Zero Tolerance Essay

Based on the research, the context of “zero tolerance” policies has been examined. Furthermore, this study identifies whether these policies have essentially created effective solutions or merely increased problems for institutions and children.

Zero Tolerance improves the standard of policing. It reduces corruption and racist treatment because the individual officers are not given the scope to decide their actions on a case by case basis. Their response is set and therefore cannot be changed by a personal whim. It also reduces the kind of gung-ho policing that is increasingly common. It takes officers out of their cars and places them back into the community where they have contact with individuals. Chases and shootouts actually become less common under zero tolerance (Dennis, page 37)

Zero tolerance started as a way to keep guns out of schools until the staff at school started to use it as a way to report and punish non serious offences (Heitzeg, 2009).

The school-to-prison pipeline in the United States is a figure of speech used to describe the increasing patterns of interaction students have with the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems as a consequence of procedures used by many school systems. A specific procedure would be the zero tolerance policies and the use of officers in schools. Currently in today’s American schools many children of color are being unfairly judged and treated by the public school systems zero tolerance policies. Zero tolerance policies have been implemented in schools in the last 20 years that include inserting school resource officers in schools and cracking down on all behavior that any authority figure may deem as a form of bad behavior. The policy is based upon deterring future misbehavior and is central to the philosophy of zero tolerance, and the effect of any punishment on future behavior is what defines effective punishment (Skinner, 1953). Zero tolerance policies causes the school environment to feel more like a prison and ultimately leads to black and Latinos being judged and guided to the prison system. A zero-tolerance policy orders predetermined penalties or punishments for specific wrongdoings.

Zero tolerance policies have been implemented for a variety of reasons and within a broad range of applications. The two most well known however are California’s three-strikes law and the declaration of schools as gun-free zones. California’s three-strikes law was passed in 1994 and is an escalating scale of sentencing. Defendants convicted of a previous felony, or on their “second strike”, would be sentenced to state prison for double the term normally provided for

In the second part of Parenti’s book, Lockdown America, he discusses policing practices and their proactive strategies aimed at preventing disorder. In this section of the book, Parenti advances his argument by looking at crime through the eyes of law enforcement. Parenti looks at the policies of Bratton, the New York Police Commissioner. Bratton revamped the police force in the city, rewarded those that succeeded and were aggressive in doing their job and those that did not keep up with him were fired or put on the sidelines. His goals was to be efficient on every level, and being efficient meant enforcing the law even for minor offences.

With the creation of the zero tolerance policy, it changed the way student are being disciplined. In the 1990’s, in fear of the increasing crime rate, The United States Congress created a law that allowed public schools to enforce strict disciplinary policies for misbehaving students (Mental Health America). The zero tolerance policy states: “[the policy] mandates predetermined consequences or punishments for specific offenses that are intended to be applied regardless of the seriousness of the behavior, mitigating circumstances, or situational context”

According to Wilson (2014), “zero tolerance refers to strict, uncompromising, automatic punishment to eliminate undesirable behavior.” There is a link between the criminalization of youth and zero tolerance policies (Wilson, 2014). Zero tolerance policies have been associated with the term “school-to-prison pipeline and are found in schools across the nation. These policies lead to school failure and exclusion which in turn result in bad life outcomes and mass incarceration of boys and young men of color (Wilson, 2015). “Superpredators” became the label for juveniles during the late 80’s and early 90’s because there was a rise in high-profile violent and drug-related crimes. Boot camps became popular during this period

"Zero tolerance" policies are the new theme in fighting weapons and drugs in schools. These policies behind the pressure of President Clinton have been enacted in 47 states. The idea is to encourage states to get tough on youth that threaten their own safety and the safety of others. Some of the more popular measures with these policies include installing metal detectors at school entrances, the use of armed security guards to patrol and monitor students, and the automatic removal of students who break rules regarding weapons and drugs. According to the Department of Education, school districts that have enacted these policies are showing improvements in these areas. For example, Dade county public school officials seized only 110 guns in the past year from 193 the previous year after enacting a zero tolerance policy.

The idea has its roots in the “broken windows” theory, which claims that tolerating minor infractions encourages serious violent crime by ‘signaling that the community is not in control.’ Adoption of this theory in New York City led to a national trend toward “zero tolerance” approaches to street crime and school discipline, under which any infraction, no matter the circumstances or severity, is subject to harsh penalties. When coupled with the “zero tolerance” approach, this type of policing favors arrests over service and conflict resolution, or in situations where a warning or citation would otherwise be issued. This in turn contributes to soaring numbers of arrests, largely of people of color, and increased police brutality. It targets women and trans people of color who are the most marginalized, including street-based sex workers, homeless people, people with mental illness, and people with a drug addiction, or women and trans people of color who are profiled as such by police. This along with the fact that the NYPD has done little to change the perception that policing can target minorities through QOL policing

This study is aimed to investigate zero tolerance policing and the implementation of its policies into society. By focusing on the pros and cons of this type of policing it will answer the overall question on whether or not zero tolerance policing is efficient and effective within society. The theories behind zero tolerance policing can provide specific reasons for why or why not policing needs more or less discretion when performing certain functions. There are certain legal aspects that back up decisions made by officers and targeting the statistical data provides the rates of effectiveness with zero tolerance policing. Zero tolerance policing is data based upon implementation, the needs of the people backed with the results of implementation decide which statistical method of policing is best for society. Based on the finding from the data of societal measurement and effectiveness the decision on whether or not to continue pursuing zero tolerance policing or revert to other methods can be completely valid to specific fact based results.

Zero tolerance policing holds that strict non-discretionary law enforcement that is tough on crime, specifically minor offenses will decrease more serious crime. This policing style is closely related

“Zero-Tolerance Policy” is the leading cause of most disobedient students, the reason why most students drop out of school and the cause of insubordination among students. The Zero-Tolerance Policy is a policy that, like the name states, has zero-tolerance for anything. Anything seen as a threat or anything that sends an inappropriate message towards the community is considered bad and the student could get arrested, suspended and/or expelled. The Zero-Tolerance policy applies to any student, regardless if a student has any health problems and falls to any student between the ages of 4-18. It could also apply to a student who could have the lowest amount of infractions possible. They say that removing students is necessary for learning, but, in doing that, they hurt the student as well. Some places don’t provide alternative places for students to learn at, really taking away their education. If it really ensures a safe and orderly environment for children, then there should be proof. There is no actual proof that it makes students feel safer (Wahl, "School Zero Tolerance Policies Do Harm" par. 1). It alienates the student and makes the student feel as if they are the “odd-one out”. Due to the injustices that this creates, the Zero-Tolerance Policy is ineffective, because it teaches students injustice, lowers students academic rates and minor offences are punished.

The zero tolerance policy has become a national controversy in regards to the solid proven facts that it criminalizes children and seems to catch kids who have no intention of doing harm. Although, there has been substantial evidence to prove that the policies enforced in many schools have gone far beyond the extreme to convict children of their wrongdoing. The punishments for the act of misconduct have reached a devastating high, and have pointed students in the wrong direction. Despite the opinions of administrators and parents, as well as evidence that zero tolerance policies have deterred violence in many public and private schools, the rules of conviction and punishment are unreasonable and should be modified.

In order to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of ZTP as a model of policing, this report reframes these terms into a cost/benefit analysis based on societal impact. Put simply, do the benefits of ZTP outweigh its costs to society, in particular to the fair application of justice and upholding of individual citizens rights?