Overkill or No Kill at All

[Strike For The South]

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?

[Centurion1]

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.

[CrossLOPER]

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.

[Crazed Rabbit]

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

[Rhyfelwyr]

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.

[HoreTore]

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

[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.

[Aemilius Paulus]

Have we lost all discernment in favor of the rulebook?[/B]

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.

[Subotan]

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?

"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.

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.