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Zero Tolerance Policy


A student who was only six years of age from Colorado Springs was suspended for having a type of candy called "lemon drops"(foldvary). The reason the candy is not allowed in school is because it has organic ingredients that are considered drugs (foldvary). Maybe next time the kid will learn that it does not pay to eat candy in school.
             Another reason why the zero tolerance policy is ineffective is the fact that it is not flexible; meaning the policy does not distinguish the difference between simple childhood error and real criminal acts. An article in the Chicago tribune points out that "In criminal law there are standards of intent, and there are assumptions of innocence as well as procedures of due process. Zero tolerance incorporates no such standards"(Ayers). In a court of law a judge has the flexibility to give different sentencing according to the case. For instance two people can commit the same crime yet it is possible for one person to get a more severe sentence then the other because of the differences of their cases. One of them could have been a first time offender with a clean record while the other has committed several crimes before that making him no stranger to the courtrooms therefore getting a longer sentencing. The zero tolerance does not have that flexibility, therefore in a court of law any student no matter what the case, would get the punishment the policy states; this is called mandatory sentencing. An example of the zero tolerance policy's failure to distinguish the difference between adolescent mistake and criminal intentions is an eighth-grader from Dallas. Even though this student has never been in trouble and is involved in many school functions, and even won awards for scholarly projects, she is expelled from school and is now looking at five months of boot camp because she brought soda that contained drops of grain alcohol in it (Cauchon).


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