Two posts right now got me thinking about this: do we default to putting things into the legal system too often?

For example: the school that, upon finding the girl carrying around the recorder, got the mom charged with a felony. 

Or all those times you hear about teenagers doing something stupid but ultimately not very harmful - minor acts of vandalism, sexting each other or taking naked photos of themselves

or the "free range parents" who got arrested after people called the cops after seeing their daughters walking to a nearby park. 

Or like the Danish woman who, as was her custom, left the baby outside, and ended up getting strip searched. 

Or the disruptive 5 year old that a kindergarten called their school police officer to deal with (he slammed the kid on the floor and basically hogtied him.) 

It seems to me that a lot of these would be best resolved outside of the criminal justice system. Either through someone just having a conversation with the person, or through some other formal system.