Zero Tolerance Policies

Zero-tolerance policies developed to prevent drug abuse and violence in school in 1990 in the U.S. Even if those behaviors or small things minor offenses were done by accident or unconsciously, students get prosecuted and sent into the juvenile justice system as a punishment. Schools create disciplines for suspending and expelling students when they break certain rules. For example, if a student brings a weapon to school, including items that may not hurt anyone like nail clippers and toy guns, if a student has drugs, including medications or alcohol on campus, if a student says anything that someone could get as a threat, if a student does not obey teacher’s instruction, if a student fights with other students, the student would be given punishment with no choice. After adopting this policy, the number of school suspensions and dismissals increased, and the number of students who send into the prison also increased as well. Therefore, the school to prison pipeline became an issue in the education system.

Zero tolerance policies arose during the late 1980’s in response to a rising tide of juvenile arrests for violent offenses and the expanding view of youth as dangerous. During this time discipline in educational settings became much more formal and rigid. Discretion was removed from teachers and administrative staff in favor of broadly instituted policies, which often involved law enforcement and arrest. In 1994 Congress passed the Gun-Free Schools Act, which forced states to pass laws mandating expulsion for a minimum of one year for bringing a weapon to school in order to receive federal education funds. By the mid 90’s roughly 80% of schools had adopted zero tolerance policies beyond the federal requirements and in response the federal government began to increase funding for security guards and other school based law enforcement officers and equipment. These changes occurred primarily between 1996 and 2008 and mirrored changes in the juvenile justice system to more closely emulate the adult system.

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”

Everyday students of color are denied their right to a full education due to schools’ harsh disciplinary actions, such as out of school suspension and expulsions. Schools have a responsibility to keep students safe and provide a disciplined learning environment. There is no argument against this, however the methods utilized to provide a safe climate defy this common sense. More specifically, zero tolerance policies, which require students to be punished consistently and severely in a punitive nature. Zero tolerance policies arose in school systems during the 1990s when the justice system was “getting tough” on crime as a tactic to control drug abuse. According the Public Agenda removing students from school is supposed to create a better

Rebecca London, a research professor at UC Santa Cruz, explains about how the zero tolerance policy plays a critical role in developing the school-to-prison pipeline. The zero tolerance policy was implemented in 1990 in hopes to reduce the amount of criminal related activity in schools (London 2017). Because of the policy, many minor or small infringement of the school rules criminalized at-risk students. For example, students were punished heavily for carrying nail clippers, having over the counter medications, and even cutting the lunch line (London 2017). Students who partake in any of the examples or anything similar will be suspended or face tougher consequences than normal discipline actions compared to a privileged school. By punishing

Schools that are low performing have the highest rates of suspension and expulsion and the lowest graduation rates. According to Mississippi Today, “the dropout rate for students fell slightly to 11.8 percent in 2016, the lowest in five years.” If I were to eliminate funding as a barrier, zero tolerance policies would still exist- especially in public school systems in the South, amidst people of color. Zero tolerance policies are obstacles put in place for small infractions performed by students, which can lead to disciplinary actions such as: corporal punishment, detention, and suspension. These small infractions may be in the form of getting up without permission, excessive talking, etc. Schools should offer more alternative measures, which counsel students on their misbehavior and give the student an opportunity to amend his or her actions. These methods fall under a restorative justice model. Community organizations, like Nollie Jenkins Family Center, have proposed alternatives such as peer mediation and conflict resolution to help keep youth in a learning environment, off the streets, and away from a life of crime. A case study performed by Philadelphia Police School Diversion Program, discovered that after counseling students for infraction their number of juvenile arrests and suspension “dropped by 54%.” This could potentially be a catalyst in bending the moral arc in the direction of justice,

Zero-tolerance policies are school or district mandates that predetermine “consequences or punishments for specific offenses that are intended to be applied regardless of the seriousness of the behavior, mitigating circumstances, or situational context” (Position Statement 46: Zero Tolerance Policies in Schools, 2014).

In all grades of education, from kindergarten to college, there is a form of discipline known as a zero tolerance policy. While the exact wording is different from school to school, basically a zero tolerance policy means that a student is immediately suspended, asked to attend an alternative school, or expelled if they are suspected or caught doing certain things. These policies are in place to hopefully deter students from doing drugs or being violent, but the ethics behind them are questionable. Some research has shown that these policies may not even work, and other forms of discipline would be better suited to help students. The three main activities that result in the zero tolerance policy are being caught with drugs or alcohol,

Students are being handcuffed, arrested and expelled for possession of a butter knife or water gun, punishment that disproportionately targets African-American students, students being alienated and never returning to school after being suspended or expelled are all byproducts of the zero tolerance policies adopted by their school district. School administrators have abandoned common sense due to their adherence to zero tolerance policies by applying the same discipline to students that are guilty of minor offenses and non-violent rules violations, or just poor judgment as they due to

In the article Zero Tolerance Laws Are Unfair the author talks about a girl who gave an ibuprofen to her friend and was suspended for “dealing drugs”. Zero-tolerance policies are to blame. Zero-tolerance policies started to become mainstream in the mid-1990’s in an effort to get students who brought either drugs, guns or alcohol to school suspended or expelled. “A zero tolerance policy is a school or district policy that 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” (Mental Health America). Since the 1990’s however, these policies have grown broader and broader to include non-violent offences, such as a student talking back to an administrator or a baseball player bringing a baseball bat to school. How is it fair that someone who gives a friend an ibuprofen receives the same punishment as someone dealing illicit drugs? School administrations need to bring their zero-tolerance back to what is federally required and lose all of the add-ons, because as zero-tolerance policies have grown to encompass the unnecessary, it is especially harmful to disabled students, students of color, and at-risk students. The growing number of suspensions and expulsions, which mean more time out of school, make it harder for those kids to graduate.

We watched videos and read articles about the problems in the school system and the suspension rates. The first two video was about students being suspended and having their education taken away because of the zero tolerance policy. The zero tolerance policy is a school or district policy that mandates predetermination consequences or punishments for specific offences that are intended to be applied regardless of the seriousness of behavior.

Most school districts these days have initiated Zero Tolerance Policies against a variety of different substances, items, and actions. These include anything from drugs and alcohol to weapons and bullying. In this specific incident a New Jersey School District’s Zero Tolerance Policy derailed a third grade classroom party and traumatized a nine year old boy. In May, the school along with the local police and the county prosecution office agreed that incidents would now be turned over to the police. The Superintendent of the New Jersey School District estimated that police officers may have been called in about five times per day to handle issues in the school of just under two thousand students (Platoff, 2016). At the end of the school year,

“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.

Each student would be evaluated based on their record, where and when the incident occurred, and what the circumstances were surrounding the incident. If a student was relatively good kid with no past disciplinary action history, the school management was much more likely to have a punishment that actually taught him or her something. But times changed and education environment in public schools also changed considerably in recent years. Zero tolerance policies are concerning issues that are thought to be extremely dangerous in today’s society. The three main focuses of these policies are incidences of violence, illegal drugs, and alcohol. Zero tolerance treats children as if they were adults and takes away the ‘innocence of a child’ philosophy. This strategy could be extremely safe to the lives of the good students and everything happens by treating all offenses dealing with the aforementioned issues as well as all students equally whether the student has had a flawless record or not.