DETROIT, Michigan - June 21, 2010 - A Detroit, Michigan prosecutor is threatening parents with jail time if they do not make it to at least one parent-teacher conference annually. Meanwhile, the Detroit public school system is bribing parents with $25 gift cards to Target for providing up-to-date student information upon enrollment.

Treating parents like children with a punishment and reward method of discipline should be seen as an “incentive to encourage those responsible to take an active interest in their children’s education,” explained Wayne County Prosecutor Kym L. Worth in a June 14 press release. “We should not have to legislate this, but what we have been doing is not working.”

According to Worth, Detroit schoolchildren are becoming increasingly more prone to criminal behavior, so this last resort effort to force parents to attend parent-teacher conferences should somehow control their children’s propensity towards crime. Of course, it doesn’t make any sense, especially considering that locking parents up in jail will only serve to make parents completely unavailable to serve as strong role models in their children’s lives and they’ll have to explain to their children why they were sent to prison.

“I know we need to try something different,” claims Worth. “The thrust of my proposal is not to lock up parents or guardians; that would be done only as a last resort.”