Zero Tolerance: Resisting the Drive for Punishment in Our Schools

Zero tolerance began as a prohibition against guns, but it has quickly expanded into a frenzy of punishment and tougher disciplinary measures in American schools. Ironically, as this timely collection makes clear, recent research indicates that as schools adopt more zero tolerance policies they in fact become less safe, in part because the first casualties of these measures are the central, critical relationships between teacher and student and between school and community.

Zero Tolerance assembles prominent educators and intellectuals, including the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., Michelle Fine, and Patricia Williams, along with teachers, students, and community activists, to show that the vast majority of students expelled from schools under new disciplinary measures are sent home for nonviolent violations; that the rush to judge and punish disproportionately affects black and Latino children; and that the new disciplinary ethos is eroding constitutional protections of privacy, free speech, and due process. Sure to become the focus of controversy, Zero Tolerance presents a passionate, multifaceted argument against the militarization of our schools.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565846664
• ISBN13: 9781565846661
• Release Date: November 2001
• Publisher: New Press
• Length: 263 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Everyone should read this!

Teachers, administrators, parents, and taxpayers should read this book. As a criminal justice student, this was not my first encounter with studies that show corporal punishment, humiliation-based punishments and exclusionary tactics work against rather than for the safety policy makers, board members and principals hope to achieve. Zero Tolerance polices grew largely out of fears of violence associated with gangs, drugs, and school shootings. While none of these things are desirable in schools, none are prevented by zero tolerance policies. School shooters, in particular, tend to be suicidal and thus not deterred by the prospect of exclusion from educational opportunities. Gangs offer family, support, and protection to children who often feel they cannot get such things elsewhere. What we really are creating with zero tolerance polices is an increased need for prisons, racial and socioeconomic disparities, and a future without hope for a great many students. This book offers alternatives that have been tried and proven, accounts of misuse of zero tolerance policies, study findings showing disparities along race and class lines, legal ramifications and oppositional options.