Colorado passes law permitting children to play alone outside ‘if they are mature enough’

Playing outside is not ‘obviously’ dangerous, says governor Jared Polis

A playground in Denver, Colorado, closed by Covid-19 restrictions (Getty Images)

Children will be allowed to play and walk outside alone in Colorado after a bill was signed into law by governor Jared Polis.

Colorado’s governor signed a bill into law on Wednesday to clarify that children could play outside or walk to school without it being considered abuse or neglect.

Under the previous law a child was considered neglected if its environment was ‘injurious to the child’s health or welfare”, which led to a spike in complaints against parents

It helped contribute to a record 221,000 calls to Colorado’s child abuse hotline last year, the Colorado Sun reported.  Of those, only 13,289 were found to have been viable.

The bill signed into law by Mr Polis “clarifies that a child is not neglected when allowed to participate in certain independent activities that a reasonable and prudent parent, guardian, or legal custodian would consider safe given the child’s maturity, condition, and abilities.”

It includes activities like walking to school alone and playing outside.

The bill was passed by Colorado’s legislature in February following a bipartisan effort to clarify the law to allow children to play outside with “reasonable independence”.

Many Colorado parents have been accused of neglect or abuse for allowing their children to play outside, with one child telling the Sun she was visited by police after running in her neighbourhood.

April Hawley, of the Christian Home Educators of Colorado group, said many parents were also reported to the Colorado child abuse hotline for home schooling their children.

 “Once a family is in the system they are guilty until proven innocent, the very opposite of what our judicial system affords us in the name of liberty,” said Ms Hawley to the Sun. “Parents have a fundamental right and responsibility to make decisions concerning the care, custody and control of their children.” 

Speaking at a bill signing ceremony, Mr Polis said “Just because a kid is playing alone outside doesn’t mean that they are in danger, which I think is obvious, but it’s always good to put that in law because you never know, and we certainly don’t want parents getting in trouble because their kid is playing at the playground.”

Rep Mary Young, who co-sponsored the bill, told the Denver Post on Wednesday that the law was necessary to allow children to play outside.

She said that of 3,854 allegations of lack of supervision in 2019; as much as 82 per cent, or 3,169, were unfounded.

The Independent has approached Mr Polis’s office and the Colorado department for human services, who run the child abuse hotline, for comment.