Sunday, February 11, 2007

I double-dog dare you!

Back when I was a 10-year-old child, of average-to-middling mischieviosity, in the Texas school system, the worst thing they did to you was make you stay in at recess and write sentences on the board. Ask me how I know this.

Nowadays, you get arrested and sent to court.


I have questions.

  • Why are we arresting children?

  • Do we really need teachers who can't control 10-year-olds?

  • Why aren't we training police officers to refuse to arrest children?

  • Why are we prosecuting children for momentary fits of mischief?

  • A school official actually set off the alarm. Why are all the adults in this case getting away with blaming a child?




from Objective - Justice

2 comments:

Keifus said...

Not an authority, but some guesses and observations:

Why are we arresting children?
- Unsupervised kids are troublesome to adults (especially older, voting adults), with their strange hair, piercings, scuzzy clothes. ANd they make a lot of irritating noise. A pol can't go wrong betting against young people.

- When kids lose it, it gets a lot of press. It looks like more of prevalent and dangerous than it actually is.

- People like the idea that certain offenses are so serious that not only extra penalties, but a graver process is needed. (I find this dangerous in general, btw. It's brought us the war on terror too.) Hence, kids are tried as adults.

- People are enamored with law-n-order, at least when they feel it serves their worldview. Can't have enough of that shit, and they've been pumped up with more than enough love for authority.

Do we really need teachers who can't control 10-year-olds?

- No, but we need better teachers anyway, and what kind Master's degree talent do you expect for $30k/yr?

- Not sure that it's the teachers who are necessarily failing. (But yeah, 10 year olds?)

Why aren't we training police officers to refuse to arrest children?

- Search me. You'd think they have some code of conduct. You'd think they'd have some responsibility to assess the situation. It's nuts.

Why are we prosecuting children for momentary fits of mischief?
A school official actually set off the alarm. Why are all the adults in this case getting away with blaming a child?

- See #1.

K

yaxmuw: Yaks in mumus? Maximum yummy? (no W)
waoyetr: way overtrained

hipparchia said...

it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts. it's nuts.

these people are nuts.




but, yaks in mumus, that was great!