The Importance Of Zero Tolerance Policies

Zero tolerance policies are strict rules placed in schools to dictate pre-determined consequences for certain infractions involving violence and drugs. Offenses such as bringing a weapon to school or drug possession are to be punished with suspension or even expulsion. The purpose of these policies was to remove some of the discretion schools had over student discipline and in turn combat racism in the administration. Recently, zero tolerance policies have come under fire as more and more children are punished for innocent mistakes. Unfortunately, these students are the outliers as these policies affect many Black and Latino children in poor communities. By examining the emergence of zero tolerance policies and the effects of suspensions on …show more content…
The centralization of discipline in education began in the 1960s, when community members hoped to gain more control over the education of their children and began the movement to decouple education from discipline in schools. To combat discriminatory disciplinary practices, “organizations like the Children’s Defense Fund even began promoting centralized discipline codes…[to] ensur[e] that all children were treated equally,” (Kafka, 2011, p. 121). These policies were meant to remove power from the school administration to punish children and therefore remove the likelihood that students of color would be treated differently compared to their white counterparts. Centralized policies do not attack the root of the problem which is institutional racism. As the root of the problem was ignored, the zero tolerance policy and “tough on crime” movements simultaneously gained momentum in the United States. During this era, “incarceration rates for black adults and youth in particular skyrocketed, corresponding with decreased rates of employment, high school graduation, and social stability in inner city neighborhoods,” (Kafka, 2011, p.123). Tough on