:39:54Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > But a school or child care center derives its authority to keep children and make decisions for them from the parents who entrust their child there. As soon as I, as a parent, decide my child will no longer be attending said school or child care center, their authority ends immediately. > > I’d fully expect a teacher to report certain behaviors by a parent to the police (in fact, that’s mandated), but preventing a parent from taking a child home? That’s an awfully difficult thing for a school to do. I guess there are the different law philosophies/ culture at the root of this. Here, we put the welfare of the children above the parents freedom to do what they like. So kids must go to school, must get their mandatory vaccinations, must not be beaten, etc. That a parent is present would not absolve the school of their responsibilty towards the child’s welfare. (And there’s an ongoing contract between school and parent, that the parent would have to cancel before he could take complete control of his child again.) ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2011, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-kidnapping/569230/23 "2011-01-31T17:41:40Z")
> [@Heracles](#): > > I’ve always told myself that if this happened, I would need to ask a perfect stranger, preferrably a woman (\*), to help me do whatever needed to be done (walk the child to the info counter at the mall, for instance). Hopefully this would disarm most allegations of pedophilia, kidnapping, etc. > > (\*) I’m a guy. Gay, at that. Imagine. That sounds like the best strategy for guys in todays paranoid society: contact a woman to get help, don’t touch the child yourself. Over here, you could of course also ask a policeman/woman (Who are “your friend and helper”), but with US cops, things are different of course. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2011, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-kidnapping/569230/24 "2011-01-31T19:24:29Z")
In a relatively similar vein, there was an article about the police planting a wallet with money in it in the New York subway. Unsuspecting victims would pick up thewallet, take it with them, then get arrested for theft by the NYPD. Obviously there was a shortage of crime in the metropolitain area. The logic was - to avoid theft charges, you must turn over found material as expeditiously as possible. There’s a manned ticket booth somewhere in the station. Telling the police “That was my train. I was planning to turn it in where I exit the subway…” was not good enough. The police wrote a summons and said “Tell it to the judge”. In a similar vein, a friend who worked in Saudi Arabia for several years repeated the old story that if you lose your wallet, it will be right where you dropped it two days later, because an honest citizen would be terrified to touch it for fear of being charged by police as a thief (not a good thing in Arabia). So to the OP’s question… where does North America stand on moving someone’s kid? Well, you better have demonstrated definite intent to take the child directly to help, especially if male(gay or straight). You better be prepared to explain why you could not call for help, ask a passerby to call for help, did you head directly for the nearest open building likely to have a phone (like a store), etc. You quickly would learn why corporate lawyer think like they do - whether you are charged or not, if someone even thought there was question what was going on… if you did not spend a fortune on legal defense, at the least you would end up on the local watch list, maybe be added to a mug shot book, and be interviewed every time there was an “incident”. As for the “drunk mom” question… In many jurisdictions, child care professionals, teachers, doctors, etc. are OBLIGED to report incidents of child abuse. Therefore, at the very least you are obliged to call the authorities. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2011, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-kidnapping/569230/25 "2011-02-01T02:15:29Z")
In Ohio, dentists are also required to report suspected abuse. Battered women and children often have their teeth messed up by their abusers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-kidnapping/569230.md?page=1)