| The Price of Zero Tolerance |
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| Written by Jeff Garvas | |
| Friday, 07 March 2008 | |
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Cleveland's Channel 5 news has a story out of Lima that demonstrates the cost of zero tolerance on our children: Police Arrest Girl Who Says She Took Knife To School To Cut Apple. Zero tolerance policies are school official's answer to mass casualty shootings (where, quite honestly, the shooters were not hindered by the fact that murder is a serious criminal offense). Its somewhat of a given to say that you can't have a gun in a school as a child. But to say that key chains that look like a "weapon" are punishable, or my favorite, the children expelled for playing cops and robbers with finger-guns, is asinine at best. We are expelling and punishing children (or in this case, young adults) who have no intent to do harm. From the article: School officials suspended the 17-year-old and police charged her with delinquency by possession of a deadly weapon on school property.A delinquent is often used to refer to a juvenile who commits a minor criminal act, according to Wikipedia. If the girl did not threaten anyone how are her actions suddenly delinquent? How is the simple act of possessing a knife to cut up an apple for lunch a delinquent act? Would we charge that same 17 year old girl with the same delinquent charges if she walked to the nearest park and ate an apple with a knife? What if she picked up a plastic knife in the cafeteria to cut up her lunch? While the answer is no I am beginning to wonder if we are becoming the nanny state commonly accepted in the United Kingdom and really would consider criminal charges and arrest for mere possession of cutlery. Sadly, this young woman's record is marred both academically and with respect to criminal charges because of the knee jerk stupidity of zero tolerance policies. Not only was this young woman responsible and just in her actions, she was eating something more healthy than the school district likely offered that day. My tolerance for zero tolerance has expired. If only we could arrest some delinquent school officials over it I might actually feel better. |