Laws should not force zero tolerance for common sense

[Dali Llama]

Laws should not force zero tolerance for common sense

By PAUL ROSENZWEIG and TRENT ENGLAND


Zero-tolerance policies mock legacy of Anglo-American jurisprudence

A KNIGHT RIDDER/TRIBUNE FORUM

In January, Adam Liston made a serious mistake. Liston, 18, a senior at Davis (Calif.) High School, dropped off a few friends at school on his way to the gun range with a new shotgun in his gun rack. Someone reported seeing the gun, and the next day, the vice principal asked to search Liston's Ford F-250 truck. Liston readily agreed.

Six police cars arrived and officers swarmed the truck. As they searched, his heart sank. He realized he had forgotten to remove the shotgun, unloaded and still in its original box, from his truck after target shooting. Liston broke down in tears as officers confiscated the gun and arrested him. He was handcuffed and taken to the Yolo County Jail.

Police charged Liston with two felony violations of California Penal Code 626.9, possessing a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school - one for when he dropped off his friends, the other for when he returned the next day. He was released on $25,000 bail. In February, the school board voted 3-1 to expel him from Davis High.

The Sacramento Bee pointed out that Liston "had been a model citizen since the first grade" and printed several letters expressing the community's outrage. Liston "had never been a discipline problem in school and... never had a run-in with the law," the paper stated. He maintained good grades and already had college plans. His mother was president of the PTA.

No matter. Administrators, police, prosecutors and lawmakers used mindless "zero tolerance" policies to throw the book at him.

Good intentions, but ludicrous enforcement

The American Bar Association says the modern zero-tolerance-for-children movement is a response to the school shootings of the 1990s. No one doubts the good intentions of those who pushed these policies; it's the enforcement that has raised concern. And Liston is far from the only victim of this noxious overcriminalization, although he may be one of its older victims:

• In New Jersey, Hamadi Alston, 8, found an L-shaped piece of paper in a schoolbook. He used it as many 8-year-olds would - in a game of "cops and robbers" at the next recess, after which he was taken to the school office, interrogated to tears, then turned over to police for "threatening to kill other students" for saying "pow-pow" during the playground game. He spent five hours in police custody and had to make two court appearances before charges were dropped.

• In Alabama, Austin Crittenden, 9, was suspended for "possession of a weapon - firearm replica," when he brought a tiny plastic G.I. Joe handgun to his elementary school. The third-grader's principal "had to tape the gun to a piece of paper to keep from losing it," Austin's grandmother reported.

• In Georgia, a 5-year-old kindergarten student was suspended for bringing a plastic gun the size of a quarter to school. The principal backed down when a local TV station inquired about the suspension.

• In Spokane, Wash., an 8-year-old was suspended for having two tiny plastic G.I. Joe guns at school.

• At another Alabama school, two boys were suspended for playing with toy guns that one had brought in for a school project.

Good intentions also create unintentional criminals

And those are just the school punishments. A 9-year-old in Martin County, Fla., was arrested for aggravated assault and disrupting a school function for playing with his toy gun as he left school at the end of the day. A 10-year-old in Alabaster, Ala., was arrested for supposedly engaging in threatening behavior with a toy gun.

A 12-year-old boy in Louisiana with hyperactivity disorder was arrested for making a terrorist threat after he told students ahead of him in the lunch line to leave some potatoes, or "I'm going to get you." He spent two weeks in jail awaiting a hearing.

Zero-tolerance policies mock the legacy of Anglo-American jurisprudence. As Roscoe Pound, a preeminent legal scholar of the early 20th century, explained, "Criminal law is based upon a theory of punishing the vicious will. It postulates a free agent confronted with a choice between doing right and doing wrong and choosing freely to do wrong."

Does anyone believe these children chose freely to do wrong? Perhaps it's time we penalize overzealous adults who don't check their predilections for overcriminalization at the door of common sense.


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Paul Rosenzweig is senior legal research fellow in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org) and adjunct professor of law at George Mason University. Trent England is a legal policy analyst in the center. Read more about these issues at www.overcriminalized.com.

[Mikey]

I disagree with the concept of zero tolerance as it forces many into the lowest common denominator of being a criminal when we should simply enforce the pre-existing laws.  

I can not tell you how many people I know violate the carrying a gun within a certain distance of a school just by being in the locality - but this doesn't make them criminals with criminal intent.  The zero tolerance laws have taken the 'intent' out of the criminalization.  

Truth is, I would be more criminally intent if I were to leave a handgun in my vehicle (albeit locked and hidden) if I had to go to a school to vote when I was out and carrying a concealed weapon.  And, when you theink of the zero tolerance laws, they attempt to enforce gun laws in those places where most law abiding, rational citizens would want an armed presence.  Of all the places where guns have been used, and with criminal intent, to wreak havoc, injury and death, schools and airports seem to be the most prominent.  

It doesn't take much common sense to see that the zero tolerance laws have been dreamed up by those without any common sense.  But, this is just my 2 cents worth.  Mikey.

[magooch]

Common sense from schools--get real.

[jh45gun]

Zero Tolerance is gun control that the libs want to happen to all of us some day!  :x

[FWiedner]

Zero Tolerance is what happens when special interest groups that didn't have any common sense to begin with, have an impact on the system.

When women's groups, ethnic minorities, and adherants of sexual deviance carry their endless search for "equality" into the public arena and into the public schools, society ends up with ludicrous "hate-crime" and "zero-tolarance" laws inflicted on everyone.

Women's groups and sexual deviants have a specific interest in "zero-tolerance", and that is to prevent boys from being boys in the hope that this effort will generate effeminate young men who will never become strong male role models, thus allowing those deviant groups to push their destructive agenda that much further forward.

The ultimate price of these policies is that the "criminals" created by the violation of said policies end up "neutered".  They have felony records for the rest of their lives, beginning in childhood.  They can't vote, they can't own a gun, they can't resist any of the idiotic tripe thrust upon them via laws supported by these special interest groups without violating some probation, thus pulling them farther into the system or putting them in jail.

This is the ultimate goal of zero tolerance.  It has nothing to do with protecting children.

It has everything to do with ending manhood, and that influence on society.

[Nightrain52]

Zero tolerance=Zero Freedom-As usual when Knee jerk laws are passed the results are what we are seeing now. Ban everything and let the justice system sort it out. Once again no one uses common sense anymore. Every day freedom as we know it is slipping away and if we don't put a stop to it one of these days the jackbooted thugs are going to be knocking on our doors. BAD BOYS BAD BOYS WHAT YOU GONNA DO WHAT YOU GONNA DO WHEN THEY COME FOR YOU. :music:  :eek:

[Mac11700]

Zero tolorance also means treating violations of said rules equally across the board...with indifference towards the individual.....and that isn't a good thing because we are all different....treating a tiny plastic GI-Joe toy gun...the same as that of a real gun...shows just how ignorant school officials have become...there is a major indifference to any young person who has anything to-do with any type of firearm in todays freaked out  society....and that is the real shame on us...as long as these liberals control the media...it will only get worse......


Mac

[Dali Llama]

Women's groups and sexual deviants have a specific interest in "zero-tolerance", and that is to prevent boys from being boys in the hope that this effort will generate effeminate young men who will never become strong male role models, thus allowing those deviant groups to push their destructive agenda that much further forward..

Dali Llama say that while he oppose zero tolerance policies which have gone to extremes, Dali think it a bit of a stretch to attribute such motives and grand schemes to certain special interest groups as do FWiedner.  Dali suggest that such a grand plan be far too dependent for its own success upon numerous actions of others. :-)

[FWiedner]

Women's groups and sexual deviants have a specific interest in "zero-tolerance", and that is to prevent boys from being boys in the hope that this effort will generate effeminate young men who will never become strong male role models, thus allowing those deviant groups to push their destructive agenda that much further forward..

Dali Llama say that while he oppose zero tolerance policies which have gone to extremes, Dali think it a bit of a stretch to attribute such motives and grand schemes to certain special interest groups as do FWiedner.  Dali suggest that such a grand plan be far too dependent for its own success upon numerous actions of others. :-)

I believe that another method being used to create an effeminate male populace is the overt drugging of children to control and modify behavior.

Current DEA statistics show as many as 8% of children in America's elementary schools are being force-fed Ritalin, Prozac, Thorazine, Haldol and other psychiatirc drugs under the guise of "controlling" ADD, ADHD, and other invented "disorders".

Parents are told "If you don't medicate your child, he can't be in the classroom".  Doesn't it strike anyone as odd that out of the estimated 23 million prescriptions for Ritalin alone, which were written last year, 90% of them were written for boys with the sole intent of making them more "manageable" in the classroom?

Does anyone realize that a drug dependent population is being home-grown?  How realistic is it to expect these children to leave these drugs behind once they reach adulthood?  Feel tired? Pop a pill.  A little moody? Pop another one.  A little restless?  One in the mouth.  Hungry?  Swallow a black one.  Want an all nighter?  Take a blue one.

Behavior modification in a bottle.

I think that drugging healthy children into a zombie state and "zero tolerance" are just sides on a single die, being rolled to determine who has control of  society.

[Dali Llama]

Women's groups and sexual deviants have a specific interest in "zero-tolerance", and that is to prevent boys from being boys in the hope that this effort will generate effeminate young men who will never become strong male role models, thus allowing those deviant groups to push their destructive agenda that much further forward..

Dali Llama say that while he oppose zero tolerance policies which have gone to extremes, Dali think it a bit of a stretch to attribute such motives and grand schemes to certain special interest groups as do FWiedner.  Dali suggest that such a grand plan be far too dependent for its own success upon numerous actions of others. :-)

I believe that another method being used to create an effeminate male populace is the overt drugging of children to control and modify behavior.

Dali Llama again respond similarly.  Dali say he not think that such a manipulative, planned grand scheme be extant.  Dali say that if desire be to "create an effeminate male populace," castration be a much more effective method and less dependent upon actions of others. :-)

[Dali Llama]

Women's groups and sexual deviants have a specific interest in "zero-tolerance", and that is to prevent boys from being boys in the hope that this effort will generate effeminate young men who will never become strong male role models, thus allowing those deviant groups to push their destructive agenda that much further forward..

Dali Llama say that while he oppose zero tolerance policies which have gone to extremes, Dali think it a bit of a stretch to attribute such motives and grand schemes to certain special interest groups as do FWiedner.  Dali suggest that such a grand plan be far too dependent for its own success upon numerous actions of others. :-)

I believe that another method being used to create an effeminate male populace is the overt drugging of children to control and modify behavior.

Dali Llama again respond similarly.  Dali say he not think that such a manipulative, planned grand scheme be extant.  Dali say that if desire be to "create an effeminate male populace," castration be a much more effective method and less dependent upon actions of others. :-)

Perhaps Dali underestimate the resolve and  adept social mechanics of the consumate liberal engineers. I.E. the 'hole' is rigid, formed, and unchangeable, but  'pegs' of various shapes can and must be forced into The Hole.

................TM7

Perhaps Dali not be paranoid? :-)  :-)

[FWiedner]

"Perhaps Dali not be paranoid?"

Or perhaps he just hope it go away if he ignore it for long enough...

 :? :?

[Dali Llama]

"Perhaps Dali not be paranoid?"

Or perhaps he just hope it go away if he ignore it for long enough...

 

What be "it" to which Fwiedner refer, ask Dali Llama? :?

[Dali Llama]

I'll take a crack at that. .."It" be the socialization, indocrination, and the further domestication of the American [and others] male into a 'politically correct'  social system/viewpoint as professed by an education system, which carefully selects it's members in a liberal [with all the liberal trappings] profile.


.............TM7

Dali Llama say that if that indeed be the case, then Dali not "just hope it go away if he ignore it for long enough."  Dali say that, conversely, he not be part of it either. :-)

[Dali Llama]

I'll take a crack at that. .."It" be the socialization, indocrination, and the further domestication of the American [and others] male into a 'politically correct'  social system/viewpoint as professed by an education system, which carefully selects it's members in a liberal [with all the liberal trappings] profile.


.............TM7

Dali Llama say that if that indeed be the case, then Dali not "just hope it go away if he ignore it for long enough."  Dali say that, conversely, he not be part of it either. :-)

And furthermore, TM7 suggest countering or resisting such described apparachis when occassions allow.

..........TM7

That be wise course of action as long as one do not allow it to foster all-consuming paranoia, say Dali Llama. :-)