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Comment by atty | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone else feel like the current climate is partly a by-product of the lazy “think of the children!” Rhetoric that so many law enforcement agencies and politicians use to get their legislation and budgets passed? It’s hard to let kids be unsupervised if the only thing you hear from politicians, police and others is that kids are in so much danger we need to pass otherwise ridiculous laws just to protect them.

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It's between that, the zero tolerance policies that many places have, and the unwalkable suburban residential nightmares we have built.

I know for several of my minority friends, they won't let their kids go anywhere alone due to run-ins with law enforcement.

At least your friends will be able to let their kids go places once the police are defunded.

I know of communities where they won't let kids go anywhere because the lack of law enforcement (this includes minority communities). So this concern about law enforcement presence is not universal though white allies are big on focusing on that area.

Sadly, most zero-tolerance policies exist because getting sued is simply too expensive for the schools to deal with. Why make a nuanced judgement when you risk getting a lawsuit by trying to be fair?

> Sadly, most zero-tolerance policies exist because getting sued is simply too expensive for the schools to deal with.

No, zero-tolerance policies exist because they are low-effort ways of being seen as addressing issues of political concern (and because minimizing discretion of subordinate staff while avoiding creating an incentive to kick sensitive decisions up the chain is itself desirable to decision-makers); excessive restrictions, like insufficient ones, are sources of lawsuits, if schools were concerned about maximum mitigation of legal risk they would have more carefully tailored policies.

EDIT: It’s worth noting that zero-tolerance policies are sold as necessary for mitigating legal risk, but that's because that’s a more palatable sales pitch than “we want neither to permit subordinates to exercise judgement nor to have to consider details of individual cases ourselves”.

>"zero-tolerance policies are sold as necessary for mitigating legal risk,"

I guess I fell for the marketing. In any event I detest zero-tolerance policies for just about everything.

In some cases zero-tolerance is marketing but in others it's not.

Take disciplinary action for example. Very few schools have the same rate of expulsion/suspension for students of all races. How do schools prove to a jury that this is not a result of discrimination or racism? Quite difficult unless they have a zero-tolerance policy.

This is an oft repeated talking point, but I’ve never seen any evidence for it.

I don't think I agree with you. I can definitely see a parent filing a lawsuit for "You suspended my kid because someone punched him in the face"

(No idea if it would go anywhere in court, but when has that ever stopped someone?)

> Why make a nuanced judgement when you risk getting a lawsuit by trying to be fair?

School policy has exactly 0 legal weight. It won't protect the school against a lawsuit. Maybe the low end of layers believe it, but there's a reason lawyer's compensation is bimodal.

But by the time school administrators figure this out, they are typically being offered an out-of-court settlement with a confidentiality clause.

Zero-tolerance policies are wasy to implement and sound tough. Many people like though and like hearing someone was punishes and "made to learn the lesson".

It all feels good for many people.

> kids are in so much danger we need to pass otherwise ridiculous laws just to protect them

Also: "kids are in so much danger, you must elect me to keep them safe!" or "kids are in so much danger, tune in at 6 O'Clock to find out why!"

A whole hell of a lot of people who buy into emotionally appealing rhetoric without thinking critically do not deserve to be shielded from blame. There is no shortage of them among us here.

which, taken to an extreme, also makes me think of "pizzagate" and obsessive conspiracy theories about imaginary pedophilia.

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