Just to show I keep my promises, I now present yet another installment of good news. The New York Times reports that school boards across the nation are re-thinking their zero tolerance policies. “Zero tolerance” is another way of saying that the adopting school boards have abandoned their obligation to use considered judgment in matters of discipline. The decision on punishment is made before the “crime” is committed.
I had some experience with “zero tolerance” during my brief service on the Groton Board of Education. The first defendant brought before us was a young boy who had brought a pocket knife to school. It was a tiny little knife. Nonetheless, it could have done real harm in the hands of a determined assailant, provided the victim fully cooperated. He said that he had forgotten he had it in his pocket, and we all believed him, but of course that was beside the point. It had been decided in advance that we were not to exercise any discretion whatsover in such cases. He had brought a “weapon” to school, and we were obligated to give him a ten day suspension (that's my recollection of the punishment; it may have been some other draconian penalty), whether the punishment fit the crime or no. After all, who were we to distinguish between a tiny little pocket knife and an assault weapon? That we must leave to god, I suppose, since people elected to exercise their judgment obviously should do no such thing. I don't recall anyone arguing that he deserved the punishment; only that we had no choice but to mete it out. None of the other cases we heard were much different; in none was there any indication that the boy involved had any intention of doing harm to anyone.
In a sane world our miscreant would have been required to stay after school, or pick up litter, or perform some other menial task that would have driven home the lesson that he should not do that again. Instead he received a punishment that did him no good, and no doubt taught him the lesson that he could not expect justice in this world. I suppose some might argue that was a lesson worth learning, given its truth, but I'd argue it's a lesson that is more profitably learned a bit later in life.
So, it's good news that zero tolerance is being zeroed out. Now, if only the voters would adopt a zero tolerance policy toward crazy, we might be able to improve things in the Congress.
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