Zero Tolerance and Its Role in the Justice System
For 20 years, zero tolerance policies in schools have lead to stories such as these:
- A five-year-old boy in Pennsylvania was suspended for bringing a five-inch toy ax to school as part of his firefighters Halloween costume. [Neuman, K. (1998, November 12). Deer Lakes apologizes to firefighters for toy ax ban. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, p. 3.]
- A sophomore who brought nail clippers with an attached nail file to school was given a 10-day suspension and threatened with expulsion. [Ruth, D. (1999, June 7). Zero tolerance for zero tolerance. Tampa Tribune, p. 2.]
Zero tolerance can be roughly defined as a disciplinary policy used in schools that punishes selected offenses severely (no matter the circumstances) in order to send the message that the specified behaviors will not be tolerated.
From 1985 through 1993, incidents of students firing guns on school grounds seemed to escalate. In response, the federal government passed the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994. Zero tolerance policies arose in response to this act. School administrators across the country began to suspend or expel any student caught on campus with a firearm. As time went on, however, the offenses incorporated into a school or district’s zero tolerance policy increased. Schools began to assign suspensions and expulsions for any weapon or drug (including alcohol and tobacco), fighting, threats, swearing, disorderly conduct, and noncompliance, thus giving rise to such ludicrous episodes as those described above.
Studies about the efficacy of zero tolerance are few. On the other hand, studies on the ineffectiveness of these policies abound. [See Skiba, R. J. (2000). Zero tolerance, zero evidence: An analysis of school disciplinary practice. Policy Research Report #SRS2. Indiana Education Policy Center.] This research has highlighted the failings of zero tolerance:
- It is inequitable, and therefore perceived as unjust. With its "one size fits all" approach, zero tolerance puts the first time offender in the same category as the repeat offender. Opponents of the practice support a graduated "punishment fit the crime" model instead.
- It fails to take into account the underlying causes of the misbehavior that it punishes. For example, when a pocketknife fell out of the backpack of a 14-year-old boy, school authorities expelled him for bringing a weapon to school. The fact that the student had forgotten to remove the knife after a weekend camping trip was irrelevant.
- It disproportionately targets students of color, of poverty, and with disabilities. The U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, in its 1998 Elementary and Secondary School Civil Rights Compliance Report, indicated that while African-American children represent only 17 percent of public school enrollment, they represent 32 percent of out-of-school suspensions.
- It ignores the developmental needs of students. By mandating the most serious punishment (expulsion or suspension) that a school administrator can mete out, zero tolerance stresses exclusion, just at the time in most adolescents' lives when they need to feel connected. School connectedness can prevent such behavior as acting out in class, fighting, and assault. [McNeely, C.A., Nonnemaker, J.M., & Blum, R.W. Promoting School Connectedness: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Journal of School Health, 72(4), 138–146.]
- It does not provide students with the instruction they need to be successful in school. By its nature, zero tolerance punishes a student without providing the emotional or social skills the student needs to avoid the misbehavior in the future. Furthermore, students who are suspended or expelled are usually not put into an alternative educational settings, but allowed to hang out in the streets, where there is ample opportunity to get into trouble. Consequently, their educational progress is stunted, which frequently leads to dropping out of school.
These failings together combine to produce possibly the worst aspect of zero tolerance—a feature that has been labeled in the literature as the "school to prison pipeline" or "schoolhouse to jailhouse track."
The most avid proponents of zero tolerance have widened the punishment scope to include the juvenile justice system. In this scenario, an offending student is arrested and charged with a crime in addition to receiving a suspension or expulsion.
Once on this road, many students, having grown to distrust authority and without any real adult support, find themselves on a downward spiral whose ultimate end is prison. Students who feel unfairly punished, who feel unheard, who are black, Hispanic, poor, or have a disability, who feel no worthwhile connection with their teachers, and who have no adult in their lives willing to show them the proper way to behave inevitably drop out of school. Dropping out is the beginning of the slippery slide into incarceration. In Texas alone, more than 80 percent of the prison population dropped out of school. [Texas' School-to-Prison Pipeline, 2007]
If zero tolerance is not the answer, what is?
Most opponents of zero tolerance agree on several strategies that schools can use as alternatives to the punitive policies currently in use. Texas Appleseed, an organization that seeks to derail the "school to prison pipeline," offers these recommendations to schools and districts:
- Develop, implement, and regularly evaluate a schoolwide disciplinary plan that employs research-based strategies that have been shown to reduce the number of disciplinary referrals. [Foundations best addresses the schoolwide component.]
- Ensure that expectations for behavior and consequences for misbehavior are well defined, easily understood, and well publicized to faculty, staff, students, and parents. Regularly recognize and positively reward good behavior. [Foundations, CHAMPS, Interventions, the Tough Kid books, and all materials in the Safe & Civil Schools series advocate these most important tenets.]
- Provide ongoing teacher and staff training in positive behavior management, as well as training to enhance cultural competency and the ability to form a positive relationship with parents and students. [Safe & Civil Schools professional development and materials can address this recommendation.]
- Adopt formalized, campus-based programs to monitor at-risk students to prevent escalating disciplinary action and support their success in school. [Interventions and Behavioral Response to Intervention can guide a school in developing a comprehensive positive support system for students at risk of failure.]
- Strengthen transition planning, monitoring, and support of students upon their return to school from a disciplinary suspension or alternative school placement. [Interventions and Behavioral Response to Intervention address this issue.]
- Engage parents as partners in reinforcing positive behaviors at school. [All Safe & Civil Schools materials and trainings advocate parents as partners in creating behavioral plans that work for students.]
Together all of these recommendations work to improve school climate by stressing the positive and believing in the worth of every child, which is exactly the Safe & Civil Schools mission.
It costs far less to make resources available to keep students in school and learning than it does to finance their future incarceration. The additional cost in wasted human life and potential that incarceration lays on society is incalculable. At Safe & Civil Schools, we urge you to invest wisely now. Tomorrow we will all reap the benefits.
For more information about the School-to-Prison Pipeline, we recommend these readings:
Education on Lockdown: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track – Download a copy from the Advancement Project.
Opportunities Suspended: The Devastating Consequences of Zero Tolerance and School Discipline – Download a copy from the Advancement Project.
Zero Tolerance, Zero Evidence: An Analysis of School Disciplinary Practice – Download a copy from the Center for Evaluation & Education Policy (CEEP) at Indiana University.
Texas' School-to-Prison Pipeline: Dropout to Incarceration—The Impact of School Discipline and Zero Tolerance – Download a copy from Texas Appleseed.