I was walking home from school at the age of 7. It was about a mile. The best part was the duck and goose farm. I would bring snacks to feed the geese through the fence.

Abandoning your kids on the side of the road to walk home 1/2 a mile as punishment is a bit different in my opinion. But not different enough to merit police involvement. Texas seems to agree with me:

https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/87R/billtext/pdf/HB00567F....

That's a 15-25 minute walk. When I was a kid, we used to walk a lot further than that just to reach wherever it was we felt like hanging out in the summer.

Long ago, in saner days, I walked to & from elementary school. Usually alone, 12 miles per week, starting at age 6. Distances varied, but 95% of the other kids did likewise.

Theory: This sort of "any excuse to punish parents" sh*t is a major reason why so many Americans are deciding that they'll never have children.

EDIT: Yes, obviously this effect would be a feedback mechanism that could only really kick in after parents had gotten relatively scarce in a jurisdiction.

I started walking to and from school in kindergarten as did everyone else at my school. Many of them over a mile. By age 8, the age of the child in the article, I was a member of the school safety patrol and responsible for making sure other kids safely crossed streets on their way to and from school.

So they took away an 8-year-old child's mother, jailed her overnight, she lost her job, and this is punishing whom for what?