The Negative Effects Of Zero Tolerance In Schools

The director of the CSG Justice Center, Michael Thompson said, "Anyone who wants to make students feel safer in school, improve high school graduation rates, and close the achievement gap needs to have a plan to reduce the number of youth who are suspended from school.” (U.S News). Mr. Thompson made this statement with regards to the negative effects that “zero tolerance policies” is having on the public school system. The “zero tolerance policies” were originally a war against drugs, and other major issues that school’s faced in the early 80’s. Now, instead of creating a learning and welcoming atmosphere in schools, the enforcement of “zero tolerance policies” has increased the amounts of students who are suspended and expelled each year.

As years passed, growing concern of violence, and crime in schools gave rise to the establishment of policies in order to combat the dangerous behavior among students. This led to schools having the necessity of adopting zero tolerance policies, such as the “Gun-Free Schools Act” passed in 1994. The cracking down on zero tolerance policies has been a major point of conflict, for the fact that schools have misinterpreted their limits when enforcing “zero tolerance”. A matter that is viewed improperly by schools, and one which is acted tough on is the term “weapon”. It is not harmful for a student to make a gun with their fingers, however; those are the type of acts that are now seen as major offenses in the eyes of the school system. While the use of zero tolerance policies intensified, it was also visible that the administrators started relying more heavily on actual police — in the form of School Resource Officers (SROs) stationed in schools. The presence of police officers in school and zero tolerance policies combined, have boosted the amounts of teens in juvenile detention, as a punishment for a minor offense. Now for students the fear of being arrested, and prosecuted while being in school is higher than it ever should be. The arrest can lead to suspension or expulsion, and here is where we see the real