Parents wanted freedom. Prosecutors may see something else.
The idea fit the state’s identity. Utah has long valued self-reliance. Many families live near mountains, rivers, and open space where kids grow up hiking, exploring, and testing limits. The law recognized that not every childhood scrape requires a police report or a DCFS investigation. It gave parents breathing room. For a while, that seemed enough.
But Utah has changed. Over the last decade, high-profile child-abuse cases have reshaped public expectations. And with the passage of the new child-torture statute, the state has created a legal environment where parents may find themselves more exposed, not less, when children get hurt. A movement built on trust and resilience now sits in tension with a criminal code newly focused on the worst-case scenario.
The Promise of the Free-Range Movement
The original argument for free-range parenting was simple: children need space. Childhood requires trial and error, scraped knees and small risks, a chance to learn judgment by exercising it. Advocates warned that if parents feared legal consequences every time a child walked to a park alone, independence would disappear from childhood altogether.
Utah’s law tried to correct that. It protected parents who allowed reasonable independence. It acknowledged that a child walking home or playing outside is not neglect. Supporters cheered the move as a return to common sense.
But laws do not operate in isolation. They collide with culture, politics, and with other statutes passed under very different circumstances.
The Rise of Severe Child Injury Laws
Enter Utah’s new child-torture statute. Passed in 2025 after a string of deeply disturbing abuse cases, the law created a separate category for extreme cruelty and prolonged harm. Its purpose was clear: the state wanted harsher tools for the rare cases where children were deliberately starved, isolated, or injured over time.
No one disputes the need for strong penalties in those situations. But criminal statutes rarely stay in the narrow lane lawmakers imagine. Prosecutors are trained to interpret broadly. Mandatory minimums create leverage. And when new categories appear in the code — torture rather than abuse, patterns rather than incidents — the temptation grows to use them in circumstances far beyond their original purpose.
The gap between the spirit of the free-range law and the letter of the child-torture statute is where today’s parents now live.
When Accidents Become Crimes
Consider a widely discussed incident involving a Utah father whose children got lost on a hiking trail. The family spent the night outside in cold weather. A frightening experience, certainly. A lapse in judgment, perhaps. But a crime?
Prosecutors thought so. They charged him with child abuse.
This was not torture. It was not prolonged cruelty. It was not even neglect in the colloquial sense. It was a parent taking children outdoors — the very sort of thing the free-range movement celebrates — and being caught off guard by nature, weather, fatigue, or inexperience.
If a single miscalculation on a hike can lead to allegations of abuse, we should ask ourselves what happens when prosecutors have access to even more serious statutes.
Because the line between “injury” and “serious injury” in Utah law is not as clear as people assume. A fall. A broken arm. A case of dehydration. A child who wanders off and gets hurt. Each can be interpreted as evidence of reckless parenting. Combine two injuries and a prosecutor may argue there is a “course of conduct.” Add emotional distress or an unfortunate medical note, and the state may claim the child experienced “extreme psychological pain.” All of this can happen without any intent to harm.
The more specific our child-injury laws become, the easier it is for normal childhood misfortune to be reframed as criminality.
The Cultural Contradiction
This leaves Utah in a strange place. On the one hand, it has a law that champions childhood independence and urges us not to panic when kids explore the world. On the other hand, it now has a statute that encourages prosecutors to treat a series of mishaps as potential torture.
Both laws emerged from genuine public concerns. One grew out of fear that children are losing resilience. The other grew out of fear that children are suffering unspeakable abuse behind closed doors. But combined, they create a climate of uncertainty. Parents are left to guess which risks are acceptable and which risks will be judged, after the fact, as criminal.
A mother who lets her child walk home from school may be applauded in theory, yet questioned by authorities if the child twists an ankle or gets lost. A father who encourages adventure may be celebrated until an outing goes sideways. Independence is tolerated until it isn’t.
Why This Matters for Families
The danger is not just prosecution. The mere allegation of child abuse, let alone child torture, can trigger DCFS involvement, emergency removals, loss of employment, and permanent damage to a family’s reputation. The punishment often begins long before a courtroom.
Parents may become hesitant to let children take any risk at all. The free-range movement envisioned a world where kids build resilience. A legal system that treats every injury as a potential crime pushes in the opposite direction.
A Better Balance
Utah can hold two truths at once. Children deserve protection from real harm. They also deserve the freedom to grow up without every mistake turning into a police matter. Finding that balance requires restraint from prosecutors, clarity from lawmakers, and public recognition that not every frightful moment calls for punishment.
Childhood is safer when families trust the system. That trust erodes when adventure, independence, or misfortune becomes evidence in a criminal case.
Utah led the nation in declaring that kids should be able to roam. It should lead again by making sure parents who embrace that philosophy do not become collateral damage in the state’s fight against real abuse.