Criminalizing Childhood

Are we living in a virtual police state?  My question goes beyond recent news accouts of brutal force meted out by law enforcement officers.  My question refers to less publicized reports of official bullying inflicted upon children and parents by schools and government agencies that exceed all reasonable standards of common sense.  Apparently, we have engendered an attitude of law-and-order so severe, we have consigned ourselves to “behavioral modification hell.”  Here is one example, Autistic Eleven Year Old Arrested and Handcuffed:

When Kayleb Moon-Robinson, an eleven-year old diagnosed with autism, kicked a trashcan in frustration, his school issued a new rule that required him to wait for other students to vacate a classroom before he would be allowed to exit.  When he violated the rule, the principal sent a ‘school resource officer’ — their euphemism for a police officer employed by the school — who arrested him. 

Kayleb was not only charged with disorderly conduct, but also felony assault on a police officer.  His mother, Stacey Doss — herself the daughter of a police officer — was shocked by the callous treatment of her son.

This case is not unique.  The state of Virginia leads the nation in treating students with disciplinary problems as law enforcement matters.  The school-to-prison pipeline is filled with special needs students who do not conveniently conform to the assembly lines of public education - children with AD/HD, children with developmental disabilities, children with learning disabilities, and far too many minority children from hardscrabble backgrounds.

A qualified teacher should know the stereotypic signs of childhood autism - agitation, irritability, and frustration – and know how to deal with them.  We should not be turning developmental disability disorders into a criminal offense!  Postscript:  A juvenile court found Kayleb guilty on all counts charged against him. Next: Free-range kids and our parenting police state:

In a bizarre war over how much freedom children should have outside the home, the youngest combatants are Rafi and Dvora Meitiv - a pair of siblings age 11 and 6 respectively.  The siblings were 2 1/2 blocks from their home when local police received an anonymous call that reported them - walking together.

The children insisted that they knew where they were, knew their way home, and had the permission of their parents.  Undeterred, the officer ordered the Meitiv siblings into the patrol car.

“The police … kept them trapped there for three hours, without notifying us [my bold], before bringing them to the Crisis Center and holding them there without dinner for another two and a half hours,” their mom said. “We finally got home at 11 pm, and the kids slept in our room because we were all exhausted and terrified.”

In the small rural community where I grew up, my parents often sent me on errands.  Since my playmates lived on farms far from town, long walks and even longer bicycle rides were routine.  Today, families no longer have the easy freedoms of a bygone era, and parents no longer have authority over their own kids.

Postscript:  A Montgomery County Court found the parents guilty of ‘unsubstantiated’ child neglect. Next: Eighth Grader Arrested and Charged With Cybercrime for Changing Desktop Wallpaper:

Eighth-grader Domanik Green, 14, of Holiday, Florida, was arrested and charged with unauthorized access of a computer system - a felony offense.

The County Sheriff's department took action after the boy used an administrative password to log onto a school computer. While accessing the machine, he changed the background wallpaper to an image of two men kissing.

Eighth-grader Green discovered the password by watching his teacher. The password was easy to remember, the boy admitted, because it was the teacher’s last name.

Originally suspended from school for three days, Green was later arrested when the school filed additional charges. The computer contained state standardized test questions, although they were encrypted. The police say Green did not access them.

In other words, the boy was punished, not for the childish prank he did commit, but for the crime he didn’t commit.  Kids have always been kids, and most reasonable adults recognize these growing pains.  These days, however, callously insensitive officials are abusing their authority by imposing strict conformity - thus turning normal kids into felons.

Are you as outraged as I am?  Not enough?  How about this incident: Police Taser Ten-Year Old Boy:

A ten-year old boy attending a Career Day event at his local school expected it to be educational and fun.  Instead, the boy ended up in the emergency room.

According to papers filed in Federal court, police officers drove onto the school grounds, where one of the officers asked a group of boys to clean his patrol car.

When one of the boys refused, the officer said:  “Let me show what happens to people who do not listen to the police." He then fired his Taser gun at the boy's chest. The officer claimed his Taser gun misfired accidentally.

Instead of calling paramedics, the officer took it upon himself to yank out the wires imbedded in the boy’s chest, which required emergency medical care.  As a result of the battery, the boy now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

This is what we get when we let brutal authority take control over our lives. Are you angry enough now!