Imagine trying to run your family with a “Zero Tolerance” rule in effect. Even if Jr. is in bed with the measles, if he doesn’t do his chores, he’s grounded for six years. That’s “Zero Tolerance”. Sounds kind of silly, and I don’t know of any working family that actually runs this way, because no matter our best intention, there are always valid exceptions that a human brain needs to recognize and evaluate.
Why then have we let ourselves become subject to Zero Tolerance laws in our schools and communities? Brent Staples has a great editorial in the New York Times on how Zero Tolerance policies have been bad for New York City.
Imagine that! If Zero Tolerance is bad for a huge, crime-ridden metropolis like New York, what is it doing to people in small towns and neighborhoods around the country? Sure, I recognize that some of these laws were put into place when parents, educators and lawmakers panicked after the Columbine school massacre, or after gang activity became noticeable, but in hindsight, these laws do nothing but hold us prisoner and no one has a key.
Locally, a few years back a member of a youth leadership group the Young Marines was suspended from school because she had wooden drill guns in her car. Or the six-year-old who took his cub-scout camping utensils to school and was suspended for bringing a weapon (a Spork!) to school. Then there is the 97-year-old lady who police handcuffed and took to jail because she had an unpaid parking ticket. The officer said he was “just following procedure.”
In New York City, where possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use has been de-criminalized, police are asking people they stop to pull this small amount out of their pocket and show it…whereupon they are then arrested for public display of drugs, which has not been de-criminalized. This is actually just cops behaving unethically, but still a cousin of Zero Tolerance.
These Zero Tolerance laws do not allow our school officials or law enforcement to use their heads and make wise decisions. Of course, many of our school officials would rather not use their heads – pointing to the Zero Tolerance policy is a great way to absolve themselves of any responsibility for anything.
Some of these laws and policies are a direct result of how broken Tort law is in the United States, where in many jurisdictions it is possible to become a gazillionaire merely by convincing a civil court jury that you were somehow wronged by the decision or in-decision of another.
However, I believe it is the young who are most unfairly punished in these instances. Just as Mr. Staples states in his opinion piece, the people who are most directly affected by crossing these Zero Tolerance laws are the young. Since young people also happen to be more likely to make unwise decisions, its like they have fallen into a large funnel where the only outcome possible is to run afoul of one of these laws or policies at some point in their young lives.
In the case of a local school board, these children usually suffer only a temporary injustice of a fixed term. A few days suspension and wounded pride. However, when it is an arrest, the damage can be permanent.
Even if charges are dropped, the arrest record usually remains intact, visible to all future employers, landlords and in this day and age, posted on the internet for anyone who knows how to use a search engine.
We should start at our local level, and insist that these Zero Tolerance polices be abandoned. Every situation is unique. We humans are individuals, and we don’t exhibit hive-behaviour.
If we can trust our law-enforcement officials to carry a gun on the street, then we can certainly trust them to make decisions every day on whether or not someone truly needs to be arrested or handcuffed.
As much as I detest the man, George H. W. Bush did get one thing right – we need to become “a kinder and gentler” nation.