Zero-Tolerance = Intolerance

Intolerance:

1. lack of toleration; unwillingness or refusal to tolerate or respect contrary opinions or beliefs, persons of different races or backgrounds, etc.
2. incapacity or indisposition to bear or endure
3. abnormal sensitivity or allergy to a food, drug, etc.
4. an intolerant act.

Zero-tolerance policies fit the second definition of intolerance. Zero-tolerance: the “incapacity or indisposition to bear or endure.” Fear-mongering and prejudice has led to more and more zero-tolerance policies ever since I was a kid. Schools now have zero-tolerance policies for violence, guns, racism, sexual harassment, alcohol, and drugs.

Now you might be saying that these things are very bad and should not be tolerated. This is true, but you have to have clear cut policies. Here’s what effects zero-tolerance policies can have.

http://www.usatoday.com/educate/ednews3.htm

A 14 year old girl was sentenced to 5-months in a military style boot camp for bringing alcohol to school. This was her first offence and she was also an honor student. You can Google “zero-tolerance policies” to look up other incidences. And remember, those are just the ones that make the news.

When I was in high school, there was a student at a middle school that was suspended for saying “I’m going to kill you” on the school bus to another student. People in town talked about it a lot. I remember saying things like when I was a kid. I remember having people say things like that to me. I didn’t want them suspended.

Here’s a story from Reason magazine about a man who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for using prescription drugs to treat his own pain.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/123589.html

The prosecutor in the case said he was an addict and not a patient. They said he couldn’t possibly have as much drugs as he had for personal use and must be selling them even though they had no proof he was selling drugs. When he went to prison the doctors there ended up giving him more drugs than what he was convicted of possessing. I’ll talk more about this case in another post. He was later pardoned after serving four years.

We’ve become a zero-tolerance society. Mess up once in your life and you pay for it until you die.