6 ms·

Forget the beeper. The idea of arresting a child at school for anything (short of maybe violent assault) seems to be madness.

arp242 3y ago
I don't know what it is in US culture and society that makes it so hostile towards anyone and anything even vaguely suspected of a crime, but this sort of thing is shockingly common, even when dealing with children. Here's another case I encountered a few weeks ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Brown_case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Brown_case – there are so many things wrong with the entire thing, starting with charging an 11-year old as an adult(!!!) but what really takes the cake is: "Presiding Judge Dominick Motto of the Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, Common Pleas Court initially denied decertification and transfer to juvenile court because Jordan would not admit his involvement in the crime." "We're going to punish you harder because you claim to be innocent" What kind of backward clinically insane shitcunt logic is that?! Especially when we're talking about a 11-year old?! It's no surprise that the "kids for cash" scandal could have continued for years, because the entire system is rotten. In any half-way decent system giving 3 months detention to a 14-year old for making a MySpace parody page of a teacher should have set off every possible alarm bell, and that it didn't is pretty damning for the entire system. Also: what kind of school brings this matter to a judge in the first place...? This along is pretty crazy.
- lazide 3y ago
  Because it shows no remorse. The reason for reduced sentences for juvenile offenders is the idea that they ‘didn’t know any better’. That they can learn and grow and NOT be a menace to society soon. If they still refuse to take any ownership or show any contrition even after being clearly shown something was a major problem (hence the court case), then why reduce the penalty? Who would it be helping, exactly?
  - arp242 3y ago
    Remorse for what? Something he didn't do? There is nothing to be remorseful about. This is the sort of non-logic where you're presumed guilty and/or punished for asserting your innocence. Aside from the obvious absurdness of it, it's also literally unconstitutional as it violates your 5th amendment rights, which is why another judge reversed the decision later on. And considering all of this is about an 11-year old makes it that much worse.
    - lazide 3y ago
      If the court finds you guilty, then by definition within the system you did it. It doesn't mean you actually did, but it does mean the system says you did. Which is the point of my comment. It doesn't mean it actually makes sense in real life, but it's why the system does what it does. And the reason why the system will prosecute kids like adults sometimes - the nominal reason is because they don't think it's worth giving them a pass either due to the severe nature of the crime, or because of the lack of contrition of the accused. If they're actually innocent, then per the system they should get zero penalty eventually regardless of how they are prosecuted. We know that being held in an adult jail while awaiting trial is a pretty severe penalty in fact of course, which is why it eventually got thrown out that he got treated that way. Plenty of adults get stuck in jail for years while awaiting trial, then get released and theoretically suffered no penalty either. But we also know that is bullshit. No clear better alternatives (except bail) have shown themselves however. If the kid had been caught on tape murdering a bunch of other kids and still claimed he was innocent, then no one would be objecting that he be put in an adult jail while awaiting trial though. Since putting someone that violent in a juvenile facility is making it as dangerous as an adult one. Judges have wide discretion to make these calls, and this judge clearly screwed up. But that's the how and the why.
      - arp242 3y ago
        No one found him guilty of anything at this point. How can they when deciding in which court he should be judged? That happens before the trail. You're talking complete bollocks utterly disconnected from anything to do with this case.
  - exe34 3y ago
    So you want them to lie? My dad was like that. I admitted to several things I didn't do in order to reduce the amount of caning. This led to a funny incident at school. Somebody did something, and another grassed. The bully came to question me - I had no memory of telling on him, but the way he described the comments, I though oh that does sound like something I'd say. I took the beating. Then the actual grass came up and asked me why did I admit something I hadn't done?
    - b112 3y ago
      Unclear what a 'grass' is. Are you referring to falling down?
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - boomboomsubban 3y ago
        "Grass" means "report to the authorities." Seems to originate in Britain as rhyming slang between copper and grasshopper, though I looked up the etymology for this post.
      - ajb 3y ago
        Grass is British slang for informing on someone
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - lazide 3y ago
      Fair or not, this is the idea behind 'no contest' pleas in court. No admittance of fault, but not going to fight the prosecution either because it isn't worth it. It isn't necessarily fair or sane - it's predictable though. Which is something.
  - maxbond 3y ago
    This line of thinking is entirely incompatible with the presumption of innocence and the right to protection from self incrimination.
    - lazide 3y ago
      Welcome to bail/pretrial detention hearings. Practically, what are the alternatives? Every arrest is cite and release pending conviction? Society would be even more out of control.
      - maxbond 3y ago
        The alternative is to charge them as a juvenile, and to refrain from inferring a guilty conscious from their lack of "contrition" (which is a patently ridiculous thing to expect from an 11 year old - which is the real issue with charging children as adults, not that they supposedly are more reformable, but that they cannot be held to the same standards as adults). You're engaging in a slippery slope fallacy. This was a miscarriage of justice. Civilization would not have crumbled if this child wasn't put through the wringer.
        lazide 3y ago
        No, I’m not arguing if it is right or wrong. I’ve been explaining why the levers exist as that was what was being asked. And to be clear, the case I’m referring to the kid was tried and convicted (originally) of 1st degree murder with a shotgun. In juvenile court. And if it turned out the kid did murder them, then people would be up in arms that he got released early - especially if he committed another murder before he got locked up again. Which could happen. Cases like this too [https://www.klfy.com/local/iberia-parish/trial-for-11-year-old-charged-in-iberia-parish-homicide-pushed-back-another-week/amp/ https://www.klfy.com/local/iberia-parish/trial-for-11-year-o...]. Was it a miscarriage of justice? Perhaps, I haven’t seen the evidence. The courts eventually came to the conclusion it was! Until they did, according to the courts it wasn’t. it was also legal while it was happening. And 11yr olds are plenty capable of being defiant, malicious, contrite, etc. too. And active dangers to those around them. I wasn’t there in court when this was going on, so I have no idea if the kid was being out of control, or the judge was being out of control. I’ve seen both play out. The appeals court felt it was the judge. The whole situation is quite terrible regardless. But that’s what the criminal justice system is for - to resolve terrible situations in some eventually sensible way. Woe to whoever gets caught in its gears though.
  - morsch 3y ago
    Children might be incapable of determining certain actions are wrong or illegal. They might be able to do that, but unable to apply this knowledge to their own behavior. A trial won't fix immediately this, just like charging an 11 year old like an adult won't make him grow a beard.
    - lazide 3y ago
      The case involved an 11 yr old accused of 1st degree murder with a shotgun.
      - morsch 3y ago
        Yeah? My point stands. Also: Throw the owner of the gun in jail.
        lazide 3y ago
        The owner was the one murdered, if I remember correctly.
- dylan604 3y ago
  > in US culture and society that makes it so hostile towards As far as schools go, zero tolerance policies have been put in place. The concept of zero tolerance is something that just makes no sense to me. Not every thing that happens in a school needs police involvement, but because the rules/laws that have been put in place removes common sense and power from principals so that everything is now a police matter. Legislatures have done similar things to judges with mandatory minimums and other draconian small minded knee jerk reaction to look like they are being effective.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    > removes common sense This happened about 5 miles from where I grew up: https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/7-year-old-suspended-for-pointing-gun-shaped-breakfast-pastry/2044744/?amp=1 https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/7-year-old-suspende... In the 80s, kids would have bows or hunting rifles in the car or truck in the school parking lot. Now eating your pastry the wrong way gets you sent home.
    - Izkata 3y ago
      In the early 2000s my middle school had archery for a few days as part of gym class as a special event. Only the girls were actually allowed to do it though, they had something else for the boys (don't remember what though).
      - brewdad 3y ago
        Same was true in my middle school in the 80s. In hindsight it really was the right call. That same year we had a sub in gym class playing tennis and four of us boys managed to launch about a hundred tennis balls over the fence and into the woods home run derby style. We would have definitely put an eye out with archery equipment.
  - themaninthedark 3y ago
    Zero tolerance policies are a direct response to discrimination claims. If you allow people to have discretion, then it will be used(and abused). Also some of the stories I hear about school in the 70's and 80's make me think that the current claim that "schools were always authoritarian and used to subjugate children to turn them into compliant workers" is probably BS. Probably current administration needs to justify it's existence and high pay by making rules.
- Clubber 3y ago
  >I don't know what it is in US culture and society that makes it so hostile towards anyone and anything even vaguely suspected of a crime, but this sort of thing is shockingly common, even when dealing with children. The justice system has gone mad. Politicians probably encourage it behind closed doors as well. Fear is the road to authoritarianism.
- elzbardico 3y ago
  It is a long discussion, but the TL;DR version is Puritanism.
- asveikau 3y ago
  > I don't know what it is in US culture and society that makes it so hostile towards anyone and anything even vaguely suspected of a crime, In a lot of cases I think it's a proxy for racism. I think there's also a tendency towards black and white thinking, where people are either good or bad, and they're very willing to bucket people as bad rather than considering shades of gray or that authorities did something wrong. Additionally, in a lot of threads about crime I also sense a lot of jealousy. The sentiment resembles "I work hard to pay my bills like a chump and this guy has such a sweet and easy life not playing by the rules." They might feel their working life has them too stressed and they want to hurt "criminals" as some kind of revenge fantasy.
  - arp242 3y ago
    In this case it's a white kid though, and a lot of the kids from "kids for cash" were white. If we look at the prison population and include just the white population (~60%), the US still incarcerates vastly more people than other comparable countries. It's not even close. While in general racism is certainly a contributing factor, I don't see it being the main factor. I don't have the impression the other factors you mention are unique to the US; people from all types of backgrounds seem to have problems with black/white thinking. This sort of thing seems innate to the human condition. So the question remains, what is so special about the US? I don't really have a good answer to this. "Puritanism", as another commenter offered, seems too simplistic, and the US isn't the only country with a history of that sort of thing, either. Same with "war on drugs", another popular answer. Drugs are illegal (and sometimes heavily persecuted) in many countries. Maybe it's a bit worse in the US, but it's not unique to the US. Maybe there just isn't a good/clear reason, and it's just "how the chips fell". The Aztecs went to war for no other reason than to capture people so they could rip out their hearts for sacrifice. There have been cultures where cannibalism of slaves, even child slaves, was socially acceptable for no other reason than "it tastes good". Why were these cultures like this? Who can tell... Probably a complex interaction between various factors.
    - asveikau 3y ago
      Well, I don't think the tough on crime rhetoric is totally unique to the US either. I hear them coming from other countries too. Eg. when I was paying attention to Javier Milei's presidential bid in Argentina, it's largely the same talking points about crime, could have been lifted word for word from American internet comments. From what I understand I think northern europe in particular has more of an attitude geared toward prison being about reform of criminals, and less towards vindictive punishment. PS: Kind of tangential, but since you did bring it up: I believe a lot of the stories about natives being cruel warriors and cannibals were invented or exaggerated by Spaniards.
- max-ibel 3y ago
  > what kind of school brings this matter to a judge in the first place...? The kind of school that prevents a student with dreadlocks to attend schold indefinitely [1]? This is happening right now. In the past, there was also the role playing game (dnd) satanism scare... Granted, I'm not sure if there have been actual arrests, but it's the logical next step to take. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68377156 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68377156
- tacocataco 3y ago
  School is a place to teach kids how the world works. Submit to authority or face the consequences future wage slave.
cvwright 3y ago
I'm ok with arresting someone who brings a gun or fentanyl, if that means we get them before they can kill someone.
- exe34 3y ago
  What about shooting a kid for having a water gun? Edit: fuck me, I was half joking and thought I'd check anyway. What a shit show. Latest case was 5 days ago. https://www.google.com/search?q=American+police+shoot+kid+with+water+gun https://www.google.com/search?q=American+police+shoot+kid+wi...
  - qwerpy 3y ago
    Look at the water gun in question though: https://abcnews.go.com/US/traumatizing-family-calls-justice-after-teen-holding-toy/story?id=109162027 https://abcnews.go.com/US/traumatizing-family-calls-justice-... Still sucks that the kid got shot for it, but I can see the confusion, compared to the usual colorful water guns.
    - exe34 3y ago
      That's the thing though, in the civilised world, if you see something like this in the hands of a child, you'd assume it's a toy.
      - qwerpy 3y ago
        Maybe this is more a reflection of the US being civilized or not, but there are teenage “children” the same size as the kid in this story, using actual guns to commit violent robberies in parts of my city. So it’s not trivial to determine whether an adult-sized human holding a black gun is a threat or not.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      This is America; Owning a real gun should not be an acceptable reason to be shot by the police. What the fuck is the point of all the aggressive defense around the second amendment if the second a cop sees a gun they are free to murder people? Cops are not judge, jury, and executioners, and in fact have zero authority to hand down punishment. Being shot for holding a gun is absurd.
pc86 3y ago
Arresting kids for bringing something that's legal for them to have is one side of a spectrum of silliness, thinking that arresting a kid for violently assaulting someone is a "maybe" is pretty far on the other end of the same spectrum. There are plenty of things it's completely reasonable to arrest a child for.
0xbadcafebee 3y ago
I was almost arrested twice; once for having phreaker box plans in my bookbag (in 1998, when they no longer worked), another time for "computer hacking" (fixing the school computer's proxy settings). And they wonder why we grew up to hate authority figures.
OkayPhysicist 3y ago
Treating public school as public space with public rules creates a huge class divide with the private schools. Short of actively shooting up the place, I can't think of a single rule you could break at the private university I went to that could result in law enforcement getting involved. I knew of at least one kid who got caught with most of a kilogram of cocaine, who got off with little more than a slap on the wrist. In contrast, a kid at my brother's public uni got arrested for petty vandalism. It's an extremely stark class divide.
- noodlesUK 3y ago
  It doesn’t need to be this way. Essentially all UK universities are “public” and none operate this way. There aren’t special police forces that roam their campuses (Oxford had this for a time, but I think it was the only one). Violation of university rules is no more serious from a legal perspective than violating any other private rules. I think campus police are an insane idea. There should obviously be a good relationship between any university and the police in their area, but the idea that they should report to the university leadership is nonsensical.

arp242 3y ago

I don't know what it is in US culture and society that makes it so hostile towards anyone and anything even vaguely suspected of a crime, but this sort of thing is shockingly common, even when dealing with children. Here's another case I encountered a few weeks ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Brown_case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Brown_case – there are so many things wrong with the entire thing, starting with charging an 11-year old as an adult(!!!) but what really takes the cake is: "Presiding Judge Dominick Motto of the Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, Common Pleas Court initially denied decertification and transfer to juvenile court because Jordan would not admit his involvement in the crime." "We're going to punish you harder because you claim to be innocent" What kind of backward clinically insane shitcunt logic is that?! Especially when we're talking about a 11-year old?! It's no surprise that the "kids for cash" scandal could have continued for years, because the entire system is rotten. In any half-way decent system giving 3 months detention to a 14-year old for making a MySpace parody page of a teacher should have set off every possible alarm bell, and that it didn't is pretty damning for the entire system. Also: what kind of school brings this matter to a judge in the first place...? This along is pretty crazy.

lazide 3y ago
Because it shows no remorse. The reason for reduced sentences for juvenile offenders is the idea that they ‘didn’t know any better’. That they can learn and grow and NOT be a menace to society soon. If they still refuse to take any ownership or show any contrition even after being clearly shown something was a major problem (hence the court case), then why reduce the penalty? Who would it be helping, exactly?
- arp242 3y ago
  Remorse for what? Something he didn't do? There is nothing to be remorseful about. This is the sort of non-logic where you're presumed guilty and/or punished for asserting your innocence. Aside from the obvious absurdness of it, it's also literally unconstitutional as it violates your 5th amendment rights, which is why another judge reversed the decision later on. And considering all of this is about an 11-year old makes it that much worse.
  - lazide 3y ago
    If the court finds you guilty, then by definition within the system you did it. It doesn't mean you actually did, but it does mean the system says you did. Which is the point of my comment. It doesn't mean it actually makes sense in real life, but it's why the system does what it does. And the reason why the system will prosecute kids like adults sometimes - the nominal reason is because they don't think it's worth giving them a pass either due to the severe nature of the crime, or because of the lack of contrition of the accused. If they're actually innocent, then per the system they should get zero penalty eventually regardless of how they are prosecuted. We know that being held in an adult jail while awaiting trial is a pretty severe penalty in fact of course, which is why it eventually got thrown out that he got treated that way. Plenty of adults get stuck in jail for years while awaiting trial, then get released and theoretically suffered no penalty either. But we also know that is bullshit. No clear better alternatives (except bail) have shown themselves however. If the kid had been caught on tape murdering a bunch of other kids and still claimed he was innocent, then no one would be objecting that he be put in an adult jail while awaiting trial though. Since putting someone that violent in a juvenile facility is making it as dangerous as an adult one. Judges have wide discretion to make these calls, and this judge clearly screwed up. But that's the how and the why.
    - arp242 3y ago
      No one found him guilty of anything at this point. How can they when deciding in which court he should be judged? That happens before the trail. You're talking complete bollocks utterly disconnected from anything to do with this case.
- exe34 3y ago
  So you want them to lie? My dad was like that. I admitted to several things I didn't do in order to reduce the amount of caning. This led to a funny incident at school. Somebody did something, and another grassed. The bully came to question me - I had no memory of telling on him, but the way he described the comments, I though oh that does sound like something I'd say. I took the beating. Then the actual grass came up and asked me why did I admit something I hadn't done?
  - b112 3y ago
    Unclear what a 'grass' is. Are you referring to falling down?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - boomboomsubban 3y ago
      "Grass" means "report to the authorities." Seems to originate in Britain as rhyming slang between copper and grasshopper, though I looked up the etymology for this post.
    - ajb 3y ago
      Grass is British slang for informing on someone
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - lazide 3y ago
    Fair or not, this is the idea behind 'no contest' pleas in court. No admittance of fault, but not going to fight the prosecution either because it isn't worth it. It isn't necessarily fair or sane - it's predictable though. Which is something.
- maxbond 3y ago
  This line of thinking is entirely incompatible with the presumption of innocence and the right to protection from self incrimination.
  - lazide 3y ago
    Welcome to bail/pretrial detention hearings. Practically, what are the alternatives? Every arrest is cite and release pending conviction? Society would be even more out of control.
    - maxbond 3y ago
      The alternative is to charge them as a juvenile, and to refrain from inferring a guilty conscious from their lack of "contrition" (which is a patently ridiculous thing to expect from an 11 year old - which is the real issue with charging children as adults, not that they supposedly are more reformable, but that they cannot be held to the same standards as adults). You're engaging in a slippery slope fallacy. This was a miscarriage of justice. Civilization would not have crumbled if this child wasn't put through the wringer.
      - lazide 3y ago
        No, I’m not arguing if it is right or wrong. I’ve been explaining why the levers exist as that was what was being asked. And to be clear, the case I’m referring to the kid was tried and convicted (originally) of 1st degree murder with a shotgun. In juvenile court. And if it turned out the kid did murder them, then people would be up in arms that he got released early - especially if he committed another murder before he got locked up again. Which could happen. Cases like this too [https://www.klfy.com/local/iberia-parish/trial-for-11-year-old-charged-in-iberia-parish-homicide-pushed-back-another-week/amp/ https://www.klfy.com/local/iberia-parish/trial-for-11-year-o...]. Was it a miscarriage of justice? Perhaps, I haven’t seen the evidence. The courts eventually came to the conclusion it was! Until they did, according to the courts it wasn’t. it was also legal while it was happening. And 11yr olds are plenty capable of being defiant, malicious, contrite, etc. too. And active dangers to those around them. I wasn’t there in court when this was going on, so I have no idea if the kid was being out of control, or the judge was being out of control. I’ve seen both play out. The appeals court felt it was the judge. The whole situation is quite terrible regardless. But that’s what the criminal justice system is for - to resolve terrible situations in some eventually sensible way. Woe to whoever gets caught in its gears though.
- morsch 3y ago
  Children might be incapable of determining certain actions are wrong or illegal. They might be able to do that, but unable to apply this knowledge to their own behavior. A trial won't fix immediately this, just like charging an 11 year old like an adult won't make him grow a beard.
  - lazide 3y ago
    The case involved an 11 yr old accused of 1st degree murder with a shotgun.
    - morsch 3y ago
      Yeah? My point stands. Also: Throw the owner of the gun in jail.
      - lazide 3y ago
        The owner was the one murdered, if I remember correctly.
dylan604 3y ago
> in US culture and society that makes it so hostile towards As far as schools go, zero tolerance policies have been put in place. The concept of zero tolerance is something that just makes no sense to me. Not every thing that happens in a school needs police involvement, but because the rules/laws that have been put in place removes common sense and power from principals so that everything is now a police matter. Legislatures have done similar things to judges with mandatory minimums and other draconian small minded knee jerk reaction to look like they are being effective.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  > removes common sense This happened about 5 miles from where I grew up: https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/7-year-old-suspended-for-pointing-gun-shaped-breakfast-pastry/2044744/?amp=1 https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/7-year-old-suspende... In the 80s, kids would have bows or hunting rifles in the car or truck in the school parking lot. Now eating your pastry the wrong way gets you sent home.
  - Izkata 3y ago
    In the early 2000s my middle school had archery for a few days as part of gym class as a special event. Only the girls were actually allowed to do it though, they had something else for the boys (don't remember what though).
    - brewdad 3y ago
      Same was true in my middle school in the 80s. In hindsight it really was the right call. That same year we had a sub in gym class playing tennis and four of us boys managed to launch about a hundred tennis balls over the fence and into the woods home run derby style. We would have definitely put an eye out with archery equipment.
- themaninthedark 3y ago
  Zero tolerance policies are a direct response to discrimination claims. If you allow people to have discretion, then it will be used(and abused). Also some of the stories I hear about school in the 70's and 80's make me think that the current claim that "schools were always authoritarian and used to subjugate children to turn them into compliant workers" is probably BS. Probably current administration needs to justify it's existence and high pay by making rules.
Clubber 3y ago
>I don't know what it is in US culture and society that makes it so hostile towards anyone and anything even vaguely suspected of a crime, but this sort of thing is shockingly common, even when dealing with children. The justice system has gone mad. Politicians probably encourage it behind closed doors as well. Fear is the road to authoritarianism.
elzbardico 3y ago
It is a long discussion, but the TL;DR version is Puritanism.
asveikau 3y ago
> I don't know what it is in US culture and society that makes it so hostile towards anyone and anything even vaguely suspected of a crime, In a lot of cases I think it's a proxy for racism. I think there's also a tendency towards black and white thinking, where people are either good or bad, and they're very willing to bucket people as bad rather than considering shades of gray or that authorities did something wrong. Additionally, in a lot of threads about crime I also sense a lot of jealousy. The sentiment resembles "I work hard to pay my bills like a chump and this guy has such a sweet and easy life not playing by the rules." They might feel their working life has them too stressed and they want to hurt "criminals" as some kind of revenge fantasy.
- arp242 3y ago
  In this case it's a white kid though, and a lot of the kids from "kids for cash" were white. If we look at the prison population and include just the white population (~60%), the US still incarcerates vastly more people than other comparable countries. It's not even close. While in general racism is certainly a contributing factor, I don't see it being the main factor. I don't have the impression the other factors you mention are unique to the US; people from all types of backgrounds seem to have problems with black/white thinking. This sort of thing seems innate to the human condition. So the question remains, what is so special about the US? I don't really have a good answer to this. "Puritanism", as another commenter offered, seems too simplistic, and the US isn't the only country with a history of that sort of thing, either. Same with "war on drugs", another popular answer. Drugs are illegal (and sometimes heavily persecuted) in many countries. Maybe it's a bit worse in the US, but it's not unique to the US. Maybe there just isn't a good/clear reason, and it's just "how the chips fell". The Aztecs went to war for no other reason than to capture people so they could rip out their hearts for sacrifice. There have been cultures where cannibalism of slaves, even child slaves, was socially acceptable for no other reason than "it tastes good". Why were these cultures like this? Who can tell... Probably a complex interaction between various factors.
  - asveikau 3y ago
    Well, I don't think the tough on crime rhetoric is totally unique to the US either. I hear them coming from other countries too. Eg. when I was paying attention to Javier Milei's presidential bid in Argentina, it's largely the same talking points about crime, could have been lifted word for word from American internet comments. From what I understand I think northern europe in particular has more of an attitude geared toward prison being about reform of criminals, and less towards vindictive punishment. PS: Kind of tangential, but since you did bring it up: I believe a lot of the stories about natives being cruel warriors and cannibals were invented or exaggerated by Spaniards.
max-ibel 3y ago
> what kind of school brings this matter to a judge in the first place...? The kind of school that prevents a student with dreadlocks to attend schold indefinitely [1]? This is happening right now. In the past, there was also the role playing game (dnd) satanism scare... Granted, I'm not sure if there have been actual arrests, but it's the logical next step to take. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68377156 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68377156
tacocataco 3y ago
School is a place to teach kids how the world works. Submit to authority or face the consequences future wage slave.

cvwright 3y ago

I'm ok with arresting someone who brings a gun or fentanyl, if that means we get them before they can kill someone.

exe34 3y ago
What about shooting a kid for having a water gun? Edit: fuck me, I was half joking and thought I'd check anyway. What a shit show. Latest case was 5 days ago. https://www.google.com/search?q=American+police+shoot+kid+with+water+gun https://www.google.com/search?q=American+police+shoot+kid+wi...
- qwerpy 3y ago
  Look at the water gun in question though: https://abcnews.go.com/US/traumatizing-family-calls-justice-after-teen-holding-toy/story?id=109162027 https://abcnews.go.com/US/traumatizing-family-calls-justice-... Still sucks that the kid got shot for it, but I can see the confusion, compared to the usual colorful water guns.
  - exe34 3y ago
    That's the thing though, in the civilised world, if you see something like this in the hands of a child, you'd assume it's a toy.
    - qwerpy 3y ago
      Maybe this is more a reflection of the US being civilized or not, but there are teenage “children” the same size as the kid in this story, using actual guns to commit violent robberies in parts of my city. So it’s not trivial to determine whether an adult-sized human holding a black gun is a threat or not.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    This is America; Owning a real gun should not be an acceptable reason to be shot by the police. What the fuck is the point of all the aggressive defense around the second amendment if the second a cop sees a gun they are free to murder people? Cops are not judge, jury, and executioners, and in fact have zero authority to hand down punishment. Being shot for holding a gun is absurd.

pc86 3y ago

Arresting kids for bringing something that's legal for them to have is one side of a spectrum of silliness, thinking that arresting a kid for violently assaulting someone is a "maybe" is pretty far on the other end of the same spectrum. There are plenty of things it's completely reasonable to arrest a child for.

0xbadcafebee 3y ago

I was almost arrested twice; once for having phreaker box plans in my bookbag (in 1998, when they no longer worked), another time for "computer hacking" (fixing the school computer's proxy settings). And they wonder why we grew up to hate authority figures.

OkayPhysicist 3y ago

Treating public school as public space with public rules creates a huge class divide with the private schools. Short of actively shooting up the place, I can't think of a single rule you could break at the private university I went to that could result in law enforcement getting involved. I knew of at least one kid who got caught with most of a kilogram of cocaine, who got off with little more than a slap on the wrist. In contrast, a kid at my brother's public uni got arrested for petty vandalism. It's an extremely stark class divide.

noodlesUK 3y ago
It doesn’t need to be this way. Essentially all UK universities are “public” and none operate this way. There aren’t special police forces that roam their campuses (Oxford had this for a time, but I think it was the only one). Violation of university rules is no more serious from a legal perspective than violating any other private rules. I think campus police are an insane idea. There should obviously be a good relationship between any university and the police in their area, but the idea that they should report to the university leadership is nonsensical.