- Proponents will argue it’s about fairness and deterrence
- Lack of judicial discretion and a shift to prosecutorial power will end up with disproportionate punishments, while still allowing for discrimination
Zero tolerance never made any sense to me. When I got bullied and beat up, I’d still get punished, so it basically encouraged me to be violent back since the punishments were the same. It also kinda went directly against all the anti bullying stuff the schools would be pushing for.
Zero tolerance policies aren’t meant to protect students, and they aren’t even meant to protect bullies. They’re meant to protect teachers and principals, mostly from having to face scrutiny for how they handle bullying. They can just punish all parties equally and wash their hands of the matter, and any criticism can be deflected by saying, “zero tolerance; everyone was treated the same.”
It was here in Australia at a shitty Catholic college. Bede Polding, to name and shame.
Their zero tolerance was saying ‘no’ to a teacher. As if their fascism wasn’t blatant enough.
When oppression becomes norm (bullying is normalized), self-defence becomes “provocation”.
We don’t have this kind of policy in my school—this is my job basically . I work with grade level resource and the students with behavior. I have successfully remediated a lot of repeat aggression. As a team we are able to put families into contact with behavioral resources that are school/tax funded. The worst part of the position is honestly just the adults who want them gone. That’s just kicking the can… It can take weeks to bring dysfunctional behavior into under complete control. Sometimes I feel like I’m saving my kids from these awful adults, and not the other way around.
Zero tolerance is idiotic. We don’t even have zero tolerance for murder for crying out loud 😅
Everything is subject to context.
I forgot to take my adhd medication as a twelve year old and my mom gave it to me as I ran out the door. I put it in my pocket, forgot about it until later, and then nearly got expelled for trying to sell drugs [edit: because it fell out of my pocket] because of a zero tolerance policy.
I say nearly, because I’m white with educated parents and a sympathetic situation, so obviously the zero tolerance policy learned a little tolerance.
What is the next step once a kid is expelled? They join another school?
I was at a regional magnet school, so I probably would have gone to my town’s middle school.
I honestly don’t know what happens if you get kicked out of that- maybe you go to a neighboring town’s school, or maybe there are other schools for kids that get expelled, but the government still has an obligation to educate you until a certain age, so you don’t just stop going to school (unless you’re in juvenile detention, at which point you probably have a teacher on premises).
Is that another American thing? Seems like a dumb idea if you have at least a handful of braincells.
Mandatory minimum sentences exist outside of the US as well, and they are usually not a great idea.
For example, in Germany they introduced mandatory minimum sentences for possession and distribution of child pornography. Politicians were warned that it will have unintended side-effects, but the warnings weren’t heeded.
A bit later a (female) teacher noticed that kids in her class were passing around a sex video of one of her underage students and her ex boyfriend, that the ex leaked as revenge. She had one of the students send her a copy of the video as evidence, took that to the mother of the girl, handed it to her, so that the mother of the girl could go to the police with it.
In the process of the whole investigation, it was noticed that the teacher had that copy in her possession for a short time and passed it on to the mother, thus distributing child pornography. The judge was very apologetic and said the ruling was unfair and a shame, but his hands were tied, the law demanded without any possible leeway from him that she would have to spend time in prison, without chance for early release. She was also registered in the sex offender registry and barred from working as a teacher in the future. All for trying to help that girl.
Do you have link to an article about that, sounds crazy.
Have you heard of that 13 year old girl who was expelled for violence? Because she decked a guy who made and spread AI generated nudes of her? That’s America.
Ugh, yes… been around for decades.
They both have the appearance of doing something when in reality they do nothing to fix the actual issues because it takes more effort.
