Sex, Guns, Drugs and Zero Tolerance

One of the problems, if not the biggest, facing today's educators is progressively dealing with ill behaved students and determining appropriate consequences for these actions. Around the country many methods have been tried, but no solution has become more widely known and enforced than zero tolerance. Zero tolerance policy is a rule that states automatic punishment for infractions of a stated rule, with the intention of eliminating undesirable conduct . Many students who had done nothing wrong have been caught in the web of the zero tolerance and suspended or expelled. Although intended to decrease the amount of violence, drugs and harassment in schools, zero tolerance policies have replaced logic in today's school system with harsh, sweeping policies that have resulted in unjustifiable punishments and consequences that do not

serve as lessons for these youth.

Zero tolerance aims to solve is violence in schools. This phrase is intended to describe America's response to student misbehavior post 911. Zero tolerance suggests a school should and will automatically and severely punish a student for a number of infractions that vary in intensity and level (ABA). The policy is very strict and leaves little room for interpretation of the rule that has been broken, which has resulted in many students being unjustly punished.

A negative result of zero tolerance policies are the reactive punishments that go along with the rules. Many times a child will be suspended for long periods of time. During this extended period of "punishment" the student is not in school learning educational material. This is very counter-intuitive to what discipline should do: which is try to sway the child from their disobedient ways. Realistically, this gives the child a sort of prolonged vacation where they may be exposed to more negative things. In addition, a child may be expelled as a result of breaking a rule that falls under the zero tolerance mandate. When a child is expelled often times they are sent away to schools for "troubled" children. In these schools are children with serious behavioral problems. When sending a child to one of these schools it serves to exposes the student to more things that are trying to be discouraged with zero tolerance policies. Even when zero tolerance policies are violated there should be alternatives to out of school suspension and expulsion. The consequences of the crime should be related to the offense.

Zero tolerance policies have had their advantages in some schools. Ninety-four percent of schools report having a zero tolerance policy against firearms which was largely a result of a poll taken in 1995. This poll taken by The School Crime Victimization survey showed that nearly 12 percent of students in a selected area of the country knew or knew of a person who brought a firearm or weapon of some kind (McAndrews). There has been no real study to show whether or not these zero tolerance policies have increased or decreased the amount of violence in schools and the number of students who bring firearms to school. We have to assume that these policies have somewhat decreased these numbers because of the harsher punishments for these actions.

Whatever positive effects this policy has had on schools, zero tolerance can be seen to outweigh its negative side effects than its positive ones. Many students have been punished under the policy where little to no punishment was due, but because of the zero tolerance policies that many schools have adapted these students have had to undergo punishment that was harshly unjust and in some cases students have been referred to the local police department and arrested. For example, In Palm Beach, Florida, a 14-year-old disabled student was referred to the principal's office for allegedly stealing $2 from another student. The principal referred the child to the police, where he was charged with strong-armed robbery, and held for six weeks in an adult jail for this, his first arrest. When the local media criticized the prosecutor's decision to file adult felony charges, he responded, "depicting this forcible felony, this strong-arm robbery, in terms as though it were no more than a $2 shoplifting fosters and promotes violence in our schools." Charges were dropped by the prosecution when a 60 Minutes II crew showed up at the boy's hearing (ABA). This example shows little discretion by the members of the school district there and even went as high up as the district attorney. Thinking that making an example out of this 14-year-old boy will deter other students from stealing from their peers and being violent in school may be an accurate assumption but, if this example can only be achieved through humiliating and harshly punish a 14-year-old disabled boy many people would say that it is safe to say that there must be another way of deterring this country's youth form being violent in schools.

This 14-year-old boy was not the only one who has fallen victim to the harsh and failing policies of zero tolerance. In Ponchatoula Louisiana, a 12-year-old who had been diagnosed with a hyperactive disorder warned the kids in the lunch line not to eat all the potatoes, or "I'm going to get you." The student, turned in by the lunch monitor, was suspended for two days. He was then referred to police by the principal, and the police charged the boy with making "terroristic threats." He was incarcerated for two weeks while awaiting trial. In another case of zero tolerance policies failing an honor roll student at