Is Zero Tolerance Realistic
A topic of importance that has been in the news recently is whether zero tolerance is needed in schools. Students are able to get expelled for smoking cigarettes to carrying weapons. Many times the crimes that the students are expelled for are not serious enough to warrant the punishment. Other people feel that unless some method of discipline is imposed upon the children they will continue to behave in the exact same manner. I feel that zero tolerance is an extreme method of punishment that is not needed for many of the times that it is used and can cause students not to return to school, commit crimes, and doesn't give them the chance to change. In a recent topic of interest in the news, the Rev. Jesse Jackson was arrested for protesting the expulsion of six high school students for fighting at a football game with the seventh student leaving voluntarily. I think that expulsion in this case is the wrong plan of action because more than one of those seven students will more than likely never return to school. After a student has been out of school for a long period of time it is hard for them to return. They receive no follow-up education because alternative education costs too much.
Pennsylvania: West Publishing, 1994. Expulsions of Students." New York Times 17 Johnson, Dirk. "Jackson Arrested in Protest Over On the other hand, some people feel that zero tolerance is an excellent way to keep school violence to a minimum. "The punishment is swift and often preordained, not unlike the determinate sentencing we see in the adult criminal courts" (Kotlowitz 1). The punishment is dealt out quickly and takes affect immediately. It rids the school of someone who might harm another student, but that student may not have tried to harm someone on purpose. It could have been an accident but they would still receive the same punishment that someone who did it on purpose would receive. It is completely unfair. Zero tolerance is also a way for a principal who is faced with a crucial problem to deal with quickly and justly. Principals have a lot of responsibilities. They have to burden of protecting the students and staff from outbursts of violence. When they have a set punishment for a crime, the students know what will happen if they disobey the laws. The community needs to support the school so that the students understand that they will receive the set punishment if they commit an act of violence. "To back away from zero-tolerance policy places students and faculty in harm's way and enhances the probability of future acts of violence" (Tirozzi 2). Zero tolerance helps to control these dangers in school by removing them. It is needed to keep control in school. The problem with that idea is that by removing every student that commits an act of violence does not assure the complete safety of the school. They could return and harm other students or faculty because they were a
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Approximate Word count = 1163
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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