Zero Tolerance Policies Put Students In The Hands Of Bad Cops
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I think it's baffling to have police officers stationed in schools.
It's genuinely quite scary to think how an officer that considers that an appropriate response might react when dealing with adults suspected of committing something which might actually be a crime.
And when the suburbanites hear about kids accidentally getting shot in gang hits in parks,[3] they want police in their schools too, never mind that the dangers are far less there.
[1] Chicago is the deadliest major (1m+) city in the U.S., with ~18-20 murders per 100k people per year. But it pales in comparison to small/mid-sized U.S. cities like Wilmington, DE (38 per 100k), New Orleans (53 per 100k), or Flint (65 per 100k). In comparison, London is 1.4 per 100k, Berlin 1.0 per 100k, Toronto 1.7 per 100k, and Paris is a hell-hole at 4.4 per 100k. In the neighborhoods where getting shot is a real threat, the murder rate is far higher than the above numbers per capita.
The list of top 50 world cities by murder rate has U.S. cities like St. Louis hanging among company that is almost entirely cities in Brazil, Mexico, Columbia, Iraq, and South Africa, or Honduras: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate. Compounding the average rates is the highly segregated nature of violence in American cities. As an aside, this is apparently mostly just a list of battlefields for the drug war. Except Detroit and Mosul, which I think are not so much on major drug trade routes like say Baltimore, but rather are simply parts of failed states...
[2] Last year, 319 Chicago Public School students were shot, 24 fatally so: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-06-26/news/ct-met-cp....
[3] http://nation.time.com/2013/01/30/chicago-girl-who-performed....
There may be one of the problems with police force recruiting: They set the bar so low that you don't need to be able to discern the limits anymore.
And then it's also easier to just say "ok, zero it is".
Also rare is an imprecise term.
The US jails more people per head than any other country, and also jails a larger percentage of its children than any other country in the world, so if you compare the situation in the US to the global norm, rather than rare, it would seem to be frighteningly common.
The peak of violence in Northern Ireland was apparently 1972, when ~500 people were killed. At the time, the area had a population of 1.5 million people, so the rate was 333 per million. At least 18 U.S. states have rates above 50 per million, and crime is the lowest in the U.S. that it has been in decades.
It's not about "fair", it's about exactly whatever they want. Or else...
The thing is, that when you talk to people about a criminal - "they did -foo-, and were locked up for -bar-", it's common to hear "that's not long enough! there needs to be a message sent!". But the Law Institute of Victoria (my state) did an interesting study: they polled people about what sentences people should receive for certain crimes, but actually gave them details of specific cases. Instead of being the shallow news "it was a burglary, the sentences was -bar-", they were given more detail. It turns out that the respondents suggested sentences were actually shorter than the sentences given in court.
It's pretty easy to say "lock 'em up for longer"; it's both quick and simple. But when you actually have to think about it, you realise all the implications - from rehabilitation and reintegration, to cost of incarceration, both fiscal and social. Zero tolerance has the least amount of thought available to it, so...
The truth is that there are many ways of not tolerating those things, and "zero tolerance" is an extreme one that causes harm. If it were named more accurately—"extreme enforcement", say—this would be easier to see.
I can understand why parents would support teachers who want to improve behaviour of pupils. And zero tolerance got a good name after it worked in New York. (Did it work? Or am I wrong? I'm aware of the freakonomics abortion-reduces-crime thing).
After all, these individuals should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us if they want to impose their will upon us without our explicit approval.
I have known a lot of cops over the years, and I can honestly say that there are a lot of awesome guys doing that job. But it also attracts these power hungry assholes, who could care less about law and order, and only care about pushing people around and compensating for what I can only presume their manhood inadequacies.
For instance, I knew a guy who was a very successful civil litigation attorney, very shitty attorney, but very successful. He worked part time as a patrol cop. Why? He did not need the money, he did not care about the law for a bit, and he could give two shits about helping people. But he loves the power. In his own words, he was bullied as a kid, and now it's his turn. That man is still a cop to this day, and he absolutely should not be one.
How about an officer who has to break the law/procedure to expose corruption or save someone's life?
Life is rarely so black-and-white; zero tolerance strips us of our ability to use reason and discretion based on the arrogant assumption that our rules and procedures are perfect and infallible, which is just silly.
This may be, but it still means that they broke the law, and would still be affected by zero tolerance. Just because the law is an arse doesn't mean the law has no teeth.
As for an example of breaking the law in the course of duty, in a lot of places police are required to have lights and sirens before they break traffic rules - no sirens means no breaking traffic rules. There are times when police serve better by doing just this.
For example, frequently with theft, they'll take a while to get to the location where it was reported - this is because the one place the criminal is not at is the site of the theft. So they drive around the location for a bit, sirens off so as not to alert the criminal, and see if they find anything suspicious. Then they can come in to do the report after the scout around.
If you honestly cannot think of a situation where police need to respond without using sirens or breaking traffic rules, then I would suggest you're not close enough to understanding what the job entails to be passing comment on their procedures.
No one has 100% perfect situational awareness which is why traffic laws exist in the first place. Are you arguing that breaking traffic laws does not increase the likelihood of an accident, because every statistic on the matter disagrees with you there.
And I don't see why an officer has to break traffic laws when patrolling for a burglar. Seems like breaking traffic laws would alert the criminal as much as running sirens.
The Earth is 12,700 km in diameter. I'm not sure how that statistic disagrees with me.
What statistics did you mean? Quote some relevant statistics, because just making an empty appeal to some vague authority - that you assure me is on your side - is a terrible way to argue.
Seems like breaking traffic laws would alert the criminal as much as running sirens.
Can you hear someone doing a u-turn like you can with sirens? Can you tell that its the police doing so? The whole point of sirens is to attract attention. They are specifically designed to pull your attention.
As for relevant statistics, since you mentioned u-turns: http://books.google.com/books?id=hct23LM0Y68C&pg=PA65&lpg=PA...
There you have it u-turns cause accidents, which I would think is fairly obvious...
Also, that's some amazingly judicious quoting you did there. You'll note I said "every statistic on the matter." I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're not a native english speaker, so for future reference this is how antecedents work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antecedent_(grammar)
Also, believe or not, criminals (like most humans) are blessed with more senses than just hearing, it is quite possible to notice illegal traffic maneuvers with your eyes.
As for your prime (and only) example of u-turn accidents, right there in the text it says that u-turn accidents are so rare, they had to add in left-turns in order for it to be analysable.
In addition to that, you've provided a statistic on 'making u-turns', not 'breaking traffic laws', which was your original complaint. The segment you've bookmarked doesn't talk about how legal the turns taken were.
it is quite possible to notice illegal traffic maneuvers with your eyes.
Your argument counters itself. On the one hand you say you can't see illegal manoeuvres, so they're always downright dangerous if not deadly, and on the other hand you say that any such manoeuvre is visible and obvious.
But that makes it pretty easy to disprove me, all you have to do is provide one statistic to the contrary. And no, just because something is rare doesn't mean it doesn't count, it still increases the risk of an accident. So If you'd like to provide a counterexample, you might have an actual argument.
That's not the argument I made, that's a complete strawman. My point was that other drivers on the road are not necessarily going to notice someone breaking traffic laws. A criminal breaking the law and paying attention to any nearby police will.
A criminal breaking the law and paying attention to any nearby police will. Contrary to popular belief, criminals are humans too, and frequently let their guard down or are just plain stupid. You really are assuming we're dealing with an idealised Hollywood world, where everyone is an over-the-top stereotype. This comes back to the point I made about not commenting on police procedure if you're that unaware of what the work entails.
Also the one statistic I provided absolutely agrees with me, are you arguing a small increase in risk doesn't count as an increase in risk? At what percent increase in risk will you deem it a legitimate increase in risk, since apparently we are going by how you personally feel and not what the numbers actually say.
Stop throwing up strawmen arguments and provide a counterexample, and yes it literally is in all the books, have you red your states drivers's manual?
It's in the best interest of the police and for scoping out the area around where a theft has occurred to not draw attention to themselves, by both NOT turning on sirens on AND by not skirting traffic laws. If they are are intent on not alerting the criminal, then driving normally would help with that. And if they are driving normally, then there is no need for sirens then either.
Please don't forget the fact that you have the privilege of being encased in a few tons of steel with multiple safety systems. When doing your moral calculus and weighing how many lives are worth risking to save time, please remember there are other people on the road who don't have that privilege. Cyclists have to be constantly aware of cars breaking traffic laws if they want to stay alive, and they are not as visible as you would like to imagine.
If there is a non-zero chance of causing an accident and harming someone by breaking traffic laws, and the only benefit is saving time or not annoying residents, how do you justify that?
I justify that because I am not an absolutist. If you're really going for the 'what price a life' argument, unless you're giving your entire income and free time (excluding enough to keep yourself alive) to a relevant charity (say, clearing minefields), you also don't believe in 'any-percentage-over-zero-is-too-high'.
The point is, zero tolerance is stupid. We need to have an appropriate balance between clear rules and discretion, so that the law actually means something rather than only being whatever the prosecutor says it is, without being so overly rigid that you have people being prosecuted for doing harmless or beneficial things.
The existing law is very, very far away from being overly rigid. Government officials have far too much discretion and get away with far too much. But it is theoretically possible to go too far the other way -- we just haven't, and never have to worry about doing so in practice, because of the politics of the situation. Politics making zero tolerance for police misconduct unachievable in practice doesn't mean it would be a good idea even if we could manage to implement it.
Yes, zero tolerance is stupid, and this remains a bad example.
If the suspect is flagrantly running red lights or driving 140 in a 55, someone else doing the same thing is going to be conspicuous. If the suspect is ignoring "no turn on red" signs or driving 65 in a 55, they're doing the same thing as 80+% of other motorists and someone else doing the same thing is not going to stand out.
> In this case, many police departments will not pursue because a chase endangers too many lives (I don't have a reference handy for this, but I believe I read about here on HN some months back).
You're referring to situations where the suspect is aware of the pursuit.
Yes, this is precisely the point. Zero-tolerance assumes that the law cannot be at fault, when we know full well that it can be. Ergo, until the law is perfect and unerring, zero tolerance is flawed.
Sociological systems are governed by laws of nature, and we can't just ignore them any more than we can ignore the laws of physics. Zero tolerance is a copout. It sounds good, but real systems simply don't work that way. It might be manageable for congressmen or senators because the system is small enough, but is completely untenable for a system as large as a police force.
As for lying in Congress I would expect it if it was to protect the identity of a whistle blower or something like that.
The key in all parts are context, but Zero Justice explicitly denies context; it would be the same as giving the driver of a car what hits and kills a pedestrian because it gets bumped by another car the same punishment you would give for first degree murder.
"Conditioning the next generation into docile, subservient servants by using fear as a tool."
Yep. At least some students and parents are not being bullied and file lawsuits, which is really the only reason why we even know about these incidents.
There are far too many spineless dolts in charge these days.
Having armed officers in schools feels bizarre, especially taking into account the reduction in violent crime.
> Combined, these two factors have resulted in criminalization of acts that were once nothing more than violations of school policies, something usually handled by school administrators.
Even without the severe examples listed in the article this criminalisation of normal teenage behaviour is terrible. Teenagers don't have fully formed brains and haven't learnt how to behave in society. That's why we restrict their abilities to do things (they can't vote, buy alcohol, have sex, join the army, etc etc).
The military don't train for the expectation of support of the population.
Somebody does, apparently. At least that's the feeling I get when I see the proliferation of this kind of idiotic policy showing no sign of slowing down. The non-thinking robots in positions of authority and instruction are more likely to churn out non-thinking robots as a result. That may very well be the goal.
1. They're government or other not-for-profit organizations.
2. Unlike others, with which people interact only occasionally, they're experienced for 1000s of hours each by many, many individuals (and vicariously by those individuals' parents). Unequal treatment will be noticed.
3. Schools think it's part of their MISSION to teach adherence to rules.
The result is inanity.
My favorite dumb example is the girl who wanted her prom date to be her 21-year-old soldier brother, who wasn't allowed because 21-year-olds couldn't be prom dates in general (too old). The whole thing should have been settled with one phone call to his commanding officer, making sure he was under orders not to behave inappropriately. (Why that approach? Because the whole argument for letting him in was that he was a soldier, we should support our troops, etc.)
I do know a kid who got a misdemeanor charge for a hallway scuffle at a public high school. It was settled with probation before judgment and the requirement to attend an anger management course; but it should have been handled by a detention and forgotten. He is now a teacher at the same school, and if he ever goes into administration might bring some needed perspective.
Then again, with the prevalence of physical abuse against young humans, it comes as no surprise that practically nobody cares, and when they do, they rarely take steps to create assurances against it.
What about their parents giving “officers of the law” and politicians unlimited exclusive license to use abusive force against humans, rape children around the world, destroy the power of free economies to mitigate poverty, and improve the health of humans?.
You might want to check out Arrest Proof Yourself (http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-A...): it presents a thesis that what I've taken to calling the police-judicial complex needs a steady diet of the "clueless" to keep all those people employed. What this topic discusses would just seem to be extending that.