Zero Tolerance Has Gone Too Far

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/18/new.york.doodle.arrest/index.html?hpt=C1

I’ve heard it time and time again, “kids are out of control, there’s no discipline in schools the way there was in the past, kids don’t have to face the consequences of their actions” This latest story from CNN makes such statements a load of bullshit.

“Alexa Gonzalez, an outgoing 12-year-old who likes to dance and draw, expected a lecture or maybe detention for her doodles earlier this month. Instead, the principal of the Junior High School in Forest Hills, New York, called police, and the seventh-grader was taken across the street to the police precinct.

Alexa's hands were cuffed behind her back, and tears gushed as she was escorted from school in front of teachers and -- the worst audience of all for a preadolescent girl -- her classmates.”

All of this for doodling something that wasn’t even close to being offensive on her desk. When our leaders talk about zero tolerance on crime, I doubt this is what they had in mind. The article mentions other stories of children being hand-cuffed for actions that cannot in any rational world be considered offences.

“The Strategy Center, a California-based civil rights group that tracks zero tolerance policies, found that at least 12,000 tickets were issued to tardy or truant students by Los Angeles Police Department and school security officers in 2008. The tickets tarnished students' records and brought them into the juvenile court system, with fines of up to $250 for repeat offenders.”

Ticketing students for not showing up to class is beyond absurd. In the working world if you don’t show up to work you will be fired, unless you have a really good excuse this punishment is justified. You will not however, be charged for not showing up to work. Whatever happened to giving detentions? Treating children like criminals is not going to encourage them to come to school it only fosters resentment towards the system.

“"Instead of a graduated discipline approach, we see ... expulsions at the drop of a hat," said Donna Lieberman, an attorney with the New York branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Several studies have confirmed that the time an expelled child spends away from school increases the chance that child will drop out and wind up in the criminal justice system, according to a January 2010 study from the Advancement Project, a legal action group.”

“Zero tolerance policies” is a euphemism for lazy school officials who don’t want to address the causes of the issues. I hardly think it’s a revolutionary proposal to suggest that rather than punishing kids so harshly for actions that are hardly criminal, we use our time and effort to take action to encourage children to come to school using positive reinforcement.

Let’s not forget about the police. Is it not true that children are raised to look up to the police as protectors of our civil liberties? What then becomes of the image of the police when they are hauling a young girl out by handcuffs for doodling on her desk? The duty of the police is to protect the people but, who are they protecting in this case? It appears to be the paranoid school staff that fail to see how cruel and unusual this punishment is. Common sense is lacking in both the police and education departments. It’s rather sad to see that the institution that is supposed to be preparing children for the future is inept at making logical decisions.

I’ve heard it time and time again “children these days are out of control and too rebellious”. Well now I say, rightfully so, if this is the system they are being subjected to then they should act out against an institution that at one time used reasonable approaches to dealing with inappropriate behaviour but has now dived into the deep end of insanity.