No Tolerance

Someone in today’s newspaper was once again touting a “no tolerance” policy in our schools. While these sound like a good idea, there’s a couple of problems with them.

North Carolina, like many other states, has a rule put out by the who govern extracurricular activites that says that convicted sex offenders may not participate in those events. That means for any kid who is a “convicted sex offender” in High School (or Junior High, for that matter) may not be on any sports teams, can’t play in the band, and can’t even attend meetings of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

Sounds like a good idea, right? After all, these kids are hardened criminals who deserve to be punished. They can’t follow the rules of society, and therefore shouldn’t get to have any of the perks that go with it.

Let’s talk about the rule of unintended consequences, though, and how it impacts kids who really are good kids but do something dumb – specifically with regard to “sexting”.

For those that don’t know, sexting is the act of sending risqué pictures over the cell phone. Usually, it starts when someone sends a nude or semi-nude picture of themselves to their boyfriend / girlfriend.

What? Your child would never do that? Please, leave whatever planet you live on and visit the real world of High School -- and Junior High -- in the United States. Your kid is likely to do it. Any kid is likely to do it. Lots of kids are doing it.

While this might not be a parent’s proudest moment, and certainly not one that you’d like to talk about during Sunday School Class, it’s hardly the end of the world. It’s dumb, but if we all examine our deepest darkest secrets, we’ve all done something equally as dumb.

Here’s where it starts to turn into a big problem, though.

Prosecutors are now going after kids who send or receive pictures because, if they’re young enough, they are “distributing child pornography”. Check out a particular state at

http://im.about.com/od/sexting/United_States_Sexting_Laws.htm

Say that little Suzy, age 14, who’s an “early bloomer” and could pass for a college freshman easily, has sent a risqué picture of herself – sufficient to meet whatever the local standard for “obscene” – to 16 year old Jason, who’s the captain of the football team. They’ve been talking for four whole months, and are in LUUUVVVV forever. We know this is true, because she’s inscribed it in multiple colors on the cover of her school notebook and he’s let her do whatever is the current equivalent of wearing his letterman’s jacket.

The problem is Jimmy’s little adolescent brain has left control of his good sense to some other organ that’s a bit lower on the anatomical structure. Whatever is in charge, though, sees that his football captain capital has the potential to score him a lot of girls – more than just Suzy. All that attention has gone to his head, and he starts chatting with with Mandy and Brittany and Wendy as well, all of whom are convinced to similarly send him racy pictures.

Trust me, this is a very widespread practice. If you were to pick up your high school student’s cell phone right now and scroll through the pics (assuming you’re technologically savvy enough to pull that off and he / she isn’t bright enough to have deleted them) you’re likely to find something that you probably wouldn’t be thrilled to share with their grandparents.

Going back to our situation, though, suppose that Suzy finds out that Jason’s a player (not just on the football field) and she’s more than unhappy about the situation. Being a bit smarter than Jason, though, she doesn’t let him know that she’s onto him and manages to get hold of his cell phone one day.

While she has the cell phone, she scrolls through the pictures, finds those of the other girls and, deciding she’ll fix them for mackin’ on her man, shotguns a message out to the entire football team with the pics of the other girls attached.

Upon finding out about this, Jason decides to break up with Suzy as well as getting even, so he zaps her picture to all his buddies on the football team, who then share them with the track, soccer and baseball teams.

Jocks never share with the Band, for some reason.

Suzy, now mortified at having her privates splashed all over those tiny screens around the school, goes to her daddy complaining and, being a good dad, he calls the School Superintendent. The Superintendant, being mindful of litigation from many sources, does both an internal investigation and turns the matter over to the District Attorney’s office.

Does it occur to any of these kids – or their parents, for that matter -- that they’re guilty of several felonies?

Let’s start with the fact that every kid who has any of those pictures on his or her telephone is guilty of possession of child pornography.

Those who shared it around, zapping it from phone to phone to phone, are guilty of distribution of child pornography.

And given how mad Suzy’s dad is, the District Attorney is going to pursue the case. After all, he’s an elected official and getting distributors of child pornography off the street is good for the polls.

So charges are filed against an assortment of kids. Their parents, at least the ones too affluent to qualify for court appointed counsel for the kids, will be out several hundred – if not thousands – of dollars to deal with the Court system. More likely than not, Social Services will get a referral, too, because of course if the parents had been paying attention this wouldn’t have happened.

OK, that last sentence was sarcasm, I admit.

Those that are convicted or who cop a plea on the theory that, “. . . they’re juveniles, the record is sealed so it won’t make that much difference,” don’t realize that their kids will likely have to change schools, because sex offenders aren’t allowed at schools where “normal” children are. They, most likely, will go into some alternative schooling program if they’re lucky. If not, they’ll be at home with tutors sent out from the local school district.

Even if the child can stay in their regular school, even if the criminal authorities work out a deal that lets them continue to live where they do, they won’t be playing baseball, chess or the tuba. Convicted sex offenders are not allowed to participate in activities.

No appeal, no exceptions.

What’s that going to do to the college prospects? Any hope of a scholarship is going to be completely gone. Even admission may be gone, since lots of colleges look at those extra-curricular activities to determine qualifications.

Of course, as convicted sex offenders, they won’t be allowed other places.

Like home – if it’s within 1000 feet of a church or school or park (in North Carolina; that may be different in other states).

So that nifty little ranch that the fam has lived in since Junior was born is suddenly off limits because there’s a school a block away; in fact, that’s part of why mom and dad picked it out. Either he – or the whole family – will be moving somewhere else.

Youth group at church is now off limits, as are the boy / girl scouts.

If they get through High School and are successfully admitted to college, those incoming freshmen are now like kryptonite since some kids start at 17 and aren’t “adults” yet.

That means no dorms or student apartments will be available.

That means nothing close to the on-campus day care center.

There’s no doubt that we need to protect children from true predators. But sometimes, “zero tolerance” has unintended consequences that are far reaching. Common sense needs to be injected into these knee-jerk policies and reactions to make sure that the punishment – and the consequences – truly fit the crime.

Is it worthwhile to ruin a child’s life because they had a dirty picture on their phone?