The Trouble With ‘Zero Tolerance’

icon gravatar.comwww.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/opinion/11wed2.html
sent by Fiore since 90 days 6 hours 31 minutes, published about 89 days 22 hours 57 minutes
Congress took a reasonable step in 1994 when it required states receiving federal education money to expel students who brought guns onto school property, but states and localities overreacted, as they so often do. They enacted “zero tolerance” policies under which children are sometimes arrested for profanity, talking back, shoving matches and other behavior that would once have been resolved with detention or meetings with the students’ parents. This arrest-first policy has been disastrous for young people, who are significantly more likely to drop out and experience long-term problems once they become entangled in the juvenile justice system. It has led to egregious racial profiling, with black and Hispanic students being shipped off to court at a higher rate than white students. And it has been a waste of time for the police to haul off children to the courts when they should be protecting the public from real criminals.
tags: zero tolerance, schools, state laws
10 commentscategory: Legal System/Rule of Law karma: 164

comments

  1. #1    What would Jesus think of 'Zero Tolerance'?
    written by zelator since 90 days 5 hours 25 minuteszelator
  2. #2    INJUSTICE DEPARTMENT GUIDELINES

    1. Zero Tolerance
    - a. Talking back
    - b. Profanity
    - c. Shoving

    2. Look Forward Not Back
    - a. Torture
    - b. Spying on Americans
    - c. War crimes
    written by Mike5000 since 90 days 3 hours 39 minutesMike5000
  3. #3    Good one, Mike.
    written by Fiore since 90 days 2 hours 13 minutesFiore
  4. #4    Zero Tolerance. That particular phrase always struck me as Un-American, are we not the Beacon of Tolerance? It was my warning flag about the approaching era of extremism. This was outgrowth of the Reagan revolution on the cultural side. Everything became extreme, Extreme politics, Extreme Sports, extreme sports drinks... Three strikes and you're OUT! Zero Tolerance, no mercy. Even if that was busted for a bag of pot, a stolen videotape and a hot bag of munchies. Life Sentence. Cops patroling the halls of every high school. Every rinky-dink police department has a SWAT team.
    It goes hand in hand with the Zero Tolerance Drug War. Everyone's assumed guilty, Pee test everybody!
    To me, that's the essence of authoritarianism.
    It's the Legacy of Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes.
    written by CwV since 90 days 2 hours 3 minutesCwV
  5. #5    It's time we had a WAR against zero tolerance.
    written by randydayt since 89 days 22 hours 23 minutesrandydayt
  6. #6    Z-T removes the onus of having to deal with the offense in a way that brings the offending student(s) together with school administrators to discuss more creative, e.g., rehabilatative solutions, to the the problem. School violence subsumes a host of societal conditions; it's too easy to let the long arm of government dictate blanket responses to the problem. School districts don't operate in a vacuum; they're part of a complex social system and must integrate themselves into the prevailing culture in order to anticipate the violence that Z-T portends. Teachers, parents, students, local elected officials must work together to identify and solve the problems. Ignoring the students might be fatal; let them be heard, let them participate, stop treating them as if they're the problem, and remember, violence in school is far too complex to sweep under the rug with a one-size-fits-all solution.
    written by zip since 89 days 20 hours 7 minuteszip
  7. #7    There is another twist to the sordid story and that concerns
    judges who receive kickbacks from the Youth Programs. Two were
    sentenced in Pennsylvania recently and they are typical of many juvenile justice cronies nationwide. Zero Tolerance is system fraud and self-"justification" that has bankrupted us all....legalized torture, rendition, arrest and unreasonable,
    search, illegal spying, seizure and detention (along with cover-ups of totally innocent victims of the system, left in prison without charges), and the assorted pillaging of our healthcare, financial and economic systems continue to fill out the unsustainable credo of this ilk. Moral compass? It is spinning out of c...

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    written by fbuckley since 89 days 19 hours 39 minutesfbuckley
  8. #8    Well said, fbuckley. The land of the free, where imprisoning kids is big business.
    written by conchobhar since 89 days 19 hours 31 minutesconchobhar
  9. #9    A round of applause for fbuckley!
    written by CwV since 89 days 18 hours 32 minutesCwV
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