Posts Tagged ‘zero tolerance’

Gasoline prices spike

You’d think one advantage of electing a Texas oil guy as president would be that, when prices at the pump react to a genuinely massive supply disruption as supply and demand predict they will, he’d know better than to direct public anger toward the ill-defined offense of “price gouging”. Apparently you’d be wrong, though:

“I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this -– whether it be looting, or price gouging at the gasoline pump, or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud,” Bush said. “And I’ve made that clear to our attorney general. The citizens ought to be working together.”

(Adam Nossiter, “More National Guardsmen are sent in”, AP/San Diego Union-Tribune, Sept. 1). More: Mark Kleiman got there first (Sept. 1)(via Julian Sanchez). See also Dan Mitchell of Heritage at C-Log (Aug. 31). And Don Boudreaux, after thanking Hawaiian pols, wonders (Aug. 29):

Would it make sense to haul before Congress a group of real-estate agents, or a few homeowners, or some home-builders to accuse them publicly of causing the recent surge in real-estate prices?

Yet more, this time from Jane Galt (Sept. 1): “Prices of everything rise after a disaster, and a good thing too, since that encourages people and material to flood into the damaged area, where they’re needed most.”

Texas lawmakers modify zero tolerance

Good news for a change: a bill awaiting the signature of Texas Gov. Rick Perry would restore some discretion to school boards, reducing the chances that students will be expelled over inadvertent violations of zero tolerance rules. In particular, according to a newspaper report quoted at Zero Intelligence (Jun. 6),

If the bill becomes law, students still could face severe sanctions for serious offenses, such as bringing a weapon onto a campus or a school-sponsored activity off campus. But if the bill passes, administrators would be able to consider the student’s intent or lack of intent, disciplinary history, a disability that substantially impairs the student’s capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of the conduct and whether the action was done in self-defense.

Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers took active roles in support of the bill. (Helen Eriksen, “Discipline bill on Perry’s desk”, Houston Chronicle, Jun. 4).

Preschool expulsions

Researchers at the Yale Child Study Center led by Walter S. Gilliam have found that a surprisingly large number of 3 and 4 year olds are expelled from community and private preschools, perhaps 5,000 or more annually. Zero tolerance and liability fears may be among the factors at work: “The study did not gather information on why the children were expelled. But Dr. Gilliam said a wide range of behavior could lead to expulsion: aggression toward the teacher or other children; actions that violate a zero-tolerance policy, like taking a toy gun to school; or anything that might cause a teacher to worry about injury and liability, like running out of the classroom to the parking lot.” (emphasis added) (Tamar Lewin, “Research Finds a High Rate of Expulsions in Preschool”, New York Times, May 17). Last December the Times reported (Dec. 7) on how liability fears sometimes drive colleges’ decisions to impose involuntary leave on students; colleges, like preschools, generally enjoy greater flexibility in expulsion and discipline than do conventional K-12 public schools.

Schools and sunscreen

Those reports from Bristol, England last summer (“It’s sunny, stay inside”, Jul. 6) turn out not to be an isolated case: in Montgomery County, Maryland, ordinary sunscreen lotion is considered a medication for which a doctor’s note is required, while in adjacent Howard County, a student who wishes to use sun protection cream must bring in a parent’s note and the bottle must be kept with the school nurse. The American Cancer Society, which favors wide sunscreen use as a protective against skin cancer, is upset. (Daniel de Vise, “Bill Would Legislate Maryland Students’ Use of Sunscreen”, Washington Post, Mar. 29)(via Taranto). More on zero tolerance: Kris Axtman, “Why tolerance is fading for zero tolerance in schools”, Christian Science Monitor, Mar. 31.

Annals of zero tolerance: 8-inch scissors

In North Philadelphia, ten-year-old Porsche Brown was pulled out of class, handcuffed and taken to the police station after scissors were found in her book bag. “School district officials acknowledged that the girl was not using the item as a weapon or threatening anyone with it.” (Susan Snyder, “Scissors get girl in legal trouble”, Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 11) (via Balko). The police and schools chief have now apologized. (Maryclaire Dale, “Police? school chief apologize for schoolgirl?s arrest over scissors”, AP/Lansdale Reporter, Dec. 15).

Annals of zero tolerance: Civil War replica musket

“A student who took part in a Civil War re-enactment was arrested and could get expelled after a replica musket was found in his car at school.” Joshua Phelps, 17, attends Pine Bush High School about 70 miles north of New York City. “Crawford town police confiscated the musket, handcuffed Phelps and charged him with misdemeanor criminal possession of a weapon, punishable by up to a year in jail.” (“Civil War musket has teen in jam with the law”, AP/South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Oct. 14)(more on zero tolerance).

A Different Sort of Zero Tolerance Tale

Ambulance drivers dealing with emergencies have been known to put on their lights and sirens, followed by occasional speeding and the running of red lights. Police generally do not pull over the ambulances and fine the drivers who are behaving in this fashion. But police officers have human discretion, while cameras that automatically record speeding or red-light running offenses do not.

In Britain, where speed cameras are pretty common, ambulance drivers have been receiving hundreds of speeding tickets each week. It should come to an end now, at least in England and Wales, because at the beginning of July the police reached an agreement with the health minister calling for a cessation to the tickets — as long as the ambulance’s blue emergency lights are visible in the photograph. The agreement was spurred by a particularly notorious case, as reported in this article from the Guardian on July 3: “Pressure for a change to the penalty procedure mounted last year after Mike Ferguson, a Bradford ambulance driver, was charged with speeding as he delivered a liver for a transplant operation in Cambridge.”

So, man triumphs over unfeeling machine — but maybe we shouldn’t be too pleased with ourselves. In the pre-camera days of the 1960s, British law against red-light running did not include an exception for emergency vehicles. As with the recent circumstances with the cameras, the 1960s situation placed drivers of fire engines in a quandary: their licenses (and hence livelihoods) were at risk, while some chief officers of fire departments mandated that their drivers ignore red lights. An exception to the red-light law was finally carved out for fire engines and other emergency vehicles, first in the common law — in 1971! — and later by an Act of Parliament.

“For Their Own Good: Limit Students’ Rights”

Richard Arum (see Nov. 14) writes again about the perverse effects of litigating students’ rights have had on public school education. A 1975 Supreme Court case, Goss v. Lopez, extended due process rights to student discipline, literally making every effort by a school to punish a student for misbehavior a federal case. (Washington Post, Dec. 29) (via Jacobs).

Naturally, teachers and schools respond by under-disciplining rather than risk being told that their discipline was a civil rights violation. But the effects ripple from there. School districts adopt “zero tolerance” policies so that they can’t be accused of abusing their discretion. Private school discipline is a matter of contract, rather than government due process, so the Goss line of cases does not affect them; the result is just another way in which the federal court system has disadvantaged public schools relative to private schools. Wealthier parents substitute away from public schools to private schools, reducing political support for public schools and disadvantaging the schools further. The ones who lose the most? The children from poor families who have no choice but to attend a public school system where lack of discipline makes learning unreasonably difficult.