Overkill or No Kill at All

An article for you

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/18/...ex.html?hpt=C1

Now this thread isn't really about the article but about a wider problem in America (Maybe in Europe to, but Glenn beck [PBUH] says they are already gone) In todays society we seem to take either the 0-tolerance extereme or the to much tolerance extreme.

Now I assume there are competent adults in power, what are they thinking when they are doing this? Who is making them do this?

I guess the answer would be the PTA who, when enacting these policies think that only thugged out blacks or mexicans will get cuaght doing bad things not there perfect little white child.

I mean why should they? The media is all about hysteria and these are the images we see everyday. DRUG DEALERS, GUNS, PREGANACY.

So I guess that means it would be a reaction to these boogeyman who lurk in the corners ready to pounce as soon as we let our guard down?

Then there is the otherside of the fence, where the kid needs a good crack in the head but doesn't get one because everyone is to hung up on what someone else might think or how it would look so the sacrafice there childs well being and growth to save there own face.

Does that mean likeabilty has overtaken what is right?

We have drugged up kids, kids who needs dads, kids who need moms, kids who need more hugs, kids who need less hugs.

Yet we seem more concerend with catering to the .01% of the absolute worst that these other kids end up gravatating toward one of these two extremes because that is what is presented to us?

I guess what Im really asking is this:

Have we lost all discernment in favor of the rulebook?

My favorite is the boy scout who got into wespt point but then got expelled from having a 2 inch penknife in his car from a camping trip he had just returned from....... ridiculous.

Zero tolerance policies are a great way to ablsolve yourself of drafting any type of effective regulations. I don't think they really achieve anything and considering the way that cases concerning extreme use of zero tolerance policies tend to work out, they serve only to point out how ridiculous zero tolerance really is.

They ought to be called zero-intelligence policies. It's a cop out, an easy way to get rid of the need to think up reasonable actions.

Zero tolerance policies ought to be removed.

CR

Despite the extremes of zero-tolerance/not doing anything, I reckon the vast majority of schools do act reasonably when it comes to things like this. I would say they do here in the UK anyway.

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Originally Posted by Strike For The South;2435593
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Have we lost all discernment in favor of the rulebook?[/B]

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Oh yes, I do not even need to explain why.

The sad part is, by arresting the children and making them think they have committed a dire offence, we are making them criminals in turn. You only need to wildly overpunish a child a few times before he or she begins thinking of herself as a 'bad' person, and soon she is desensitised to her own transgressions, and simply rebels in an apathy resulting from helplessness.

Child labour is forbidden today, and yet is often argued that having a job at, say, the start of teenage years (I mean about 12 or so) builds character and responsibility, if the work is not too loathsome or difficult to the child. Now, of course, children can work for pay for, say, a neighbour, moving their lawn, and so the child labour laws are very much relevant because they prevent the exploitation of children. I make no claim that child labour laws should be adjusted - instead I am using the spirit in which these laws were passed to contrast with the spirit in which children are prosecuted today. Chores are an example of this. Leave a child with no responsibilities, and character development may stumble. But this is not entirely proven and exceptions, of course, abound.

What is, however, proven, is the effect of punishment on children, and how excessive punishment leads to crime later in life. Kids can become used to being 'bad', and this attitude is worrisome for an adult to espouse. Today's American society insists on protecting children from adult work, but at the same time punishes the children just as adults, with no regard for the nature of children.

This is child abuse, and the people responsible should be locked away for years.

She's cute. Watch me get 10 years for saying that and come out pro criminal with experience in some prison loving (no homo). If I'm lucky I'd get "sexual offender" tattooed on my forehead instead.

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Originally Posted by Weebeast

She's cute. Watch me get 10 years for saying that and come out pro criminal with experience in some prison loving (no homo). If I'm lucky I'd get "sexual offender" tattooed on my forehead instead.

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Are you drunk?

^ im wondering the same thing. or excessively disillusioned.

Edit: or both very very very very very drunk and disillusioned

Apparently common sense isn't as common as we thought. Have her stay after school to scrub the desk clean or clean all the desks in the classroom of gum, boogers, and whatnot. People should let their school board know this over-reaction shouldn't be tolerated, unfortunately most are probably too apathetic to care.

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Originally Posted by CrossLOPER

Are you drunk?

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Huh? Why do you say so? :dizzy2:

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Originally Posted by Hosakawa Tito

Apparently common sense isn't as common as we thought. Have her stay after school to scrub the desk clean or clean all the desks in the classroom of gum, boogers, and whatnot. People should let their school board know this over-reaction shouldn't be tolerated, unfortunately most are probably too apathetic to care.

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It is like this in every school, all the time. Or from what I saw so far in all the places I have been, attended, or had friends attend schools at.Punishment is very formal, very standardised, very bureaucratic, and teachers write off referrals one after another. Everything goes to the dean and then it goes on your permanent record. Suspension usually follows. Suspension has got to be the most illogical punishment ever devised (those who want good grades get a double whammy for missing school and receiving zeroes while the real troublemakers revel in a chance to skip school with no other consequences :no:), but it is widespread.

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Originally Posted by Aemilius Paulus

It is like this in every school, all the time. Or from what I saw so far in all the places I have been, attended, or had friends attend schools at.Punishment is very formal, very standardised, very bureaucratic, and teachers write off referrals one after another. Everything goes to the dean and then it goes on your permanent record. Suspension usually follows. Suspension has got to be the most illogical punishment ever devised (those who want good grades get a double whammy for missing school and receiving zeroes while the real troublemakers revel in a chance to skip school with no other consequences :no:), but it is widespread.

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Detention is also nonsensical. Instead of getting you to do something constructive, the kids just sit in a room for a while. Oh, my, scary.

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Originally Posted by Psychonaut

Detention is also nonsensical. Instead of getting you to do something constructive, the kids just sit in a room for a while.

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Hmm, in America detention usually involves some sort of work, at least from my experiences. Still better than suspension. However, another one of my experiences was that detention is primarily a primary education tool - not normally used in secondary schools, i.e the high schools.

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It is like this in every school, all the time. Or from what I saw so far in all the places I have been, attended, or had friends attend schools at.Punishment is very formal, very standardised, very bureaucratic, and teachers write off referrals one after another. Everything goes to the dean and then it goes on your permanent record. Suspension usually follows. Suspension has got to be the most illogical punishment ever devised (those who want good grades get a double whammy for missing school and receiving zeroes while the real troublemakers revel in a chance to skip school with no other consequences ), but it is widespread.

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You applied to colleg rigt. You gotta say whethr you were suspended, it can get messy or so i hear.........

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Originally Posted by Centurion1

You applied to colleg rigt. You gotta say whethr you were suspended, it can get messy or so i hear.........

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Huh? No, but I have seen suspensions and referrals dished out as if the were going out of style to-morrow...


Then again, the defiant and stubborn attitude of the American teenagers never failed to amaze me. In my entire HS history, I have seen tens of referrals handed out, and not once a person back down when a teacher made an objection...

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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

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Jesus Christ, I live there.

I would have really laughed if the junior high school in question was Russell Sage.

EDIT: OH ****, JHS 190, it IS Russell Sage! Wow, how that school has fallen.

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Originally Posted by CrossLOPER

Are you drunk?

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Originally Posted by Centurion1

^ im wondering the same thing. or excessively disillusioned.

Edit: or both very very very very very drunk and disillusioned

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Huh?

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Originally Posted by Azathoth

Jesus Christ, I live there.

I would have really laughed if the junior high school in question was Russell Sage.

EDIT: OH ****, JHS 190, it IS Russell Sage! Wow, how that school has fallen.

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Is that a prestigious school?

"Thank God we live in a country so hysterical about crime that a ten year old boy can be tried as an adult" - Charles Montgomery Burns

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Lower Merion School District sued for cyber spying on students


Lower Merion School District officials brag that they give every one of their 1,800 high-schoolers laptop computers to "ensure that all students have 24/7 access to school-based resources."

Instead, they ensured they got a 24/7 sneak peek into students’ private lives by secretly monitoring webcams embedded in the laptops to spy on teens and their families at home, according to a federal, class-action lawsuit filed this week in Philadelphia.


http://www.philly.com/philly/news/ho...cmpid=15585797

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Merely overkill, or China in the US? A teenage boy was reprimanded at school for "improper behavior in his home".

Great. You sign up for a school with a "mobile, 21st-century learning environment". Then you find out this environment consists of the school filming and monitoring you and your family inside your home.

Including - for totalitarianism is always as much about authoritarian control as empowering 'the little creep' on which the system rests - a nice collection of all the girls (and boys) in their bedrooms.

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The family first learned of the embedded webcams on Nov. 11, when Harriton High's Assistant Principal Lindy Matsko reprimanded Blake Robbins for "improper behavior in his home," according to the lawsuit. Matsko cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam on the boy's school-issued laptop.
The lawsuit does not specify why the photograph was objectionable.


Because the webcam can capture anything happening in the room where the laptop is, district personnel could illicitly observe plenty more than a student's online activity, the lawsuit alleges.


"Many of the images captured and intercepted may consist of images of minors and their parents or friends in compromising or embarrassing positions, including, but not limited to, in various stages of dress or undress," the lawsuit charges.

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What right has the school to discipline a child for behaviour in their home? They have no jurisdiction there.

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Originally Posted by Beskar

What right has the school to discipline a child for behaviour in their home? They have no jurisdiction there.

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In the school system that I entered in the US, EVERYTHING you did during the schoolyear was their business. Whether you got into a fight in school, after school or on Saturday, it does not matter.

In Britain, it is everything that happens on the school grounds and academically.

If they suspected something like Child-Abuse, they report it to Social Services to deal with.

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Is that a prestigious school?

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No, just your average middle school in a not-terrible neighborhood. Better than Louis Armstrong, at least.

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The family first learned of the embedded webcams on Nov. 11, when Harriton High's Assistant Principal Lindy Matsko reprimanded Blake Robbins for "improper behavior in his home," according to the lawsuit. Matsko cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam on the boy's school-issued laptop.
The lawsuit does not specify why the photograph was objectionable.

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Oh boy, I wonder if the poor sap had been searching up pornography on that machine.

The real question is, how many people do you need to continuously monitor 1800 children 24/7?

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Originally Posted by Aemilius Paulus

Hmm, in America detention usually involves some sort of work, at least from my experiences. Still better than suspension. However, another one of my experiences was that detention is primarily a primary education tool - not normally used in secondary schools, i.e the high schools.

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Heh detention was fun for me as the principle really liked me, had to bring him coffee, we had a chat, he told my mom he was glad I made his work somewhat interesting. He nearly choked when I was send off because I made my religion teacher a stigmata-kit for Sinterklaas (dutch Santa Claus) It was usually 3 red cards you are out, I have gotten hundreds of them I was basically the running joke among my teachers. My principle once gave me the choice between detention and a good kick in the butt, I had been a smart-ass, since the guy was pretty nimble I chose the kick, and then he brought in my 2 meter high french teacher, thank god he went easy on me.

Hehe, nice story indeed. :laugh: I mean, I was always the teacher favourite, but I doubt I could have gotten away with anything that deserved detention in my school... Punishment is taken very seriously in here, too seriously, and it is all institutionalised, standardised, organised, legalised, bureaucratised and so on... The best teacher I had was my psychology teacher, and I spent the whole year talking with him, sitting in the back of the class, right next to his desk. I never did any of the classwork, only the tests, and got a 98. That was as far as favouritism took me.

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Originally Posted by Azathoth

Oh boy, I wonder if the poor sap had been searching up pornography on that machine.

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No, according to the kid, he was accused of taking drugs. What the school claims is him taking pills, he maintains are Mike & Ike candies (an elongated, capsule-like jelly bean). The school also maintains the security feature has only been activated 42 times for machines that were reported lost or stolen, however, the student's machine had not been reported as such. Knowledge of the feature was mixed among the students and some of them had put tape or paper over the webcams to prevent possible intrusions. This is a rather big local story, so there has been a lot of coverage. The school seems to be backpedaling now, so I think that even if the particular incident that sparked the lawsuit turns out to be false, the school district officials are in hot water. The whole thing has "stupid idea" written all over it, but that is probably just hindsight in my case.

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Originally Posted by Aemilius Paulus

Hehe, nice story indeed. :laugh: I mean, I was always the teacher favourite, but I doubt I could have gotten away with anything that deserved detention in my school... Punishment is taken very seriously in here, too seriously, and it is all institutionalised, standardised, organised, legalised, bureaucratised and so on... The best teacher I had was my psychology teacher, and I spent the whole year talking with him, sitting in the back of the class, right next to his desk. I never did any of the classwork, only the tests, and got a 98. That was as far as favouritism took me.

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Well we got the Dutch nature of being as devious as you can possibly get, it's something we can't control Dutch people will always be horrible, we think it's fun.

Girl touches (Yes, really), an ADHD pill offered to her by a classmate; she declines, but is suspended from school anyway.
The school's reasoning?

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"Someone hands them a pill or a drug or something like that and they say well I said no I didn't participate. Well the act of saying no is not to be there, not to be involved in the handling the you know they didn't have to put their hand out," says Marty Bell of Greater Clark County Schools.

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If you can cut through the tortuous use of the English language in the above quote, you'll see that the school's explanation is that she shouldn't have put her hand out in the first place.