2. Another mom arrested for sending her kid to the park

     Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and on this article she approaches a somewhat new and peculiar subject, that by her has been going on for a while. Williams starts put with the story of Florida mom who was arrested for letting her seven year old son go to the park. It is clearly stated that the boy did have a cell phone and that the park was about half-mile from his residence. A patron stopped him, and the boy scared ran off to the park. Consequently the man called the police. His mother was then arrested for felony child neglect. One of the excuses the cops used was that there where various sex offenders in the area. The research the author made states that there are no laws regarding how old a person can be before being unaccompanied. Some situation happened to Debra Harrell, who sent her nine year old daughter to play in the park while she was at work. At the time she did end up losing her job because of the incident. Williams does not ignore the fact that there are dangers within a city. There are murders and kidnaps of children, but she also says that "as few as 10 percent of sex offenses against children are perpetrated by strangers."
     It is only towards the end of her article that Williams perspective on the whole story is shown. she decides to first give her reader information, and then show her opinion about the subject. She uses many questions on the path to persuade her reader that those women being arrested was wrong. This leaves room for the reader to perceive her thoughts but at the same time create their own discussion and opinion. In one way she turns this situation into a situation of morals and opinions. For example, she believes it is up to each parent to give their child the independence their deserve according to their personality and competence. It is up to them to raise their child the way they believe is right. So in the end the parents are being punished for their opinion. She also notes that there are less traumatic ways to deal this this sort of circumstance. Overall this piece appears to be a successful persuasion, because the reader cannot argue that in the end what happened does affect the child in a negative way.

http://www.salon.com/2014/07/30/another_mom_arrested_for_sending_her_kid_to_the_park/